Each Sunday, I post my meal plan from the week just gone to inspire you for the coming week and also to show you that it is possible to eat the meals that bring you joy with your family; that you can be adventurous and you can experiment with new dishes.   

I sometimes receive comments saying there’s no way my children would eat that or I can’t prepare that for my family, there’ll be so much waste because there’s only me who’d eat it. So, I thought that it was time for a reality check! 

My children don’t eat everything I prepare either. There are days when neither of them will eat more than a few mouthfuls. There are days when Alexis will devour most of a meal and Harvey won’t touch it, other days when Harvey will tuck in but Alexis just picks at her food. It is rare that either of them will eat every element of the meal and that is OK. The way that I serve the meals means that there is always something familiar and accepted on the table for both of them and the more challenging or new parts of the meal are served separately so they can explore them when ready.  

I can’t please everyone every day and I don’t try to! That’s just too much pressure on me. I make sure that there is a meal which will favour at least one family member each day. There’s also a day of the week when Alexis has free choice to relieve some of stress that she faces around food.  

All I aim to do is offer a variety of foods, ensure there’s something familiar whenever there’s something new and serve the food that I want to cook and eat. If the food isn’t bringing me joy, I can’t role model what this looks like to my children and support them to develop their own love of food.