For someone who cooks and develops new recipes for a living, I’m very much a creature of habit when it comes to meals. My family pretty much eats the same 5-6 things on rotation. It’s partially because I’m too busy to conceptualize new meals and so much easier to just go on autopilot (especially at the grocery store). It’s also because my kids are picky, and there’s nothing more heartbreaking than spending your precious hours shopping, cooking and cleaning up only to have your child not eat anything.
In the spirit of (hopefully) expanding my kids’ palates and flexing my culinary creativity, I’ve recently vowed to make a few meals a week outside of our family dinner “comfort zone”, even if I’m met with resistance. I generally follow Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding when it comes to mealtime with my kids, so using this logic, dinners shouldn’t be cooked solely based on their preferences. That being said, I try to have at least one thing on the dinner table that I know for sure they will eat.
Whether or not you have children, I am sharing my meal plan for this week and hopefully it can give you some inspiration and ideas for your own! Apologies in advance that a few of these links are for New York Times Cooking recipes, which you need a paid subscription to access. However, it is well worth the price of admission and one of my top 3 recipe and inspiration resources - highly recommend it if you love to cook.
Monday:
Falafel in pita with cucumber, red onion, hummus and raw greens.
Roasted Cauliflower
Tuesday:
Sautéed Broccoli Rabe
Wednesday:
Vegan Eggplant Parmesan (I love Alison Roman’s recipe, and just skip the cheese entirely, or do a cashew mozzarella sauce).
Sautéed Broccoli
Thursday:
Black Bean Tacos with Guacamole and Cabbage Slaw
Friday:
Homemade Pizza (White Caramelized Onion and Mushroom; Cherry Peppers and Onions)
Saturday:
Out!
Sunday:
BBQ Veggie Burgers, Corn and Oven Fries
I hope you all get a chance to enjoy some of this long-awaited spring weather. We are busy getting the garden ready - our garlic is doing great, and we’re starting to transfer some of our seed starts from the indoor setup to the garden. I absolutely can not wait to start cooking with fresh produce from our garden and the local farms again, and enjoy some of our meals outside.