feeding the fusspots.

It's that time of the week. Again. Meal planning time. Sigh.

A few disclaimers, first- I love food. I love cooking. I think nothing of whipping up Chinese pancakes from scratch for Peking Tofu {yes, just like Peking Duck}. The cupcakes pictured above are one of my current Favourite Foodstuffs. And I have to meal plan otherwise I end up spending a fortune on groceries, dragging the small ones to the supermarket more than necessary, and with a whole lot of 'stuff' left languishing in the fridge because I couldn't work out what to make with it.

Meal planning. The lesser of the evils.

With five people to feed, seven nights a week {Shan and I will occasionally get takeaway Thai once the small ones are to bed on a Friday night but I still cook for them}...look, at this point I think I'd pay someone to meal plan for me.

Consider the following.

Me: A vegan. I try to be fairly open with most other food, but I genuinely dislike pumpkin and eggplant. And since the hyperemesis, I can't stomach bread- the occasional piece of very fresh white bread or a grainy roll are the rare exceptions.

Shan: My "pretend coeliac"- that is, he avoids gluten whenever he decides he might like to avoid it- sometimes, right at the moment he's sitting down to eat. Suffice to say, not a lot of pasta is cooked- and yes, I know that gluten-free pasta exists. Due to a childhood filled with meals made from The Red Stew Pot, anything that even remotely resembles a stew is out. He is a meat-and-stir-fried-leafy-greens man.

The small ones: The eldest two don't like potato. Two don't like red meat. One won't eat egg. One doesn't like most legumes. They all unanimously dislike curries or spicy anything, leafy green vegetables- most green vegetables, actually- though broccoli and frozen peas are okay-, mushrooms, tomatoes and tomato based sauces, and any "green things". Even garlic bread is met with a mutinous glare as it has "green stuff" on it. {They also refuse to eat hot dogs and chicken nuggets, an aversion which I suppose I should be grateful for. It did lead to an interesting discussion while I was booking a birthday party at a playcentre and had to beg for the children to get sandwiches instead}.

So there we have it. I am not one of those people who can cook the same thing every week, without fail. The closest I've ever come to that was a delightful phase of Cupcake Fridays, follwed by making bagels every Sunday morning. I need variety. And we're trying to keep our grocery budget down, while still having nutritionally balanced meals with loads of fresh veg, that everyone in the family likes to eat.

Meal planning. Sigh.