So, what’s for dinner?

One of my favourite lazy, easy and nourishing meals I throw together is a bake. Whatever is in the fridge, whatever looks good in the supermarket, whatever is needing to be used up- all can be put in a bake. If there is illness around us, the bake will have lots of garlic and chicken, if the weather is hot then it’ll have more root vegetables and be served with salad, if the weather is cold make the bake a bit more of a stew by adding a tin of tomatoes and serving it with a mash. A bake like this is also a great thing to make when you have lots of guests as you just need a bigger tray and more ingredients. It’s just so easy! And there’s nothing more loving and nutritious than an easy meal you’ve prepared freshly

Your bake can have

• Chicken thighs and sausages
• Potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato
• Cherry tomatoes
• Spinach and kale
• Wedges of onion and lots of cloves of garlic
• Olives or capers- or both!
• Zucchini
• Eggplants
• Mushrooms
• Herbs that are in season or herbs you like, fresh or dried
• Tin of tomatoes
• Glass of white or red wine, depending on what you’re feeling like (for the bake and to accompany it- haha)

For the image below I used sausages, baby potatoes, cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, olives and rosemary. Baby spinach is tossed through the bake once the other ingredients are cooked. I served this with cauliflower mash, but you could use pumpkin, sweet potato or potato mash. It’s so easy to put together that I often let the kids ‘make dinner’

Hope you’re loving easy food

‘WHAT’S FOR DINNER?’ BAKE

1kg chipolata sausages, I used beef sausages. You could use regular sized sausages and cut them in half, or leave them whole- it’s very much up to you

500g baby potatoes, cut them in to pieces so they are all a similar size as this helps cooking time

1 punnet cherry tomatoes, I cut the tomatoes in half

100g Kalamata olives (I used pitted olives as that is what I had in the fridge)

4 cloves of garlic, halved

1 onion, sliced

Olive oil to coat the veggies and sausages (not too much as the sausages will release cooking fat)

3 sprigs rosemary, leaves only (or whatever herbs you have or like to use)

Salt, to taste

3 handfuls baby spinach

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Place all the ingredients in a roasting dish and toss together to coat with the rosemary and olive oil. I like to use baking paper to line the roasting dish as I’m lazy and don’t like having to scrub dishes, but that is up to you

Bake in the oven until the potatoes are cooked (should be about 30minutes). If you’ve decided to add chicken, make sure the chicken is cooked through as well. The sausages won’t take too long to cook

Remove from oven and add the baby spinach leaves (which will wilt)

Serve with salad or mash of your choice

School’s back! For all three of my babes, and my heart is full of love and excitement for them, but I’m also a little overwhelmed with my littlest Master R starting PreNursery at the same school as his big sisters. When did this happen that he got big enough to go to PreNursery? I’m trying to console myself with him ‘only’ going to PreNursery, that there is no uniform for him, that it’s ‘only’ three times a week, and it’s ‘only’ 4 hours each time. I like to kid myself. He is my last babe, so I feel that’s ok

With the start of the new term comes lunch boxes! And now I do 3! They all got the same and then Rory just had smaller serves. Like other schools around the place our school doesn’t allow nuts, but that doesn’t stop a healthy lunch being sent out without any packaged snacks. A sandwich, some veggie sticks, cut up fruit, and plain popcorn. Now I am not one for product promotion but I can’t say enough how amazing the Pottery Barn Kids lunchboxes are! There’s no need for excessive plastic wrappings, everything stays nicely compartmentalised and they are easy to clean. Brilliant! I’m waiting for more stock to come in so Rory can have one too as stock was low when we went to buy our back to school needs. A lunch box for kids should be easy to open, easy to keep clean, easy for them to see and access the food from the compartments, and provide you with enough space to put some loving, healthy food options in there

The school lunch box is sometimes fraught with anxiety as sometimes kids don’t eat the food, don’t have time to eat, they want the package snacks other kids have (that I don’t give them) and can become boring. It’s a battle we probably all face at one time or another. But to get through it I remind myself that the lunch box is also the place that we begin to teach kids about healthy eating, the foods that nourish and why we eat the way we do. To mix it up the I sometimes give the kids a thermos with leftovers or I make a pasta salad with lots of chopped veggies, instead of the regular sandwich. As an occasional treat I found an organic, coconut chocolate paste (Chocolate & Coconut Cocobella, by Biona) they can have in their sandwich, sometimes instead of a sandwich they get a wrap, then there are more labour intensive options that look and taste lovely but aren’t a regularity like rice paper rolls and sushi (if you have time to do it regularly for your kids- well done). Although mine like the regular vegemite sandwich or cheese and mayo sandwich they are sometimes open to having tuna, chicken or egg. You could put so much in a well designed lunch box;

• Sandwiches- tuna, cheese, vegemite, chicken and avocado, egg. I personally avoid things like tomoato unless I’ve removed the seeds and blotted the slices with paper towel as they can make sandwiches soggy
• Rice paper rolls
• Sushi
• Salad- beans salad, pasta salad, chopped veggies
• Roasted chicken drumsticks with veggie sticks
• Leftovers from dinner in a thermos
• Crackers with cheese, or vegemite, or hummus

There’s not really a recipe for this post, just ideas to help with a common thing that parents of school aged kids need to deal with. And I guess not just parents of school kids, but everyone who wants to not buy their lunch or give in to temptation of pre-made, pre-packaged meals. Keep it clean, keep it fresh, keep it simple, keep it loving and easy

I hope you are loving easy food