Five dinner ideas to get you through your week as a working mumma

Being back at work and having a one or more in daycare can kinda upset the apple cart for awhile. Until you get your routine sorted and find your groove, you might find yourself eating toasted cheese sandwiches and cheerios for dinner. Staring a new routine is hard!

One of the best ways to avoid the 'breakfast for dinner' scenario (it's fun the first time but by Wednesday, yeah maybe not so much) is to go full 'organised parent' and list out some quick and easy meals for the week - do a big shop on a Sunday and get those meals on a chalkboard some where. The crossing it off the list part is quite rewarding!

First off you'll need a 'to do list' - so put that on your 'to do list'. I like to write it all out, I have a cute little notebook from Kmart (holy car, when  did Kmart get so cool BTW?), and I list out the meals, the ingredients and what night etc. It's kind of a nice way to spend 15 minutes on your own with some coloured pencils!

You can also find heaps of free, printable meal planners online, here's just a few I found that are pretty cute and easy to use.

So once you've got your pretty journal or your printed meal planner, fill it with a few simple dinners that (hopefully) everyone will eat! It's summer here in Brisbane, so I am trying to find oven-free meals as our kitchen heats up like a Finnish sauna. All except the first recipe here are 'no bake'

Monday - Sticky Sesame Cauliflower

Meat free Mondays are happening in our house. I found this yummy recipe on Connnoisseurus Veg. Other veggo blogs I like are Sprouted Kitchen and My New Roots.

 

Tuesday - 15 min Beef kofta curry

Who doesn't like a good Jamie Oliver meal? If you are prepped and ready to go you can actually get this served up in 15 minutes!

Wednesday - tropical tacos to get you over the hump

Ok so the tyrannical toddler in your life might be all like "prawns and pineapple - get real" but hey, just ditch the jalapeños, pineapple and prawns (basically all the good shit) and give them the soft taco shell with some cheese! Have a margarita mummy - you deserve it, it's Wednesday! Found this little gem on Fork, Knife Spoon.

Thursday - you don't make friends with salad 

OMG you so do. I love fattoush, not only do I like saying the word, I like eating it and hopefully the kids will too! Suzy over at The Mediterranean Dish knows how to fattoush ... have some feta on hand for when the radish gets spat out in disgust (but hey, you never know right!)

Friday - f*ck it, it's Friday, Mac 'n' cheese all round

Well done, you made it to Friday, you are officiating owning this whole 'adulting - meal planning' thing. This is a Kraft recipe, and it's a 'fancy' mac 'n' cheese. Kinda like how when you Bedazzle your denim  it's fancy. Anyhoo ... this is a recipe that most kids will eat - if they don't try swapping them for the next model up or even better doing a 'time share' trial and just spent this weekend at Noosa wearing a kaftan and drinking really cold save blanc.