Weekly Menu Ideas: 05-05

Three Different Pizza's

As you know, last Friday in our house was family pizza night — at least in theory. The idea is simple: relax, order in, or throw a pizza base in the oven with some cheese and call it a night. Low effort, high reward. That’s the dream, right?

But in our house, dreams and dinner rarely go hand in hand. Pizza night, more often than not, turns into a full-blown production. And I’ll admit — we bring it on ourselves. I’m a fan of the cauliflower crust with all available vegetables, my sons insist on picnic brand of ready made mozzarella pizza, while my husband lovingly commits to the store bought dough with proper mozzarella, of course. Still, somehow, it works.

We all gather around the table with our very different pizzas, each of us content. There’s laughter, a little teasing, and plenty of swapping bites. And in those moments, the chaos doesn’t just feel worth it, it feels essential.

Weekly Menu - 5 May

Monday

School Lunch: Cold Pasta

Dinner: Turkish Lentil Pasta

Tips for this idea:

This is a traditional Turkish pasta that I opt for when choosing our vegan meal of the week. For meat lovers, this can be easily swapped out for the ground beef (mince), topped with greek yoghurt and chives.

Tuesday:

School Lunch: Chicken Tenders / Potato Pops

Dinner: Philly Cheese Steaks

Tips for this idea:

It has been a while since we last had Philly Cheese steaks, this can be prepared however you like, for me, adding the meat in the instant pot and getting it nice and tender before adding cheese to the bread is just amazing. Great for when you want to do minimal work and still have a good meal. The traditional Philly Cheese Steaks contain some green peppers with onions and topped with cheese, you can easily substitute it with Lentils, mushroom or even black beans.

Wednesday:

School Lunch: Nutella Eggs Rolls

Dinner: Marry Me Chicken (Chickpeas)

Tips for this idea:

The Marry me recipe is a vegetable based approach to butter chicken for me, it is amazing to eat and also a great way to force the kids to eat spinach.

Thursday:

School Lunch: Toasted Cheese

Dinner: Kofta (Meatballs) with Salad & Hummus

Tips for this idea:

Following the heat in the Netherlands, some days it is easier to make a light meal with a salad. Feel free to replace the meatballs with any protein of your choice.

Friday:

School Lunch: Hot Dogs

Dinner: Grilled Fish & Chips (Fries)

Tips for this idea:

Grilled fish is always a winner on a lazy Friday, easily prepared in the airfryer or in the oven. Season as desired with some fries or even some leftover salad from the previous night.

Saturday:

Lunch: Nachos

Dinner: Crumbed Chicken Burgers

Tips for this idea:

Crumbed burgers are usually easily purchased from a store or even made yourself. The best thing to do is to decide which works better for you.

Sunday:

Supper: Bunny Chows

Tips for this idea:

As always a Sunday meal that reminds me of South Africa, I recently found unsliced bread at a bakery near me, and I think this is an amazing way to start new the week!

I hope this makes this week easier for you. If you feel like you this is something you need for the weeks ahead, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas for next week. ♥️