Each day when my children ask the anticipated question, “What’s for breakfast… lunch… dinner… and everything in between”, I endeavour to make my description of home cooked meals sound as interesting and appetising as possible. I want them to feel excited about the meals I have made, even if they are easy mid-week recipes. It’s also a way of increasing their awareness of the flavourings I use in their food and the way it is prepared. For example, it is far more appealing to describe cooked chicken as…rosemary scented roasted chicken with twice baked garlic-butter potatoes and a crisp Greek-style salad. Despite my efforts at “glamming up” a dinner description, the three older children sometimes summarise what I say in a very ordinary, straightforward way.

For example, I described this meal pictured above as “Cumin and Smoked Paprika Baked Lamb Cutlets with Sweet Potato Mash and Citrus Tossed Veggies. My children then replied,”Oh, so we are having lamb with veg.” At least they ate it. 

This is certainly not a fancy meal. However it is nutritious, filling and relatively fast to prepare, making it an ideal working and school week dinner.

Squeezing over the juice of an orange or a combination of orange, lemon and lime is an easy and tasty way of jazzing up steamed vegetables. 

For the lamb marinade, I used equal quantities of ground cumin and smoked paprika along with the juice of a whole lemon, a sprinkle of sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil. I baked these cutlets in a hot oven, but you can also pan fry them or even better, grill them on the barbecue – which I will do next time after the outdoor unit has been serviced. 

Afternoon tea of Apple Honey Crumble Muffins (recipe posted on the 7th October) went down a treat with tall glasses of creamy, cold easy to digest A2 milk for the kids and a hot, strong cup of tea for me – lovely. I topped the muffins with extra grated apple instead of extra oats for a change. Extras were wrapped and stuffed into school lunch boxes to be enjoyed tomorrow with fresh fruit.