Midweek Meal Inspo: Mac n Cheese, Greek Chicken, Fried Fish & more

This week, the sun is out shining and the weather is great! Some of our meals have been quick meals, so that we can enjoy as much of the sunshine as possible. Kai has also taken a huge interest in making food, so we have been discussing differences between ‘homemade’ and ‘made at home’ as well as how some dinners are more put together while others are more homemade. As he is getting older, it’s good for him to know the differences and what cooking is verses putting things together. We wanted to teach him a few different recipes this week to try them out.

Kielbasa, Sauerkraut and Pierogi

This meal is probably the least homemade that we normally do. Kielbasa with sauerkraut and pierogi is a meal that reminds me a lot of my dad, as he made these a lot. It’s a quick and easy meal that starts with you taking a large pan and pouring in your sauerkraut. Then, add in your kielbasa sausages and add a lid onto the pan, so that the sausages can steam through. For the pierogis, I really like to fry mine, in a vegetable oil. Today, Kai helped make dinner, so he did all of the frying! Once the kielbasa is warmed through and the sauerkraut starts to brown, I cut up the sauerkraut and add it back into the pan for the last few minutes. With this, we also cut up some pre-cooked beets and made some buttered rice as everyone was quite hungry.

Bacon Mac n Cheese with Veggie Kebabs

Bacon Mac n Cheese is a family favorite, so we wanted to teach Kai how to make that, especially as there is a roux making process, which is a great skill to know for thickening sauces and creating gravy. For the sides, we went to the BBQ section of Tesco and picked out a few of the veggie sides. I find that these sort of ready-made veggie sides are often different from what we normally make, so it’s a good way to easily introduce children to new vegetables, especially if they want to try something new!

Bacon Mac n Cheese, much like a lot of these recipes, is made from my heart mainly! You can watch our TikTok video for a better understanding of amounts, but I basically boil some water, add salt and the pasta. Then in a pan, cook off as much bacon as I want, and set aside to drain on a paper towel. In the bacon pan, I add butter and let it melt. Then flour to make the roux, allow that to cook off for a moment, then add milk until I have enough sauce, whisking the whole time. Then, we added in a big bowl of grated cheese, a pinch of paprika, and got started on the veggies. They were cooked as per the instructions on the packages. Once the pasta was done, I drained it, added in the cheese sauce and then the bacon and mixed it up. Then, we served everything!

BBQ Pulled Pork with Sweet Potato Fries

I feel like BBQ pulled pork is one of the easiest things to make. We make ours in the crock pot, and it’s perfect for those days when we know we are going to get home just at dinner time. We put a huge chunk of smoked pork in our crock pot, along with a bottle of our favorite BBQ sauce – we go for sweet ones instead of smoky, especially when using smoked pork. We also added in a bunch of water and put it on low for around 8 hours. When we got home from our beach day out, I threw some sweet potato fries into the air fryer and tossed together a pre-mixed salad. I also made some rice for this meal as Amelia asked for rice again as a side – this week was actually quite rice filled on reflection! Once everything else was on, I pulled apart the pork in the slow cooker and then added a bit more BBQ sauce so it was nice and saucy! This was served on buns.

Greek-Inspired Chicken with tons of sides

Greek-inspired chicken is another one of those meals that does take a bit of prep time, mainly in marinating your chicken. I took about 5 chicken breasts and chopped them up. In a container, I put the pieces of chicken breasts along with a glug of olive oil, the juice of two lemons, and then a big shake of the following herbs; coriander seeds, garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper. You then want this to sit as long as you possibly can during the day. Once we are ready for dinner, I took some medal kebabs and put the chicken on them, then put them into the oven with the grill on. You do need to turn them half way so that all the sides get charred. For the sides, I made some rice with spinach stirred through, we cooked up a garlic flatbread and did some veggies. The veggies were bell peppers, onions, and courgettis pan fried in a bit of olive oil, with armou seasoning. We also got some tzatziki to dip the chicken in.

Herby Fish and Chips with Peas

Another classic meal, we made some home made fish and chips with peas. This is a very simple meal really, we took about 200 grams of flour and put it into a bowl, along with a shake of salt and a handful of chopped parsley. We then added a single bottle of beer to the batter. This will make the batter light and fluffy. This is a family meal, so it’s worth nothing the alcohol will cook out and it’s safe for kids to eat. We then took some seabass filets and dried them with paper towels, before placing them, one by one, into the bowl of batter. Once the fish were coated in the batter we fried them in vegetable oil until the fish was golden brown, then drained them on a paper towel. We took some chips and cooked them in the air fryer, before salting them and serving them. I boiled some little peas and then buttered them and served them. We also had tartar sauce for dipping. It’s a classic and Amelia really enjoyed helping batter the fish.

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