20 Dec Quick school holiday meals

Quick school holiday meals are a must during the long summer Christmas break.

During the school term I’m relatively organised.  I know what we’re having for dinner in the morning, the meat’s usually defrosted by the end of the day and the meal usually contains some form of vegetables.

Come school holidays my meal planning gets a little bit hazier.  It would not be unusual to consist of me at 5.30, glass of wine in one hand, pantry door in the other asking myself ‘What do we have here that’s edible?’ My other favourite option is a quick trip to the Cedar Park shops for a bbq chook.

I have five top go-to recipes for that long, long 8-week school holiday break.  They help make for a relaxed break that won’t have you ‘encouraging’ your kids to eat their dinner and makes for a quick prep and clean up. I’ve shared them with you below.

Five quick school holiday meals

1.  Tacos- Buy a taco kit and add chopped up lettuce, tomato and avocado.  Grate up some cheese and carr0t. Put the oven on and once heated cook the taco shells for 5 mins. Heat up the fry pan and cook up some mince.  Add a 1/4 cup of water and the taco flavouring to the mince.  It’s a pretty healthy meal and you can make it in as long as it takes you to cook the mince. The meal is self-serve and guaranteed to be eaten.
2. Spaghetti bolognaise – You’ll need mince, pasta, jar of pasta sauce, grated cheese, zucchini and carrot.  Cook mince and pasta at the same time.  Grate veg while they’re cooking and then when mince is cooked stir through veg.  Put pasta into bowls, pasta spirals are easier for kids to eat than spaghetti, meat sauce and then grated cheese on top. Perfect.  Make sure you cook enough to be able to have at the end of the week too.
3. BBQ chicken and frozen vegetables – depending on where you buy it you can pick up a barbeque chook for between $8.00 at Coles and $12.00 at Red Rooster. My favourite frozen veg is the Australian Country Harvest by Birdseye.  If I’m feeling particularly energetic I even make potato mash to go with it.
4. Roast Lamb/Pork/Beef – always easy. peel and chop the veg and microwave pre-cook them for 5 mins. Take them out. Oil up the roast and put the meat on and 45/60 mins into the meat cooking put the veg in a roasting pan and throw them on.  You’ll need to cook the meat one hour for every kilo of weight.
5. Salad – make a big salad, rice salad, pasta salad or just regular lettuce, tomato, carrot and cheese etc and have it in the fridge.  It will keep for 2-4 days depending on what’s in it and then you just need to cook the meat to go with it. Grill the chicken, cook the steak, sausages or mince and you have dinner.

What are your go to school holiday meals?  At a loss?  There’s hundreds of websites out there that can help.  Australian site Taste is just one.

Happy holiday cooking!