Can you believe it's Back to School season, already - and is your kitchen prepared for it? As part of our Back to School digital issue guest-edited by Giovanna Flecther, we spoke to Great British Bake Off champion Nadiya Hussain about her top tips to help you get back into the swing of meal-prepping for school.
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From egg rolls to poke bowls, take a look at Nadiya's weekly packed lunch menu here…
Nadiya's top five tips for cooking for kids:
Be inspired by what you already have at home
Often, it's all about what I can use up and seeing what I have at home, and that gives me inspiration to use a little ingenuity to create something new. But yes, I get stuck in a rut all the time.
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Find a balance
We have cakes, sweets and sometimes fizzy drinks throughout the week and actually, that just means the kids often pick fruit and water and sometimes don't have the cake for dessert at all.
Double up
If you are cooking something, is there a way you can double the recipe or bulk it up with vegetables? If it's Bolognese, add kidney beans to make a second batch of chilli.
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Batch cooking and the freezer are your friends
Make one meal into two meals; eat one and freeze the other, this will save you time for an emergency day when you don't have time to cook or need time to do something else.
Don't put pressure on yourself
I have hungry teenagers and more often than not, they don't care where the food has come from. They don't care if they have the same thing every night for a week as long as they're fed.
Some of these recipes can be found in Time To Eat by Nadiya Hussain, available to buy from Amazon
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