I am not sure if this is just me, or this is every parent but I HATE prepping meals. I also hate feeding my children crappy food. So onward marches the eternal dilemma, convenience vs health. I have found that if I can have fun making food then I actually (almost) begin to enjoy it. To do that I try to make their dinner interesting and fun. The added side-effect is that they are more likely to eat it as well. This is what I do: 1. See what food is available in the fridge, freezer and pantry. 2. See what food I can prep in a different way that makes it more interesting 3. What scene can I create that will make the children smile 4. Get creating The key step is #2, so to help you here are some ideas: - Cucumber cut length-ways or into triangles - Hollow-out tomatoes and use them as a bowl or make an eye out of them by putting half a hard-boiled egg inside - Broccoli 'planted' in mashed potato to make a forest, add food coloring to make the mash different colors - Fruit or veg kabobs, bonus points for it being rainbow in color - Cut bread into shapes like fish, monsters, cars etc. Toast them or make mini-french toast. Add food coloring to the egg to make several colors - Dinosaur eggs - hard boiled eggs that you crack the shell once boiled and soak in food coloring water for 30 mins, then remove the shell. Make a nest out of spaghetti, cucumber sticks, kale etc. - Octopus spaghetti - Carefully push hard spaghetti through meatballs or hot dog chunks and then boil in red food dye or beet juice water. You then have a ton of little octopus or jelly fish. - Find cookie cutters and use them to make waffles, eggs, pancakes etc into random shapes The list goes on and on.... Just get creative and experiment. Enjoy it! Have fun and post some of your creations below.