A tough week

Before I go on I need you to know that the things I love most in life are my family and lovely food. I think about food every 6 seconds for goodness sake and so you must assume that we dine like kings every night. My food week at home hasn't been great. Monday and Wednesday was a repeat of Thai noodle salad, Tuesday spaghetti with tomato sauce and Thursday hotdogs. No not organic Gloucester old spot outdoor reared sausage in a sourdough roll. Nasty pink things from a tin in a white floury finger roll. Today I'm leaving the fridge door open and having myself a G&T! In my defence your honour, i've been exhausted and feel like millions of other parents: what to do day in day out when you are both at work and are bored with the same things. So therefore, I feel it is a bit of a challenge, feeding your kids well, each day. Well it is for me. And I love food. And I'm a chef.

However, my food week at work has been a little more positive. We tried the Thai noodle salad and the response was lukewarm, which to me is a success. Its only when they are doing mock throwing up do I ditch an idea. Today has been great as the cooks of other schools in the area had a training session where we tried and tested some school dinner favourites. It was a showdown between 'homecooked' and 'industrially produced alternatives'. Thankfully, we all agreed that the homemade versions of chicken curry, bolognaise and pizza were much tastier. I know it might seem like a no brainer but lots of schools still rely on the expensive, nutritionally dubious, industrial versions over homecooked. I think today has shown people that these dishes when cooked from scratch are so much better, cheaper and can be fitted into the cook's working day.

It is my hope that over the next few weeks that I can scale down my recipes for chicken dhansak and thai salmon fishcakes, homemade beefburger and the legendary meatball melt and give them to you. Then you will have a taste of the direction of new school dinners, well the ones in south Wales anyway.