End of August is here and we are grappling to get back into routines after the summer and this unusual year that 2020 has been. Our kids have started new schools – Elsa just started 4th grade (!), Isac starts his first year in school (although it is called grade 0) and Noah has moved to an older group at preschool. Like many other parents we find ourselves balancing stressful mornings, sport practices, prepping snacks and figuring out how to keep the boys sitting still long enough time for them to actually eat some of their dinner.

Meal prepping is usually a helpful a time saving tool but we haven't really got into those routines yet. We have however just started planning weekly dinner menus together with the kids, which feels like a step in the right direction. We try to set up some basic rules that make the choices easier for them: one pasta day, one soup day, one pancake day etc. And then they can choose what pasta/soup/pancake topping we should make. It's a good little trick to make them feel included and mentally prepared on what we are cooking. Kids usually have a wild imagination but when it comes to food, their choices are often surprisingly boring. Spaghetti with red sauce, pasta pesto, pasta with white sauce … so it can be good to "help out" with some tips and suggestions. This is a pasta with white sauce that we have come up with together. They think it's good because it's clean and we love how simple it is. Just pasta with something creamy and lemony and then we add chickpeas and roasted pumpkin to make it more nourishing. They eat all of the pumpkin and pasta and some of the chickpeas which feels like a totally fine compromise.