You may be like me in that the thought of making a meal overwhelms you, or that you simply just don’t feel like it.
It could be that you know that one of your children will complain about your dinner choice, no matter what you make. Or maybe some of your kids aren’t quite ready to eat while the other is STARVING.
This was a constant battle in our home, especially during the weekend when we are always on the go and all seem to have our own agendas on how to spend the time off. I got really tired of making different meals at different times of the day.
But then one of my friends introduced me to food boards.
Now, I have always been a big fan of charcuterie boards (I mean, it’s meat and cheese, how could you not?) But she showed me how she put together full boards that were for mealtimes, and it blew me away! I planned to do it the next time an opportunity arose.
So that weekend, when my two sons bickered about what they wanted to eat, I decided to do it. Out came my big bamboo cutting board and I went to work.
I simply looked around the house for different items and threw them on a board. Once I placed it in the middle of our dining room table, my family absolutely devoured it. No complaints, no comments– they just ate it up.
So now when we are in the funk of not knowing what we want to eat, we make a food board. We also make them for snack times and movie times.
Here are some of the family food boards we have created in our home:
The purpose of these is to not overthink it. Don’t think that it has to be elaborate or fancy. The point of this is to create a fun meal for the family to eat.
Some ideas to help you along as you get started:
- Have different-sized boards. This will allow you to pull different amounts together depending on how many people you need to feed and what it is that you want to pull together.
- Choose different foods and textures. This will help the board to be more appealing to a group of different people.
- Experiment! You will be able to quickly find family favorites!
Remember that you can do these for all kinds of things! You can have a board that is just all different chips and dips, a taco board, a movie night board complete with candy and different types of popcorns– the ideas are limitless. There are a lot of great ideas on Pinterest and Instagram!
Give this a try the next time you are stuck on a meal idea or lack the motivation to figure out a lunch or dinner. You’ll be blown away by how easy it is and how quickly your family gobbles it up!
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