It has been half term this week, and Friday can’t have come around soon enough! The boys are at that age where they can be left alone and think they’re independent. Yet, they still expect me to have all their meals planned, and even made so they can take out of the fridge/reheat to keep them fed and watered throughout the day. So my day starts with bircher muesli for 3 – M&S do a lovely date and cinnamon one which we soak in almond milk, and then mix with Rachels fig & honey yoghurt… then topped with a sprinkling of seeds, brown sugar and toasted coconut flakes..and sometimes half a chopped banana.

Their lunch of choice would be a Korean/Japanese version of pot noodle, but I wasn’t organised in time to go to H-Mart Korean warehouse* and buy any, so packed up leftovers with reheating instructions had to suffice. Luckily today their grandad took them out to lunch for South Indian Dosai and Puris which needless to say, went down a treat. This is another new discovery in the multicultural New Malden… Chennai Dosa

During a week like this, my motto is simplicity… midweek meals can’t take a huge amount of time. Our Asian dishes were inspired by something my mother would often have ready for us when we got home from school – Chicken with ginger, Broccoli or any other green vegetable and rice. I cooked brown rice for us, but you can use long grain or basmati – whatever suits you. As you can see from the recipe, my mother also put cashew nuts in – I didn’t have any so substituted roasted raw peanuts. I was also out of spring onions, so added an extra red onion which also gave it a nice caramelised flavour. You could use beef or pork instead of chicken, although I would omit the cashew nuts altogether.

You can add other vegetables into the broccoli – baby corn, peppers, carrot, beansprouts would all work – although don’t blanch the beansprouts. You could even add cubes of fried beancurd and if you wanted to bulk out a vegetarian dish.

I love leftovers and these are dishes which reheat beautifully – I mixed the broccoli with the chicken and made up individual bowls for the boys lunch one day, leaving instructions as to how long to put them in the microwave for. My own version of a ready-meal but so much tastier and healthier!