How do you serve dinner

Pink.

I usually serve the meat on the plate (because I know how much they like) , but have vegetables, potatoes and any sauces served in dishes on the table so that everyone can help themselves. That way any left overs can easily be used to make soup or incorporated into tomorrows meal without having to be scraped off someones plate. Even the youngest (5) enjoys helping himself to what he wants because that's what the rest of us do.........and when we told him bulls love brocolli his brocolli consumption doubled !

Pink


Edited to add: Ds2 is obsessed with bulls

piglet6

When its just hubby and I we tend to serve up in the kitchen and put things onto plates to serve them (mainly to save washing up, because any unused veg is still in the saucepan/colander), but when we have guests we always put veggies into separate bowls and let people help themselves (like Pink-winged says, you can then use the leftovers without scraping them off people's plates...and we love bubble and squeak!!).

When I was little, my mum always put veggies onto the table in bowls, and I was always allowed to help myself, and encouraged greatly for having 2 pieces of carrot and three green beans, then another piece of carrot and another bean, etc, etc - "good girl!!". Result: I now adore all vegetables and eat loads of them as an adult. I like to think that when I have kids I will do the same, as I found it a totally stress-free way to learn to like veggies - and hope that I can pass this on to the next generation in the same "not realising its happening" manner!!

Piglet

Edinburghlass_2

Queenie wrote:

catowen - oooh, we all had "eyes bigger than our bellies" when we were kids too :rotfl: That one didn't bother me - it was my Dad threatening he'd have our "guts for garters" that instilled fear into my 5yo heart :eek: Had no idea what garters were but I just knew having my guts made into them wouldn't be painfree Or when he'd tell one of my brother's to shut his K-coal ( ) took me years to work out a K-coal was cake-hole and a daft way to tell him to stop talking Anyone else get told to let their "meat stop your mouth"?

Always at the table, plated when I was young and every night Dad would say to me "If you don't hurry up you'll be the coo's tail"

Every night I was the coo's tail

nearlyrich

We serve in the kitchen if just the two of us, big Sunday dinners or meals with guests get the full treatment with a table full of serving dishes. We nearly always eat at the table with the tv turned off.

Queenie

Pink-winged wrote:

....... Even the youngest (5) enjoys helping himself to what he wants .... and when we told him bulls love brocolli his brocolli consumption doubled !

Edited to add: Ds2 is obsessed with bulls

Send him round to ours. then he'll never refuse a vegetable again ...

... my d10yo still pronounces vegetables as: Vegi-bulls

My nephew only ate cauliflower once he was told it was white broccoli :rotfl:

Edinburghlass wrote:

Always at the table, plated when I was young and every night Dad would say to me "If you don't hurry up you'll be the coo's tail"

Every night I was the coo's tail

Awww!!! :laugh: (I take it the coo's tail is the cow's tail? )

nicki_2

Generally I serve up on the plates and I'm trying to get us to eat our meals at the dining table but if we're having Pizza or takeaway we have it on our knees/coffeetable. The only time I serve it up in bowls is at Christmas when I try and stretch the food to last boxing day as well as I always cook too much (I must base the amounts on what my mum used to cook for 5 of us when I lived at home ).

Mum always served it onto the plate for us as well.

MIL on the other hand serves nearly all their meals in serving bowls so we can help ourselves, only causes a problem with DD as she can't quite manage to serve herself yet so someone has to do hers, and thats usually me, so I try and do hers and mine at the same time otherwise I'd never get anything! Its rare to eat on your knees at her house, usually only when it's "bits" or a takeaway or something REALLY good on the TV as they have a seperate dining room.

We have "bits" occasionally where I just put out salad, cheese, cooked meats, pizza, garlic bread and the like on the table and we help ourselves. It used to be every Saturday night, but now it's a rare treat.

holstar

I can honestly say I have never eaten a meal off my knee at home. It was *always* plated up in the kitchen and put on the table for us. My mum knew what we would eat, and money was so tight that had she put it in bowls on the table for us, we would all have tried to help ourselves to a lot more than what we were supposed to.
Only time bowls get put in the table is Xmas day and if my grandparents come round...a sunday dinner with just my parents and sister still plated up in the kitchen.

Here at uni, I still eat off a table...am simply incapable of eating it off my knee....meal time round the table is such a social event for us...whether at home or at uni, and I simply don't see how you could balance plate on knees for that long...much rather have table and chairs.

Also less food down the front of your clothes, I would have thought.

Hol x

froggergirl

Always served in bowls on the dining room table and the telly has to go off before anyone sits down at the table - found it to be really good at getting everyone to speak about their day more

Pooky

It's bowls with us - We all sit at the kitchen table too - every now and then DD's will have a picky tea, picnic style in their rooms if they want to watch a dvd.....that tends to be weekends when they're on holiday though.

I think it's great to encourage kids to take what they want - we don't go round for seconds until everyone's finished their first plate full....then if it's wanted it's shared. I do tend to take portions out if I'm relying on left overs for another meal.

Both DD's will dive into the veg before anything else.

badgermonkey

I wonder what other OSers' views are on this - I always used to plate up all meals in the kitchen then bring them through, but recently I have started putting the pans/bowls on the table (we're not fancy!) and letting H and I serve ourselves. I make the same amount of food, but for, say, curry and rice or pasta, I pretty much always get another portion to freeze from what's left. Astonishing how much extra that means we were eating when I was putting it all on the plates! Anyone else found this?