Homemade Challenge Debrief

Just spent the weekend in the Midlands as my sister was getting married and then her gorgeous baby  Matthew was getting baptised so a very busy and lovely time was had.  From the point of view of the homemade challenge...well it's a bit impossible to do when you're not at home but Ethan ate quite well most of the time which was amazing seeing as we stayed in a hotel Friday & Saturday night.

Having the tupperware tub full of carrot and cheese pretzels meant if Ethan wanted a snack I always had something to hand plus I took a stash of his favourite food of the moment - bananas! Dinner on Friday was a carvery and Ethan tucked into lots of vegetables, roast turkey, cauliflower cheese and some melon. The buffet breakfast the next morning meant he had toast, scrambled egg, sausage and satsuma segments.  Ethan happily ate some of the pretzels for lunch followed by a banana but there was a bit of trouble at tea time.  We were tired and hungry in a strange town (Walsall) looking for something to eat.  Frankie & Benny's was fully booked, Pizza Hut had long waits plus a rowdy party of 8 year old girls and we couldn't find any other restaurants.  We ended up in that shrine to all that is wrong with consumerism McDonalds.  Me and Stevo had burger and fries each and offered Ethan some of our buns.  EBC did us proud...he point blank refused to even taste any of the bun!  We both looked at what we were eating through Ethan's eyes and realised if he didn't even register it was food then we probably shouldn't be eating it either.  So we left there and Ethan was getting a little grizzley so we bought him some corn thins and he was well excited as he hasn't had them in months.  Today he had some toast for breakfast and a banana followed by some breadsticks and tomato pieces at his cousin's baptism.  I bought some apple rice cakes for him in Asda for convenience.  So we are back home and I feel pretty proud of how Ethan mainly ate very healthy food on our little mini break. Staying in hotels with no facilities for preparing or cooking food limits you massively but it is possible to do a mainly homemade/fresh food weekend away with a little planning.   Next time I would take a knife and a chopping board though.  Looking forward to reacquainting myself with the cooker tomorrow!