As a working mum, I rely a lot on my helper. But recently she has reduced the menu at home to the same 5 dishes day after day. I am too busy to cook, and I really can't have her leave right now. What do I do?

You could ask her the reason why she limited the options for your weekly menu. There could be a lot of reasons like a. she have observed that these five dishes are the top most favourite; or b. she is running out of ideas on what to cook and figured that having a repetitive menu is the answer. You may want to give her different quick and easy cook books or let her watch cooking demos on her free time and challenge her to create at least two new dish per week. Let her know that this is also for her benefit as she can explore and enhance more of her cooking skills.

When I was younger, my parents were working all the time and we had a helper with us. My mum was pretty strict with what we have for meals so what she did was to have our meals set up and have them scheduled every Sunday so that our meals for the weeks were already planned out. Our helper would then just refer to the meal timetable set and cooked accordingly. Perhaps you could try this way? With social media being so rampant nowadays, you could always ask your children or even your helper herself to post pictures if you're not around

Planning ahead for meals can be both cost efficient and healthier for the family. Perhaps you can have her submit a meal plan on weekends so you can make sure it is balanced and interesting enough for the family. She can also get all the ingredients for the week in one go - saves time and effort on multiple trips. This way, she knows she needs to come up with a compelling menu because you will have to approve it. As part of her planning, have her watch some cooking shows to bring out the MasterChef in her.

Perhaps she has run out of ideas and inspiration as to what to cook? Or maybe some of the recipes knows are too complicated and she doesn't have the time to execute them. Instead of 5 dishes daily, maybe you can teach or suggest she makes 3 dishes that are completely new. That way, she gets to master new recipes and doesn't feel that she is crunched for time. Quality over quantity is the way to go, in my opinion.

I would definitely come up with a schedule of meals for her to use. You could even ask her if she wants to try out cooking something new and try out different recipes. I'd suggest buying her some simple recipe books that she can use :)

You could check with her on reasons for limiting the menu. Talking to her could solve a lot of issues.

she probably has a reason for it, ask her