Mumsnet Talk

me - mainly veggi though do eat "happy meat."

dh - meat and 2 veg kinda guy

ds 10- greedy and very fussy.

dd1 7 - would not eat at all if not actually placed behind a plate of food. moderately fussy.

dd2 3 - veers wildly between ds and dd1.

i need breakfast, packed lunches, tea and snacks as well. if 5 a day can feature, that owuld be marvellous

i am a good cook (despite the current accusations to the contrary) and want them to eat as healthily as possible.

i am just sick and tired of pleasing nobody at meal times and that i have just spent £40 on lunchbox material/healthy snacks to last a fortnight [angry

go for it mumsnetters, i will kiss the person who does the best

Blimey. You deserve a medal for trying to cater for such fussy varied tastes!

What about something like this? You could make two versions and leave the bacon out of yours? Its not terribly healthy though. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1185/mary-cadogans-tartiflette

Im struggling to come up with another meal idea, let alone a week's worth of menus though!

Can breakfast just be toast/porridge/cereal?

i vote for...

make a rough meal planner

so 7 days:

breakfast:
A selection of cereal / toast / jam / fruitjuice etc (help yourself)

Lunch:
Filled Rolls
Soup
Pitta
Jacket Potatoes
wrap
cheese toasties
beans on toast

Dinners:
Fish type meal
Chicken (happy)
a mince meal (bolognese etc)
A Roast
Pizza
Pasta & sauce
Sausage and mash

serve it your children
If hungry they eat it
if not hungry they can wait til next meal (by which time they WILL be hungry)

and I expect quite soon your hungry children will eat the delicouse food you serve them

To add choice to above dinners or to serve as starters: avocado and walnut salad,
hummus dip and sliced carrots,
carrot and corriander soup,
cauliflower and potato curry,
red kidney bean hotpot,
vegetable and lentil curry,
chickpea, corriander and lime salad,
corn-on-the-cob and grilled chicken.

thank you for your helpful responses - i was literally losing the will to live at the time!!

i am slightly more positive now - nannyl - that looks along the right sort of lines, thank you - kids have lunchboxes 5 days a week though (all 3 of them mon and fri) and need ideas that won't return home uneaten. dd1 would rather not eat than have something she doesn't fancy (not necessarily doesn't like, just "doesn't feel like it" . oddly enough she always "feels like" cake or crisps !)

we do have a "don't like it then don't eat it but don't expect anything til next meal" policy but the inconsistency of the don't likes is really starting to piss me off. plus the complaining...oh the complaining...

dominique - your ideas are marvellous (for me!) but there really would be a mass suicide attempt if i served any of them (except maybe the chicken...)!!!

i am puckering up ready to snog nannyl unless there are any more takers...

Breakfast:

cereal, hm banana muffins, hm dropscones with fruit, (you can make the drop scones and muffins in advance), toast with peanut butter or jam, scrambled eggs on toast. Fruit juice, smoothies or milk.

Lunches,

Pittas with tuna mayo and sweetcorn,
wraps spread with pesto mayo and filled with shredded chicken and fine cucumber sticks,
sandwiches filled with grated cheese mixed with pickle
cold muffin pizzas,
bagels with philly and smoked salmon trimmings or ham.

fruit, drink, hm flapjack or choc chip cookie.

Dinners,

Fish chowder and crusty bread
Pasta with tomatoes, onion, garlic, mushrooms and bacon (miss out the bacon for veggie meal) with salad and garlic bread
quorn mince shepherds pie, veg
Cook a free range chicken and make chicken curry with naan bread, then chicken risotto
malaysian noodles
lentil or nut roast with veg and wedges.

Malaysian noodles

1/2 a large packet dried noodles
1 pint chicken or veg stock
1 can coconut milk
400gm bag stir fry veg
2tblspns thai green curry paste
either 200gms cooked chicken, tofu or quorn chunks.

Put the noodles in a big bowl and pour over a lot of boiling water. Leave to steep for 5 minutes until noodles are soft. Drain.

heat the stock, coconut milk, curry paste and chicken/quorn/tofu until boiling. Reduce heat to simmering point. Add Noodles and veg, mix well and simmer for a couple of minutes.

Snacks: bread sticks dipped in philly and wrapped in ham, cheesy flapjacks, scones, oat and raisin biscuits, smoothies, hm rice/cereal muffins.

I realised that I hadn't given you any ideas for weekend lunches. You could make a big pan of lentil soup or similar and serve it with the following:

Bean burger rolls

Blitz 2 tins of drained mixed beans with an onion and a couple of spoonfuls of tex mex seasoning. Stir in about 6 tblspns of flour to stop it being soggy. shape into burger shapes. Crush a big bag of tortilla chips into little bits and put on a plate. Dip the burgers into the tortillas to give a crispy coating. Fry until golden and crisp on both sides. Serve in rolls with salad, cheese, ketchup or whatever.

Savoury sausage rolls;
Cook 8 good veggie sausages and set aside to cool. Make a 1lb batch of wholemeal bread dough, mix in some dried onion and a good pinch mixed herbs. Set aside to rise. When dough has doubled, knock it back and give it a quick knead. Divide it into 8 bits. Roll each bit out and put a sausage in the middle. Wrap the sausage completely in teh dough, so it looks like a bread roll. Set aside to rise until double (about 30 minutes in a warm room.)Bake at 180 for 20 minutes or so until the bread is risen and browned and looks like rolls. They should have a hollow sound when you tap the bottom. You can eat these hot or cold. You can also spread the dough with tomato ketchup or relish of some kind before you wrap the sausages up.

The night that you have soup, you could make an apple crumble or fruit pudding for after.

thank you stressedHEmum!! i have seen your foodie threads before and am hugely slightly in awe of your cooking <<i'm not worthy, i'm not worthy!>>

i have been doing a lot of planning and think i am just about getting there...your ideas will fit in very nicely thank you

Your welcome. I know what it's like having a bunch of fussy kids and, to be honest, my Oh is worse than the kids, so my life is spend trying to find things that they will eat.

I made this tonight. its very popular with the children, adaptable for meat eaters and veggies, and it's cheap and easy:

Pasta pizza

\cook a packet of spaghetti as per pack instructions. Beat 3 eggs with 1/4 pint milk in a BIG bowl. When the pasta is ready, drain it and dump it in the eggs. Toss about to mix well. Pour the pasta into a lasagna dish and spread about until it is flat. Pour a jar of garlic and herb pasta sauce over the top, or make your own, spread it about to cover te pasta. Top with 1/2lb grated cheese. Bake at 180 for about 30 mins. Leave to sit for a few minutes, cut into slices and serve with salad. You can put pipzza type toppings like pepperoni on with the cheese or justleave it plain.

It's packed full of protein and very filling. This amount serves about 6 amply. It might make a change from the pasta and sauce type meals.

i might well try that one! in theory they like both pasta and pizza...i say in theory as last night i served:

macaroni cheese topped with tomato and breadcrumbs
green beans
peas
brocolli

dh and dd2 wolfed it down.
ds left half and then stomped off moaning "i'm not keen on macaroni cheese" (he has eaten it countless times before)...
dd1 cried because it had tomato on (she likes tomato)

this was me

tonight some of us will be having nice homemade pumpkin soup with nice homemade bread and nice homemade apple crumble.

some others of us will be eating crap tomato soup out of a tin and crying, no doubt, beacsue the bread is too bready and the apple too appley