Please give me your family favourite meals!

[MsMontyWomble]

I am so sick to death of the same meals on repeat in our house and my cooking two separate meals for my children and myself and my partner.

Two days of the week I look after a friends child after school and then they go to a club so there is not much time to spend cooking lengthy recipes so has to be quick and easy!

Please share with me your family's favourite quick and tasty go-to meals!

cheesy broccoli pasta bake with garlic bread and salad

cheese and tomato grilled fish with green beans and mash

turkey burgers

Fajitas

pesto/cream cheese and random veg pasta (DS likes pea and brocolli, I like red pepper, plum tomato, and brocolli)

boiled potatoes, veg, bread, and pick your own protein (cheese, salame, prosciutto etc, DS usually wants a plain omlette)

Gammon joint, one day with new potatoes and Parsley sauce next day egg and chips or salad.

Chilli in a large saute pan topped with potato wedges and cheese. Easy to prepare in advance.

Pork steaks with mushroom sauce, fry sliced mushroom in butter, remove from pan, fry steaks until cooked, remove from pan. Return mushroomms add double cream, dijon mustard, season and serve over pork steaks, serve with green beans and cubed potatoes.

Just remembered another spaghetti pizza pie.

Cook spaghetti, add any tomato sauce, put one third in lasagne dish add layer of perpporoni and cheese, repeat 3 times cok ib oven until heated through and cheese melted.

These sound lush!! Love the idea of spaghetti pie and the chilli and wedges! Yum

Mexican tortilla bake - it’s a Mary Berry one you can find it online. It’s dh’s all time favourite home cooked meal, he literally craves it

Veggie fried rice. Cooked rice, lots of veg (favourites are sweetcorn, peas & carrots - all frozen), soy sauce, sesame oil and thin strips of egg.

Tacos - minced beef and pork or chicken pieces
Stew - a lovely slow cooked beef stew always goes down well
Marmite pasta (Nigella recipe)

My DSC used to be really fussy, they now eat Spaghetti Bolognese,
carbonara,
chicken stuffed with cheese wrapped in bacon and veg
Steak pie (I cook the filling the night before)
Curry
Shepards pie
Toad in the hole

Tricolore meatballs: brown meatballs in ovenproof frying pan, remove and set aside. Fry garlic and chilli flakes in the same pan, add a tablespoon of honey and a good glug of red wine (optional). Bubble for a minute to burn off the alcohol, then add half a carton of passata and heat through. Add meatballs back in, shred a ball of mozzarella into big chunks over the top and some fresh basil leaves. Bung the pan in the oven for 20mins to cook the meatball through then serve over pasta or just with lots of crusty bread to mop up the sauce.

Stir fry with beef (one steak sliced small) or chicken, lots of baby corn, peppers, broccoli etc and homemade sauce (ginger, chilli, soy, stock, crushed garlic)

Roast in various forms
Fajitas
Sausage and lentil casserole - yum (red wine, stock, sliced onion, thyme, green lentils) with potatoes/greens
Chilli/spag Bol/lasagne
Pasta arrabiata (red wine, onion, chilli, pancetta)
Quiche, fries and salad
Soups- all kinds with garlic or crusty breads and cheese
Eggs in some form- we all have omelette and dd has scrambled.
Curry using a paste- tastes better than jarred sauce and is quick.

I meal plan which helps, sit and look at my diary for the coming week and plan meals around hobbies/what's going on. Food delivery weekly. Veggie meals at least three times a week.

Books I'd recommend- Faye's Family Food - this is brilliant
Feeding Kids- a Netmums book (!)
Jamie's Ministry book.

I made this tonight and everyone loved it. I added loads more seasoning and veg to the sauce and we had broccoli on the side. I think it’s the new favourite. It really didn’t actually take that long to do either.

Other quick favourites

Wraps with grilled chicken or fish and lots of salad. The dc seem to eat more veggies this way as they load their wraps up.

Chilli nachos for family movie night.

Chicken, chorizo and tomato pasta.

Homemade soup with cheese toasties goes down well on a winters evening (we’re in winter at the moment)

Singapore chicken noodles. Takes about 20 minutes.

Beef casserole. Stick in slow cooker in the morning, dish up when ready.

Macaroni Cheese. We add bacon and halved cherry tomatoes, top with mozzarella and put it under the grill. The kids call it Epic

Ooh another tasty one- Mary Berry's 'Panang chicken' - gorgeous zingy flavours.

I think cooking two meals is too much work, maybe talk to the kids and list things they like but explain you're going to be trying new things each week one one night, which allows you to try more grown up things out on them.

If it's a new flavour/idea, I try to pair it with something they'll enjoy in case it goes wrong- or when serving curry the first few tries (and it was simple tikkamasala!) I would have lots of naan bread ready and easy veg like peas, too, to fill them up.

Chicken and bacon cooked in garlic and cream sauce with pasta. Always a winner in our house.
Gammon steak, egg, chips veg.
Omelette with everything.

Oooh some of these sound delicious - that macaroni meatball dish especially!!
Good idea about a grown up dish each week, if my two had a choice they would live off chicken nuggets and pizza on rotation!
Has anyone got any curry recipes that are not spicy but flavoursome to get them used to it?

Regular meals in our house are:
Philadelphia tuna pasta bake
Slimming world Diet Coke chicken with rice or wedges
Pork and apple burgers with wedges (hello fresh recipe but we make it regularly - you could always prep the burgers and fridge them)
Cheesy baked chicken with spring onion mash (another hello fresh recipe)
Gnocchi hash (pan fried gnocchi with leeks, pancetta, sweetcorn, pulled poached chicken breast and grated cheese)
Homemade pizza (pitta breads with tomato purée base, whatever toppings you want and topped with grated cheese)

Google Jamie oliver's ministry of food chicken tikka masala, it's very mild if you remove the chilli seeds.

We also love the Tesco Love Food recipe for burgers, think they're called 'Dee's burgers' - properly lovely.

Lamb (mince) burgers are also lovely.

I mix up the week in terms of quick easy meals (frozen fish and chips or pasta pesto with bacon on a busy night) and fresh, more grown up food (casserole, savoury rice). It has taken years of serving up stir fry to groans and moans to get to a point this year where they just eat it- they're 9 and 12. Give them a gentle warning of the new food and try to be light and breezy about it!

Seriously if you can, abandon cooking separate food now. It's such an effort for you as cook!

Pitta pizzas are my newest quick meal, as a pp mentioned.

Whole meal pittas, spread on tomato sauce, add cheese (cheddar or mozzarella), season, maybe some dried oregano, stick under hot grill for about 5-10 mins, serve with salad.

Cajun pasta, we have it with vegetables/chicken/sausage.

Salmon stir fry.

Cheesy broccoli pasta.

Spaghetti meatballs

Chicken jambalaya

Tortilla pizzas

Chicken chorizo - plonk chicken thighs, chunks of chorizo, quartered onions and potatoes squares in a dish. Oil and grated orange over the top and stick in oven for 45 mind- 1hour.
You can make a similar dish using rice plus the chicken and chorizo that’s works out cheaper.

Boar burgers - pork mince with tarragon added. Bacon and cheese slice optional.

Toasties - butter the outside of the bread, fill with tuna/ham/tomatoes and cheese. Dry fry ( no oil at all) on the buttered side. Takes 2 minutes.

Lobscouse
Pizza, homemade wedges and salad
Roast dinner
Chicken and leek bake (packet stuff) carrots and garlic and herb roasties.
Tacos
Fahitas
Chilli
Lasagne
Egg with chips and bread & butter

Oh chicken burgers with homemade chips

Slow cooker chicken curry. Korma paste pot, tin of coconut cream, chicken (thighs or breast), chopped peppers and onions (or any veg you like). Cook on low for 8 hours - delish and not spicy hot