To do the sort of lunches I'd eat for my three year old DD?

[KellyElly]

I do things like sandwiches (ham and cucumber), cheese on toast, beans on toast, scrambled egg on toast, pasta and pesto or cheesey pitta bread. I pretty much alternate these. Is this a cop out? Should I be providing a more 'balanced' lunch veg etc?

I do these types of things for lunch too, dinner on the other hand is a whole different ball game, lol. x

No, those lunches are very fine!

That's pretty much what we do with picky lunches thrown in a few times to include fruit and bits

Ditto that's the kind of thing we have for lunch, sometimes do full cooked if I think she's on a growth spurt and getting hungry, sometimes do just a buffet of picky bits if she's on a non hungry week!

Nothing wrong with those, although maybe add some fresh fruit or veggie sticks.

Yeah, I tend to do fish or meat, potatoes and veg for dinner. Or pasta with homemade sauce. I'm just a bit lost at lunch time not really sure what to do. I'd do salads or soup for lunch but she wouldn't eat it :)

Contrieu she has fruit after every meal x

I'm a bit of a crap cook so if anyone has any good tasty recipies for little ones on a tight budget please post.

it sounds fine, although I would add some sticks of veg before/at the same time/after. Things like sticks of carrot, cucumber, celery, avocado slices, halved cherry tomatoes etc.

DD1 (also 3) loves soup if you get chunky bread to dip and slurp at.

They sound like great lunch options, with a good range of tastes and flavours, well done !

Midori she won't eat any of those apart from cucumber which I serve with every lunch (even beans on toast lol) although I've seen them slagged off on here as they are just water apparently. She will only eat veg wise potatoes and peas and salad wise only cucumber but fruit she loves - bananas, blueberries, stawberries, pineapple, tangerines and grapes :)

Sounds fine to me. Mine survived for many a year on bread and butter - crusts cut off, slivers of cheese, wafer thin ham, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrot batons and a bit of fruit - sometimes a bread stick or three. Sometimes they got a fromage frais as well. Supper was things like: cottage pie, fish pie, pasta, veggies, chicken nuggets (the odd chip), casseroles, fresh chicken, baked potatoes, etc., etc. - not forgetting fish fingers.

Occasionally I might have done fish fingers or something hot for lunch but usually didn't bother.

PS: DS is 6'2" and plays front row, DD is about 5'3" and very healthy - they survived. They do now eat for England though and the hazy days of a bit of wafer thin ham are a distant memory. DS will have yoghurt - usually a six pack for a snack though a couple of nights ago he managed 8

cuscus is a good one, only takes a minute if your fed up of bread and pasta salads eg tuna mayo and pasta.

Brandy I love cuccus so will try to get DD on that!

Married please post or pm me recipies for cottage pies, fish pie and casseroles as they all have loads of spices and different ingredients in my recipie books and become really expensive. I am quite skint and live in london so suffer the inflated prices on everything in the supermarket :)

I am quite skint and live in london so suffer the inflated prices on everything in the supermarket

Tell me about it!

Mind you, the great thing about casseroles, soups, pies, lasagne etc...is that you can freeze leftover portions.

DH is Asian and pretty much everything they cook you just use garamasala, chilli powder, turmeric (haldi), coriander powder, cumin powder and garlic&ginger paste.

Get those from the ethnic aisle, not the "normal" spice aisle and they are loads cheaper, or from an Asian shop. Whack them in pretty much anything and they are all you need! Bugger recipes

Oh and to use just fry off onions until soft, add the combo of them you like (trial and error, I use about 1/2 a tablespoon of dry, 1 tbsp of the garlic ginger paste), then your meat, then turn it into whatever i.e add tinned tomatoes and pasta, or layer under potato for pie, or add stock & veg and slow cook or stew etc.

Worra for the love of god someone tell me how to cook them (easy recipie) :) I think I'm near you. You're east aren't you? I used to live in the west end. God that was a lot worse than where I am now x

The beauty is also I do a load of mince and can turn it into a few different meals to freeze v cheap

Yeah I'm on the border of East London and Essex...my MIL lives in the West End though.

I'll PM you some recipies tomorrow if you like and you can fiddle with them until they suit your taste

Softly I only know how to do spag bol with mince and I freeze portions. Poor DD eats it twice a week for the month (luckily she love it ) :)

Worra I'm in north greenwich now west end too expensive!! Please pm me some recipies. Would much appreciate it x

Go on bbc food or sainsburys websites - they have lots of very easy recipes. Casseroles are just veg (chopped up onion, carrot, parsnip, etc - you can buy a frozen stew pack of veg if you want it really easy) and meat (chicken portions or beef are easy) in a pyrex dish with some gravy (can use granules and water) for a couple of hours in the oven on about 180.

You can't beat mince for versatility can you Softly?

Spag Bol
Chillie con carne
Shepherds pie
Lasagne
Meat balls
Burgers

Even hotpot, although I prefer chunkier meat in it.

What has become of my life? It's Saturday night ffs and here I am enjoying a conversation about how versatile mince is

Still it fucking is though....

DoMe sounds ok even for a rubbish cook like me however I will have to google a pyrex dish. Sound like a species of dinosaur