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?

Fish pie - I buy the packs of mixed fish pieces from Asda. Co-op etc; poach in milk with a bit of black pepper, add a couple of large spoons of Philadelphia, peas and carrots, then drain and spoon into a casserole dish, cover with mashed potato and swede, top with a bit of grated cheese, pop into the oven until browned.

Cottage pie - I brown mince, finely grated onions (ds doesn't like onions so I have to hide them!), add a splash of worcester sauce, a carton of pasatta, some cooked carrots, then top with cheesy mash and brown in the oven. I always serve with baked beans :)

Tuna pasta bake - pasta, pasatta or tinned tomatoes, grated onions, tin of sweetcorn, tin of tuna, black pepper and seasoning, top with grated cheese and brown.

Casserole - slow cookers are the way forward! Any cut of meat tastes awesome in the slow cooker :) I do pork with chopped apples, chopped onions, a handful of sage and onion stuffing mix and a pint or 2 of stock.. Leave for several hours, then drain off the liquid and blend the apples and onions into it and thicken with gravy granules, or powder and cornflour. DS won't eat a lot of veg, and I find blending the way forward!

I also do cubed stewing beef, finely grated onion, mushrooms, courgette and minced beef to thicken in the slow cooker, then split into 2 portions, put a pie crust on one, and serve the other the next day with roast potatoes and roasted butternut squash and whatever veg ds will currently eat.

Homemade quick pizzas - wholemeal pitta bread, topped with pasatta, grated cheese and ham, served with butternut squash chips and ketchup to dip.

I blend lots of veg as ds can be picky, but I find grated onions, mushrooms, courgettes etc blend really easily into a tomato based sauce (use a lot of pasatta) and he will happily eat a simple meal of pasta with this sauce and a sprinkling of grated cheese.

You can get white sauce in sachets (Coleman's, Schwarz) parsely, onion, cheese flavours - probably plain too. Not a bad starting point and you can add them to all sorts of things. Not least a cheesy one with cauliflower served with good sausages, bacon or little loin chops - or on its own.

Get yourself Delia Smith's complete cookery course from the library. It takes you through all the steps and is really easy to follow.

Omelettes are good for extra veg.

We do all home made stews, meatballs, cottage pies, one pot rice dishes like jambalaya, baked risotto (saves all the stirring - plus with risotto you can do arancini the next day and serve with salad). We get most of our recipes from BBC good food website and you can filter by cooking times, diet, calories etc etc

We do double batches so freeze in portions so I can have lunch portions for ds and I mingle them in with similar dishes to you. Ds also has fruit after lunch like you do.

Shaky of course!
Thank u ItsNot, married and maddening. Your advice is fab :)

Night OP. Good Luck. You know they do just fine on beans, hoops and oodles of love and praise don't you? (bit of fruit thrown in goes down well)

Night Married. She must be fab already then :) x

Veggie hint. Grate some veggies. Ones easy to grate are carrots, parsnip, turnip, broccoli, and mix in with some minced meat when you make a pasta sauce. You dd won't be able to taste or see it.
Do you have an electric food chopper that can puree veggies? If so you can use that, or if you are very patient, finely chop green beans, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, and mix that in with minced raw meat, then make your meat sauce.
Do you know how to make meatballs, or hamburger patties? You can sneak finely chopped veggies into them and lot's of other recipes.
You can also puree soups so she won't see the veggies, it becomes a creamy soup.

Yes, hide veggies in mince or tomato sauces.

Have you thought of jacket potatoes? Might be a change from things on toast - you can do them with beans, tuna salad, cheese, or save some mince, chili or curry from an evening dinner and reheat to have with the potatoes.

I also like tinned pilchards in tomato sauce on toast for lunch. Would she eat something like cauliflower cheese, if you want to give her some veg?

Sounds fine to me! I sometimes serve soup in a cup as well or if not some cut up veg (carrots, cucumber, peppers etc).

Musical grating veg or blending it in is a good idea. I do that with corgette for pasta sauce so can try some others. No idea how to make patties or meatballs :)

Fair I did try jackets and do give them to her sometimes but she refuses to eat the skins.

Op I use jar white sauce. Much easier. make my own ragu for lasagne - brown mince, add chopped onion and garlic plus any veg you want to hide in it. Add tom puree and passata and a tin of chopped toms. Leave on for a little while, then put a thin layer in a dish, add a layer of lasagne sheets and a layer of white sauce. Repeat on top. Add a layer of grated cheese. 20mins in oven. done.

Sweet potato wedges go down very well here! Cut into chunks, rub oil.and black pepper on and roast for 15mins.

Sweet potato wedges sound really nice. I'd eat them. Would make a difference from mash as she doesn't really like boiled potatoes or even just for lunch with some dips.

What temperature would you put the oven on for those Gold? I've got electric - around 200?

I think 180-200. Tbh im a "chuck it all in amd hope for the best" type of person.

I make lots of omelettes and wraps for dd for lunch too.

I'm not sure what the MN rules are on promoting personal blogs so I've pm!s you a link to mine which is basically me wittering about what I feed us all!

Thank you all. I'm going to start a receipe book and plan meals properly and do lots of batch cooking and freezing. Hopefully it will save me money and mean I can eat well too rather than just DD :)

The free magazines in supermarkets have some nice recipes, I tear them out and put them in a ring binder :-)