I know IABU I feed my DC rubbish but feel too overwhelmed to change things :(

[toomuchjunk]

I have 4 DC and DH in the army away a lot. Me and 4 DC eat rubbish I know we do and I want to change. I have all the cook books, but feel to overwhelmed by all the ingredients etc. Also meal planning for 3 meals plus snacks and deserts takes me hours and I get stressed. DC are used to having sugary deserts like angel delight, jelly, ice cream and I don't know how they would react to plain yogurt or fruit. I cook a roast on Sunday with leftovers on monday but the rest of the week is frozen pizza, fish fingers, baked beans, breaded chicken fillets etc. Lunch is cheese sandwiches, I just cannot come up with other fillings the kids will eat. Each week I plan to buy healthy food but get overwhelmed with all the ingredients I will need to buy. Plus I have no idea how I will get the DC (age one, three, five and six) to change. There is no way they would eat porridge for breakfast, they all like chocolate spread on toast :( they guzzle sugar free squash and will not drink water. I feel so depressed, I had such good intentions when I only had one child, now I have four and I have lost my way and cannot see a way forward :(

Rachel Allen does brilliant cook books, I was the same as you until I got hers! Easy meals is particularly good as it has sections with less than 5 ingredients, 1 pot etc. I just do two meals and desserts that can generally be frozen, she has a brilliant meat balls recipe that you can get the kids involved in making too so it's fun and it has a nice sauce you can make too or just use a good jarred one that says one of 5 a day or something similar. I bet there's a good meatball recipe online you can find, you can make a double batch and freeze them for quickness! X

Obviously meat balls are my favourite

Dessert is fine. Rice pudding is good, Greek yogurt with fruit and honey, yogurt in general. A favourite dessert of my DC is quinoa with mashed banana and desiccated coconut- it is very very good. Frozen yogurt is a tad better than ice cream for treats.

Spinach and ricotta ravioli is one of my favs for a quick and easy dinner. I serve it with a browned butter and sage sauce - done in minutes!

The other thing that I find works quite well is just changing the names of things. My DS2 went though a stage of avoiding meat, but he would eat meat lollipops (lamb cutlets). Neither of mine would eat tomatoes, but they would eat red berry bombs (cherry tomatoes).

I've not read the whole thread but wanted to chip in before I start doing the housework. Apologies for any repetition.

Firstly, don't be so hard in yourself, there are parents out there doing a lot worse, you are at least wanting to change things and you have a roast in there presumably that means meat and veggies.

Some of my favourite, quick meals are;

Baked Potatoes with either cheese and beans or tuna mayo and sweetcorn, they taste better in the oven but are still nice in the microwave and you can serve them with a salad or veggie sticks.

Eggs, omelettes you can chuck loads of things in, ham, bacon, cheese, onions, peppers, mushrooms.
Boiled, poached, scrambled. All very quick and easy and filling.

There is no shame in beans on toast for dinner, mine will ask for it on occasion. baked beans aren't that bad for you and if honey re served with some wholemeal toast it's a good meal, especially if you follow it up with some fruit and a yoghurt.

Squash isn't the devil, it's better that they drink something than nothing, dilute it as much as possible and maybe buy a nice bottle to tempt them into drinking some water when out.

You know your kids though, if they are healthy, slim, active and their teeth are getting the thumbs up from the dentist, I wouldn't worry too much.

I've taught young parents and parents on a low budget to cook basics with little ingredients, please PM me if you want and I'll help in anyway I can.

Philadelphia cheese spread comes in a chocolate version which my dgc tell me is delicious and it has the cheese which makes it quite a healthy option. They eat lots of pasta and their favourite is pasta twists with 'red sauce' which is tomatoes, carrots, onions, celery, garlic blended together and served with grated cheddar. My dd makes and freezes batches. She lets them do their own pizzas using split pitta bread as a base and putting out passata, grated cheese, ham, chorizo, peppers etc so they can make what they like. These are very quick and easy to bake or grill.

The other thing that I find works quite well is just changing the names of things. My DS2 went though a stage of avoiding meat, but he would eat meat lollipops (lamb cutlets). Neither of mine would eat tomatoes, but they would eat red berry bombs (cherry tomatoes).

That reminds me of our favourite Charlie and Lola book "I will not ever never eat a tomato" - carrots are orange twiglets from Jupiter, peas are green drops from Greenland, fish fingers are ocean nibbles from the supermarket under the sea, mashed potato is cloud, and tomatoes are moonsquirters! :o

OP - I'm sorry that I haven't read all of the PP so apologies if I'm repeating what someone else has said.

Roast dinners are healthy (generally - especially if you roast the potatoes using low cal spray), so how about variations of roasts?

What I do every week is buy the 3 for £10 on meat that they do in all the supermarkets.

Last week we bought Pork Loin Joint, Beef Mince and Chicken Breasts. Each night you could make something from this and just do either pasta and veg, mash and veg, sauté potatoes and veg.

This week we got Gammon Steaks, Medium Chicken and Cod in Breadcrumbs (Sainsburys).

Bear in mind however that there are only three of us in the family so if you can afford it, you may want to get two lots of the meat. It's not exciting, but it's healthy and easy.

Again, lots of eggs, lots of Jacket spuds. And maybe change the choc spread on toast for honey? Healthier but still sweet.

Any way that you can do away with the desserts altogether. Maybe just a piece of fruit?

snoogywoo
I have just attempted the banana omelette with an epic fail
I whisked together an egg and a ripe banana and fried, it just turned into a pile of mush and wouldn't set where did I go wrong??
So...not to be beaten as I was hungry, I made a plain omelette with 2 eggs and smothered it in golden syrup and icing sugar very lovely!

OP have you tried sparkling water? My DC used to think they were very grown up drinking this, maybe add ice cubes and lemon slices?

Breakfast: Toast with peanut butter and sliced bananas on top
or just reduce the amount of Nutella and add banana.

Breakfast / teatime: pancakes with blueberries or strawberries, optionally cream and drizzle with honey.

Lunch: add some cherry tomatoes or apple slices to those cheese sandwiches

Re bananas - try the Aussie thing and stick them in the freezer.

They are nice frozen & chopped up and last for ages (no more squishy brown mush)

I think some places stick lollipop sticks into them before putting in the freezer so they can be eaten like an ice-cream lolly.

(we have ours with chocolate ice-cream)

Ooh yes fuzzpig, decorating the plate too. Mine will happily approach something they'd never usually if they're saving the universe by eating a villain's nose/ear/eyes etc.

And absolutely agreeing that what you are offering is Not That Bad. I only have two dc and often find myself reaching for the fishfingers in a desperate attempt to dish up something they both will eat. My HV said fishfinger get too bad press, especially now you get salmon ones!

I have one dc that wouldn't touch anything in a sauce (is getting better but was awful for a while) so I have also conditioned myself to not fearing what the result is (ie not a proper "recipe") if it's balanced and healthy and they eat it.

So for example buttered boiled rice or pasta, with chicken and peas is REALLY easy, one dc would have it all separate (with nothing touching/contamination ) where as the other would have other stuff chucked in/on top: cheese, tomatos, sweetcorn, brocolli etc. I'd drizzle some reggae reggae sauce or something on mine to jolly it up a bit.

For lunches, a favourite is "bits in a bowl" which consists of bits of ham, cheese, cherry toms, grapes, cucumber, carrot sticks, sometimes with rice cakes or crackers or breadsticks & humous to dip.

And yy to trying fruit like grapes/strawberries/melon/blueberries if apples/oranges/bananas etc aren't their thing. For a very sweet and not so healthy but I sometimes serve them in a meringue nest as a treat. Fruit makes great faces!

First of all, give yourself a break. You've got 4 young kids, that must be bloody hard work and very tiring. I second the approach of changing things a bit at a time. I also recommend batch cooking - making a huge lasagne (with lots of hidden veg) and freezing it in portions. My kids adore sweet food and would love to have sugary puddings every day but I tend to give them full fat yoghurt that has pureed mango in it. I know that sounds a bit lentil-weaverish but I buy it from Sainsburys and they LOVE it. It's sweet, filling and full of fruit and calcium - yum.

You might want to try to put the food in the middle of the table and help them to help themselves. Would that work? (I'm sorry, I've got 2 (aged 2 and 7) so my perspective is probably out of whack with your reality). My kids tend to eat better when they are able to control what goes on their plates.

Good luck OP and be kind to yourself!

THIS plate worked brilliantly with my fussy eaters. Little portions of new things are apparently much more approachable.

I'm loving the idea of putting fruit purée into proper unsweetened yoghurt. My DCs love the muller corner/frube type things but it'd be great to make it healthier that way. They've tried Total but it was far too sour (for me too!)

Great tips on this thread, I wouldn't worry about the fruit OP as you say yourself they do like the veg. Don't create battles for yourself

I too am an owner of a fruit bowl of death, just not great lovers of fruit here, but we do eat veg. I reckon it all evens itself out. None of us have scurvy yet anyway!

Stop stressing about puddings and snacks. You don't need either for most of the time.

I rarely take snacks out, but if I do it's something like a banana, fig rolls, or mini babybels. All nice, but not so nice that children will eat them whether they are hungry or not.

Pudding in our house is usually as much fruit as you want. Sometimes with yoghurt, for a special treat (mean mummy ) it's fruit yoghurt.

Agree with changing one meal at a time. Doing everything at once is too exhausting to think about.

Meals don't have to be fancy. Nothing wrong with simple stuff like boiled egg and toast, omelette, pasta and sauce, pasta bake, baked spuds with toppings. If you don't manage much veg on the side it doesn't really matter if you have fruit afterwards.

Oh yeah and one of my favourite boring meals goes down a storm every time: cauliflower and broccoli cheese.

Chop a cauliflower and a large head of broccoli. Steam this whilst you make a mumsnet microwave cheese sauce with a good metric fucktonne of plain municipal cheddar. Pour it over the veg. Add more grated cheese and/or breadcrumbs if you're feeling fancy. Grill for a bit to brown, or just eat it if you can't be bothered with the topping. Takes about 15-20 mins with practice.

Sympathies - I get overwhelmed about food too, and I only have one dd.

I wouldn't necessarily give up on porridge, by the way. DD loves it, especially in cold weather. I've never told her it's healthy, as that would be the kiss of death as far as she's concerned. I let her stir in a spoon of honey or sugar (still less than in commercial cereals) and job done.

I'm going to go through this thread and see can I pick up any ideas. Thanks for starting it!

Don't be too harsh on yourself - there are easy ways to improve things. Here is a typical meal plan for my family in the holidays (me and DCs 8 and 7):

Monday
Breakfast: toast or cereal and yogurt - weak apple/orange juice or milk
snack: cubed cheese or plain air popped popcorn (I love it too!) - water
Lunch: picnic style lunch: slices of ham, cucumber sticks, bread sticks, prawns, share 1 bag of crisps - water
snack: 1-2 biscuits - water or weak sugar free squash
Dinner: Left over roast and veg turned into something else (this you already do) - water
pudding or later snack: frozen juice ice lollies (cheap and simple)

Tuesday
Breakfast: pancakes with mixed berries and yogurt - juice or milk
snack: piece of fruit or nothing
Lunch: reduced salt and sugar baked beans on wholegrain toast - water
snack: treat....mini packet of haribo or small chocolate bar (kinder) - water
Dinner: Tuna cheesy pasta bake - easy to throw together and hide some pureed carrot or suchlike in. - weak squash then water
pudding or later snack: yogurt or fruit

Wednesday
Breakfast: toast or cereal and yogurt - weak apple/orange juice or milk
snack: popcorn/fruit/raisins/nothing
Lunch: Cheese and ham sandwiches, cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes - water
snack: biscuit
Dinner: toad in the hole (sausages and for ease use a packet batter mix), veg - weak squash/water
pudding - fruit ice lolly

So, you get the idea........here are a few more simple ideas for meals:

scrambled eggs, bacon, beans and toast - grilled not fried.
baked potatoes with various fillings
spaghetti bolognaise - hidden pureed veg
macaroni cheese - using crème fresh and hidden pureed cauliflower
pizzas - buy the bases and put on toppings yourself.
omega 3 fish fingers (not fried) and oven chips are ok

I hope that helps and good luck you are doing great!

Op don't be too hard on yourself my love. I'm sure everyone on here has, at some point, stuck some frozen junk in the oven for dinner because it's easier. We're all guilty of being too tired to cook at times.

My suggestion? Stop buying the junk. If you don't buy it, you can't eat it. I stopped buying any naughty food (crisps, sweets, chocolate, biscuits, chips, oven goodies like curly fries and onion rings, etc.) a while back and it's done me and dd the world of good. If we fancy something naughty on a Friday or Saturday night, we'll pop to the corner shop and treat ourselves to one thing. Other than that, there's fruit or ice lollies if we have a sweet craving or we can of course bake some goodies from scratch - we made banana bread the other week and had great fun getting caked in flour

Now I don't necessarily stick to strict meal planning, but I can pretty much walk round the supermarket picking up bits on offer as I go and the weeks meals form in my head. This weeks food shop was £27.25 (receipt is tacked to my fridge!) and that included all organic fruit and veg, organic milk, lots of fresh fish, some wholemeal bread and some frozen quorn products I needed to replace.

This weeks dinners for me and dd (7):

Monday: Smoked river cobbler chowder (using sweet potato, sweetcorn and peas to bulk it out).

Tuesday: Cheesy wholemeal pasta with broccoli, carrots and peas.

Wednesday: Home made sweet potato, onion and chedder grills with green beans and carrots.

Thursday: Smoked mackerel salad with garlic bread.

Friday: Spaghetti bolognese with wholemeal spaghetti and cheese (using quorn mince and bulked out with onion, mushrooms, carrots and peppers).

Saturday: I'll have a jacket potato and dd will have pizza (it's her 'naughty' day where she gets to choose whatever she wants to eat - this week was pizza).

Sunday: Quorn sausages, roast potatoes, veggies, Yorkshire puddings and gravy.

For breakfast there's toast and fruit or porridge with currents.

For lunch there's sandwiches, omelette and toast, soup or cheese and crackers.

For snacks there are apples, bananas, carrot sticks and small low fat yoghurts.

Fizzy pop is strictly forbidden in this house (I swear the stuff gives me a touch of IBS so I don't touch it and I would never encourage dd to drink it). There are some fruit squashes but generally speaking I use Tupperware juice containers to mix up flavoured water (tap water, half a lemon, half a lime and some mint leaves - am drinking it now and it is bloody delicious!)

I was very young when I had dd and food used to really overwhelm me. Luckily my mum always cooked from scratch so I had a few basic recipes down pat but the rest I had to learn. Even now, I stick to pretty basic, easy meals that we know and love, though I ditched the oven fish and chips three times a week a wee while ago! Eating well and eating healthily is actually pretty easy once you've come to grips with it. You soon realise that giving a young child an apple will keep them quieter for longer than a chocolate bar ever would and healthier options will fill them up for longer than crappy carb loaded oven dinners.

I'll say it again - don't be too hard on yourself. There's a plethora of good advice to be found on this thread and others like it. Take it a bit at a time - small steps in the right direction

Hi OP, you certainly have your hands full with 4 dc and a dh who works away. Hats off to you!

I have 1 dd (8) who has been an incredibly fussy eater since she reluctantly weaned onto solids. I have worked hard (and often with a lot f frustration, hidden, on my behalf!) to get her to eat a range of foods. When you have a dc who is just not that into food it can be heartbreaking. Funnily enough she has NO problems trying out a new type of choc / biscuit . cake though

For breakfast she has a choice of cereals usually including: weetabix, readybrek, cheerios, shreddies, granola, porridge and perhaps 1 'rubbish' one like cocoa pops etc. We do not have all these cereals all time time but they are the ones we buy.

Lunch tends to be a rotation of: grilled bacon sandwich (either on bread or english muffin), beans on toast, poached egg on toast, pancakes with crispy bacon, banana & honey smoothie served with toasted brown bread and slices of cheese), mini-philadelpia and breadsticks, tomato soup with brown bread, toasty (rare as she is not mad about then - ham and cheese), crisp sandwich! (again rare - usually during school hols as a treat), banana with brown bread, egg mayo sandwich on wholemeal bread (i buy the little pots of deli filler egg mayo to save time and it lasts a few days). I always serve slices of apple or cucumber with lunch depending on which lunch it is. none of these things need many ingredients or take long to prepare.

Dinner is a rotation of homemade spaghetti bolognaise with loads of veg i the sauce (carrot, onion, celery, peppers, courgette - all whizzed in the hand blender before sauteing). I use lots of parmesan cheese and freeze portions of the sauce for her so we always have a quick dinner for her.

Chicken curry with rice & mini poppadoms (great for getting her to scoop up the sauce with)

Roast chicken dinner - she will eat roast potatoes, slices of chicken breast, raw carrot sliced

Fish & chips (a rare treat if we are out somewhere or as takeaway)

Pasta with pesto (top tip - add some cream to the pesto if they find it too strong a flavour at first) with peas

pasta with creamy parma ham and mushroom sauce - she loves the pasta, sauce and picks out every single mushroom and sliver of ham

pizza (i know...)

High Tea - grilled bacon, sausage, beans, white pudding, fried or poached egg with toast - she loves this

poached egg and baked beans on toast

I think that may be it....I am constantly trying to get her to try new things but it is an uphill struggle sometimes.

One good way of encouraging fruit is to chop and put on skewers and drizzle with a teeny tiny bit of choc sauce

easy home-made orange and mango ice-lollies:

peel and chop a very ripe mango
blend with orange juice
pour into ice-lolly moulds and freeze

You could do just frozen mango but the flavour might be too much.

Apologies if this has already been suggested - I have only skim read your post - banana and strawberry smoothies - blend banana, strawberries and apple juice to taste

Do your DC like mash? If so you can boil some sweet potato, celeriac and/or swede in with the potatoes and mash together. Add butter and/or a little milk if you like the texture to be more of a puree.

Sweet potato chips. Boil the (peeled) sweet potatoes for 5 minutes. Cut into chips and roast with a little oil in a hot oven for approx. 20 minutes.

Chopped strawberries work well in jelly too.

Would they eat frozen berries with ice-cream?

Grate carrots into mince/spag bol etc. And at the last minute before serving you can add the finely- chopped dark green leaves of pak choi. It looks like lots of herbs and you don't really notice you're eating it.

Those lumps of frozen spinach are convenient and aren't too noticeable in things like mince, curry, cheesy pasta etc.