you can't possibly call a meal junk food if it had all of your 5 a day!

[bonded]

So a few weeks ago we had a play date that went well. Friend just what's capped me asking for advice for a meal tonight. I said recently that this went down well and is super healthy:

Baked beans, one of your 5 a day
Fish fingers, good source of ohmega and protein
Frozen sweet corn and peas, frozen has more nutrients.

Pudding frozen bananas whipped up into ice cream with a little chcoclate sauce and chopped dates.

Said friend called meal a bit to junky. I thought it was really healthy...

Not sure of whole week menu yet but :

Tonight:
Roast beef
Roast root veg ( parsnip/carrots/ red onion/ butternut squash)
Red cabbage

Baked pears

Tomorrow night:
Trout baked in foil with lemon juice
Mashed swede
Broccoli/ asparagus/ green beans
Green mixed salad ( spinach/ chard/ pea shoots)

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day so I can report back on price. The chicken soup and stir-fry overlap ingredients, I have leeks, onions, beetroot and cucumber left over this week, I have beef, Cauliflower, ice cream and possibly salmon in the freezer.

I will need to buy passata, pizza, orange juice, fruit, chorizo, cheese, yogurt, edamame beans, cornichons and a load of fresh veg, most of which (greens, root veg) is fairly cheap.

Thanks for sharing. I do kind of struggle with healthy varied menus. My mum was quite a basic cook. Dh is super fussy. I like the ideas and it's good to hear them.

I'm not pretending this is healthy, but we are eating this week
Mon: lentil shepherds pie
Tue: Aubergine parmigiana
Weds:Pork chilli wraps
Thurs: sausage and apple cobbler
Fri: ready meal curries, this would usually be takeaway, but am watching the purse.

I'm currently injured so can't cook much. Here's our week
Sat: Chicken, pasta, courgette, onion, passata, peppers
Sun: Haggis, turnip, mashed potato, carrots
Mon: Dc eat at nursery. Adults having homemade chilli and bought tacos with rice
Tue: Frozen pizza with sweetcorn and fruit
Wed: Homemade fish pie (salmon, haddock, prawns, white sauce) with bought puff pastry served with broccoli and probably potatoes
Thu: Tuna pasta with courgette, peppers, onion, cheese and a jar of bought sauce
Fri: Bought burgers and rolls probably with beans or sweetcorn

Brillo, how do you do sausage and Apple cobbler?

Feeding my 4 kids

Stuffed tomatoes(stuffed with puy lentils and other things), sweet pot, salad

Fish pie served with runner beans

Bean chilli

Chick pea curry with basmati rice

Slab of meat, veg, potatoes

Left overs!

For a week - dinner - all made from scratch apart from the quiche that comes freshly made from the local farm shop

Mon: Salmon fillets, egg fried brown rice, broccoli and carrots
Tues: Quiche, chips, broccoli and carrots
Wed: Shepherds Pie stuffed with loads of veg
Thurs:Chicken cacciatori, courgettes, tomatoes, baked potato
Fri: Fish pie, also packed with veg, peas
Sat: Chicken curry, green beans, thai fragrant rice
Sun: Roast chicken (make stock to use for the curry or soup)

I certainly don't think that the OP's tea was particularly healthy, it was ok and probably fine for a play date though

Menu for this week:

Monday- cod, chorizo and veg stew
Tuesday- pea and broccoli risotto
Wednesday: polenta with spicy swish chard and tomato ragu
Thursday- lamb and veg kebabs with homemade flatbread and tzatiki
Friday- out for bonfire night
Saturday - sashimi selection, make your own sushi rolls, broccoli with miso dip, eggplants with miso glaze
Sunday- roast chicken with croutons (Zuni cafe recipe), roasted seasonal veg

Nothing tricky or difficult in any of those meals, and most, with the exception of rage breads, can be made quite quickly.

Re OPs meal - not horrible, but not a healthy one (too processed).

Oh and mine is for me, DH, twin boys of 12 and boy of 10. All eat everything quite happily.

Don't often have pud apart from yoghurt or the odd homemade crumble.

Monsoon I don't see how fish and rice is so different to fish fingers.
I'd say the meals are very similar.

The breads don't have any rage, but I do at predictive text.

Also forgot to say that meals for me, DH, ds(10) and ds(6).

Really? Mine will eat a fillet and a half each of pan fried salmon with lemon juice on it and nothing else added. Brown rice with free range eggs beaten in to it and some peas.

I think that's quite different to fishfingers myself, nothing processed at all and freshly cooked (not quite off the ship I admit!)

Kebab

Why? It's just fish and carbs. Not really different.

itsbetter - fish and rice= not processed, not fried,. No comparison to fish fingers

Fishfingers are processed though, won't have anything like the fish content of the pure salmon or the fibre of the rice.

She's just said it is fried.
And processed makes what difference? Your body just knows it's protein, carbs and fat.

Pan fried, not deep fried!

This is what is scary when you read threads like this that people really think processed food like fishfingers are as healthy as a fillet of fresh fish and brown rice .

Nothing wrong with fishfingers every now and then but laughable to say they are the same nutritionally.

I don't deep fry the fish, just pan fry it in a little olive oil or grill.

Only if you don't have an equal amount of fish. There's a lot of fibre in the sweetcorn and peas the op provided.

You would have to eat a helluva lot of fishfingers to obtain the same quantity of fish as 1.5 salmon fillets though.