to ask for your ultra quick easy meal ideas that your dc actually enjoy?

[bullbythehorn]

I often find myself sticking a pizza in the oven at weekends then feeling guilty I feed my dc too much c**p. My healthy ish easy meals are omelette with peas and little roast potatoes and pasta with tomato sauce (chopped tomatoes, herbs, garlic, onion) with ham and cheese. I have had a complete mental block of any more ideas. My dc are fairly good eaters but turn their noses up at anything too exotic! Thanks in anticipation.

Have you got a slow cooker? Great for bunging stuff in first thing and then - hey presto - you can feel like mother of the year when you've got a steaming pot of loveliness for tea!

Mine love sardines on toast, quesedillas (no idea how to spell that) - basically make a mini pizza on top of a wrap, fold over and bake in the oven for 10 mins or so. Soup - not quick to make, but freezes well and then it is ultra quick.

This is quite nice, and amazingly the kids like it too and it's fast! It's nigel slater's: Mozarella chicken with pesto

Pasta with ham and cream. Cook your pasta, drain, add in some chopped ham, some cream and some Parmesan cheese. We make a tomato salad with it. Basically chopped toms, red onion, fresh basil with a little oil and balsamic.

Ultra quick - gnocchi (few mins in boiling water, an extra min or two if frozen), creme fraiche, grated cheddar, smidge of mustard (actually makes an acceptable sauce), frozen peas. (Usually serve the peas still frozen on the side, as that way he'll eat them rather than pick them out, but can chuck in gnocchi water).

Really only takes a a few mins from start to finish, and almost guaranteed to be eaten (apart from last night, when he was being the biggest pain ever)

And if you want to add more protein super easy to chuck in some ham or tuna or left over chicken etc- something that doesn't need cooking.

Cauliflower and broccoli cheese with sweet potatoe mash. Mackerel 'pate' (smoked mackerel mixed in with mayo) either on toast with pasta (always wack some peas and sweet corn in when cooking pasta). Bloody pesto pasta. Pita pizza.

Quiche baked in muffin tins with whatever veg you have.

Mine love "Tuna noodles" (sounds tempting doesn't it )

Raid the kitchen for carrots, cucumber, peppers, sweetcorn, mushrooms or whatever veggies you can find - chop into little sticks. Drizzle with soy sauce.

Pour boiling water over a bowl of medium egg noodles.

While the noodles soak, stir fry the veggies and a drained tin of tuna.

Drain noodles and stir fry. Add a bit more soy sauce if you haven't already over done it. Cook until bits of the noodles/tuna are getting crispy round the edges.

Usually takes 10 mins from cupboard to plate.

Stick A micro bag of veg (I use one with carrots sweetcorn peas & broccoli) in with a packet of microwave rice
Scramble an egg

Chuck together with some soy sauce & sweet chilli sauce.

If you have any cooked meat I'd chuck that in too..

Mine love chicken cacciatore with pasta, no idea why as they're funny buggers when it comes to chicken, but they love it. Fry off onion and garlic, chuck in chopped chicken breast. At the same time boil up a big pan of water. Add two tins of chopped tomatoes to the chicken once it's browned, glug in some red wine, cook your pasta and serve the chicken and sauce over the pasta once it's thickened with basil on top and fresh parmesan. And garlic bread, if you're ruffians like us. It's a twenty minute job at most.

It's also lovely if you add some fried pancetta.

Our version if Bing's 'Easy Peasy Pasta'

We have a food processor so that helps - in goes a half teaspoon 'lazy garlic', handful of pine nuts, handful of basil, handful of grated parmesan cheese. Whizz. Add glug olive oil, whizz again.

Boil pasta, pan fry chicken or a bit of pancetta, microwave frozen peas and sweetcorn, mix altogether with the pesto. Dish up.

I'm hoping to sneak in some spinach next time.

DD2 loves breaded chicken goujons in a tortilla with sour cream, cheese, tomato and lettuce.

She also likes nigella's pasta with ham and peas in a cream sauce, except we sub the peas for sweetcorn because peas are evil (according to DD2).

Mine used to like a tin of tuna, with pasta boiled with peas and sweetcorn. Easiest thing ever!

Crispy chicken wraps
Chop a chicken breast in strips, season,toss in flour then dip in egg then breadcrumbs. Put on a oiled baking tray, spray or brush with oil and bake at 200 for 15-20 mins. Whilst they are cooking, chop lettuce, tomatoes, cue and grate some carrot. Warm some tortilla wraps in the microwave and get the DC to build their own wraps. Add sauce of choice ( or in DS2's case try to stop him drowning it in BBQ)

Xpost with Mrs Pnut

I do chicken fried rice with leftover chicken from the Sunday roast most weeks.

Whisk up a couple of eggs with a splash of soy sauce and pop in a frying pan as an omelette. Cool and cut into small squares.

In your wok, stir fry onions, add pack of microwave rice, add leftover chicken and a couple handfuls of frozen peas. Pop in your omelette squares and soy sauce to taste. A bit of black pepper and you're done.

Pasta, tin of fish (tuna, salmon, mackerel), peas, corn all mixed together with Philadelphia.

Omelette - all variations
Popeye Pasta - put on pasta, put spinach in the colander on top, when spinach cooked then drain and blitz with philadelphia. Then stir in the pasta

Boil 300g penne pasta n once cooked put in oven proof dish-stir in a can tuna, large can sweetcorn, a chopped up red pepper n some sliced mushrooms-stir in a jar of
Pasta bake tomato n cheese sauce (think its dolmio)-grate cheese on top n bake 20 mins alongside a garlic bread-serves family of four x

Fish pie-in oven proof dish put some pieces of raw fish-we use smoked haddock n cod-add large tin sweetcorn n a white sauce-top with mashed potato n grated cheese n bake in oven

I also do a big pot of veg in tomato sauce when i get the shopping that I freeze in portions and serve up as ratatouile with cous cous as a meal or stir into food stuff such as quorn or mince to make a meal.

Some PP have already mentioned things I'd be looking at but I always think that you cannot go wrong with a fajita or two - can be done in 15 mins and virtually everywhere sells the kits.

Fritata is always a good one as you can chuck whatever left over veg into them, you'd need a pan suitable for the hob and the oven though. Or if the kids like a pizza, in that same pan make an omelette but before flipping it over grill it for a few mins, then add tomato puree, some ham, cheese (whatever else) and boom - omeletzza!!!

If we're looking for something really quick then eggy bread and beans are a popular choice!!

Chicken goujons/fishfingers and salad in a wrap
Jacket potato cheese & beans
Quesadillas
Pasta & broccoli in a cheese sauce with crusty bread
Pasta, chicken chunks and sweetcorn in a tomatoey sauce
Ravioli & sauce with salad
Quiche
Picniccy food
Good old beans on toast

What I call fridge clean out. Always the unplanned meal of the week and the one that seems to be eaten the fastest. Pasta (whatever shape they fancy), chop up whatever veg is in excess (normally pepper, courgette, mushrooms and spinach) stir fry veg, cook pasta and mix all together with some pesto. Serve and top with cheese. If there is any cooked meat in the fridge that gets chopped in as well.

My fastest meal (7 minutes from key in the door to first mouthful) is a packet of microwave rice put on to zap while you cook frozen peas and a tin of sweetcorn and chop up whatever you've got in the way of protein- ham, cooked chicken- any leftover meat or fish. Mix the lot together, stick in some soy sauce. Done.