To ask what the heck you cook young kids that's healthy and doesn't take forever?

[Iveprobablybeenunreasonable]

I'm back at work in 2 weeks, and won't be picking my dc up from nursery until 5pm. They are 3yo and 1yo.
Both good eaters
Current routine is start cooking at 4.45, eat at 5.45, bath every other night and bed at 7pm.
They have usually finished eating by around 6.10 (dinner followed by fruit or yoghurt etc) so they get a good 45 mins of downtime before bed

I can't drag bedtime out but I won't get home till around 5.10 once back at work.
All the meals I make seem To take around 1 hour. They won't finish eating till about 6.40 and then it'll be bedtime!

They can have a night of beans on toast (they usually have this after swimming lessons Fri night) and a night where i reheat something like a chilli out of the freezer.

But what else can I do that's healthy and doesn't involve loads of prep and cooking time?

I have time to do NOTHING in the mornings which rules out the slow cooker. I have to get me and both dc up and out the house by 7.15am.

DH is not around during the week

Help pleeease!

This is my specialist subject!
Yeah, toast. Beans on toast, eggs on toast, hummus on toast, cheese on toast. Bung a few tomatoes, carrot sticks etc around.
Couscous with falafels.
Little Dish ready meals.
Roast meal on Sunday and leftovers on Monday.
Soup. With toast.

Omelette?

Haha @domestic this is what I can see happening!
Soup is a good one though!
Egg on toast too!

Pesto pasta with peas and cold ham/chicken

Pasta with sauce - the variations are endless. My toddler is into peas and carrots and cream cheese thanks bing with your easy peasy pasta
Tortilla pizza - we make our own and little one loves it. Mozerella and tomato purée plus veggies like sweet corn, olives, peppers and into the oven takes minutes
Fajitas
I make a marinated chicken dish - throw chicken thigh fillets into a bowl with cumin, all spice, turmeric etc. Yoghurt garlic and lemon. Cover in cling film and whack into fridge for day or even overnight for following evening. Then in the evening they go into the oven while you do some rice and if you’re in our house sweet corn because that’s our obsession.
I’ll try think of more...

If they are at nursery on these days, won't they be getting a hot nutritious lunch? I tend to think on nurseries days they don't need much in the evenings, so for example a bagel with cream cheese or peanut butter if perfectly acceptable for a light supper.

I get in at 6 and need to feed my children then so I get this! I do a lot of “prep” cooking on my day off or at the weekend. Pasta sauces, chilli, roast veg etc are freezer staples for us that I put out to defrost in the morning and then is takes as long as it takes to reheat and cook the pasta/rice.

We also often have stir fry. Or Higgidy quiche - love them but they’re £££!

Little Dish ready meals are great for a late or lazy night. Only problem is that they are nuclear when they come out of the microwave and take approx 20 years to cool down enough to be eaten

Pasta and jar sauce (needs must!) or Philadelphia/grated cheese for a cheese sauce.

Frozen jacket spuds are surprisingly good
Pizza made from pizza bases and own toppings
Precooked salmon fillets and savoury rice pouches

Also my children do go straight from the table upstairs to bed which probably isn’t great, but I have no choice really.

I make my own beans to make them healthier and freeze them because Heinz reminds me of a childhood spent in poverty (when we regularly ate 9p beans every night )

Cannellini beans
Passata
Mixed herbs
Pinch of sugar
Splash of water
Pepper
Carrots, spinach, peppers, onions, whatever you have left over tbh, all blended.

Voila. And it’s no salt or masses of sugar.

Or a frittata?
Or pesto pasta with veg thrown in with the pasta?
Or my cheats broccoli cheese which is broccoli boiled to mush with pasta, whack in a dairy lea triangle. Done!

•Wholemeal pasta (mix with white to get them used to it) with a homemade vegetable sauce. (Canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, courgette, peppers, spinach etc then blitz up so they don't notice)

•Wholegrain fish fingers, no added sugar Heinz beans, peas.

•hot dogs but use vegetarian sausages and some wholemeal rolls.

Can you do the slow cooker/ meal on the night for the next day? So Sunday make roast with leftovers for Monday, Monday make chilli for Tuesday with leftovers for Friday, etc? One night pizza night, jacket spuds are done in 10, fish fingers and new pots. Get in steam bags of veg and frozen peas and green beans- we go through tons of these.

Stir Fry, omelette, pasta, fish (like salmon) with veggies/salad are our top quick meals.

Or a premade pastry sheet with veg and mozzarella on top.

Thanks for this Its really helpful! My wierd kids oddly don't really like pasta! They both like lasagne but no other types of pasta which always throws me a bit.

@peaches the 3yo has been in nursery since 10mo and he has always still had dinner when he's got home just a bit less of it.

Today for example he's had sweet and sour chicken for lunch, sandwiches for his tea (they serve that at 3.30) Then got home and had cottage pie and veg!

For a skinny lad he has a huge appetite.

Yes to ‘supper’ after nursery. If they have had hot lunch, and usually sandwich tea at 4, then another whole meal is overkill, really.
Our favourites: omelette, crumpets with cheese, bits of cucumber, veg sticks etc.
I sometimes prep slow cooker ingredients in big bowl in fridge, then tip into cooker in morning.
I haven’t tried- but baked potato in slow cooker? Add tuna/ beans/ etc.

I used to make a large batch of a tomato sauce (so tomatoes, blitzed veg (mine are fussy), seasoning etc) and divide it in 4 and freeze. Then do a spaghetti Bolognese one week, meatballs another, pasta with sauce and cheese...etc and that's one day a week fine.
Omlette is quick and easy.
Ham and cheese quiche (pre-rolled pastry) and frozen vegetables/chips.
Something with frozen mash (I know I'm lazy, but it's been my biggest revelation!), eh sausages, fish etc.

I asked my nursery to give lo a hot meal around 4.30/5 as he often falls asleep in the car coming home. You could ask about this?

Sorry, cross posted with the disliking pasta comment!

Ah! Well even so, you know they've had a good feed at nursery, don't stress out too much about tea.

Griddle a chicken breast
Jacket potato in microwave
Boil some broccoli

Takes ten minutes

Where possible I make an extra toddler sized portion of whatever we're eating, which is either the next days dinner or goes in the freezer for when I don't have something.

But, when I don't have something and need a quick option it's usually:
Omelette
Beans on toast
Stir fry
Pasta with chopped spinach and peas
Pitta bread, chopped veg
Bagel with cream cheese or peanut butter

Hope that didn't sound patronising. Wasn't meant to be. :)

Would they eat gnocchi? One of mine has completely gone off pasta but loves gnocchi. I serve it with pesto or veggie cheese sauce or tomato sauce that I batch cook and freeze into portions.