To feed my child "ready" meals.

[Hando]

We are not particulary well off, but my one snobbery is food. I would rather go without expensive clothes, holidays etc and make sure we all eat healthy, good quality food.

I always try and cook from scratch (well I try, I am a bit of a disaster in the kitchen). We usually eat things like Spag Bol. Curries, Shepherds pie, Lasagne. Nothing exciting, but homemade. If I buy things like sausages I always buy the best ones (taste the difference in Sainsbos) as the thought of eating 45% meat value sausages makes me gag. Same with mince etc, the best available.

Dd has one quick meal a week when she goes to her GP's for dinner as they always give her a frozen meal - fidh fingers, potato waffles etc. It's only once a week though, so won't do her any harm and it's nice for them to have her for the evening.

Anyway. i have found Annabel Karmels ready meals. These could come in handy for me for when I'm working late and no time to knock up a home cooked meal. Are they really that great? Packaging makes me think they're fabby and nothing like normal ready meals... but my head screams "ewww".

AIBU to believe Annabel Karmel - or is she lying to us all?

I have a new job and am now very busy

Sorry, last line shouldn't be there.

My dd is 5 btw, if that helps the judging! Oh and it'd only be once a week - tops.

Boring AIBU I know, but it's my day off and I'm bored!

Unless she is personally making them in her kitchen at home, I would give them a miss.

Look at the ingredients?

Some things can surprise you.

We have started eating oven chips occasionally after DH made me read the label... "potatoes, vegetable oil, salt". can't say fairer than that!

I bought one once when I was in a rush, and wondered if DS would eat it. He refused, then when I tried it, discovered it was just totally tasteless (it was fish pie, and I don't add salt to anything, so it wasn't that). If you want a ready meal jic, then the Kiddylicious are ok.

Or freeze little containers of spag bol etc (you don't need to make much extra to fill a few of them) and then all you have to do is cook some pasta to go with it - or thai rice noodles are ready in 2 minutes

We cook from scratch as standard too but we gave these a go last week with our two toddlers when we had a curry out a box. We wanted them to have something similar to us and they are not that keen on curry.

Well, we should have given them some curry because they wouldn't eat them. I tasted some and it was ok but it tastes like a ready meal if you know what I mean. And my two normally eat anything!

I would go for batch cooking at the weekend and making your own ready meals. Or something simple and very quick like a pizza with lots of veg or chunky soup and bread.

don't know about annabel karmel's meals, but if you're in a hurry to cook in the evening, why don't you have a cooking session once a week where you make big batches of meals and then freeze them?
Good food magazine usually tells you which recipes are freezable, then you just cook them up on the day you want to eat them.

Ds has these occasionally and seems to be okay. I rarely cook from scratch during the week because ds has school lunch so hopefully has had a filling meal. We tend to do quick things like pasta, beans, scrambled eggs etc.

I kid myself that we only ate M&S ready meals when the DC were small and I was knackered, but it was ok cos it was M&S ready meals.
They weren't they were still shite.
Make batches of food you know he likes and freeze them, cheaper and better for everyone.

I second the freezing your own food option.

Good lord I'm exhausted reading your OP. I think a little bit of relaxing about food is in order. No YANBU to give the kids a ready well once in a while.

we do have oven chips here, as ImSoNotTelling said, they're just spuds and oil. Also covent garden soups, no nasties there.

but otherwise, quick tea here is cheese on toast, scrambled egg and mushrooms, sardines on toast.

And if DD has been at nursery and had a hot meal there, then sandwiches are fine.

sardines on toast a winner round here too. add a couple of tomatoes and hey presto! super healthy treat!

Thanks all. Sassybeat - I am a little exhausted myself too, all this worrying about everything and being an over anxious mummy makes me tired. I do wish i could chill out a little. Damn I still cut my dd's grapes in half for her

Don't bother with the AK ones, Sainsbury's are pretty good, the fish pie is pretty tasty and my DS likes the cottage pie one.

I do usually batch cook myself, but have these in just in case I run out.

yes, do stop that with the grapes

I would second quick and easy meals like cheese on toast and beans on toast, or jacket pot in the microwave etc, rather than the ready meals. I hate the grown up versions too, make me vom. Low salt/sugar beans, ditto sweetcorn, a orange or kiwi and yoghurt or something for pudding and they've done all the major food groups and you've done minimal cooking.

What does your daughter have for lunch?

Does she need a cooked meal every evening?

Egg and oven chips with beans.

this is an easy, reasonably balanced meal.

Buy some small tupperware containers and freeze separate portions of bolognaise etc. Easy then to have her dinner ready quickly. I still do that for DS and he is 8.

Batch cook a basic tomato sauce and do the same. I give that regularly with the addition of some frozen veg and grated cheese on top.

Tortilla 'pizzas' - spread tortilla with tomato sauce, add grated cheese and ham or tuna or anything and pop under grill.

colditz - that egg, oven chips and beans may have to be dinner tonight! DH is away so it's just DS and me and I bought some beans at vast expense yesterday. (We are not in UK so they are MUCH more expensive.)

Baked potatoes, cheese and beans. 'Tis healthy(ish) and a darn sight cheaper than ready meals.

Hando - I think we all go a bit mad with PFBs and food

I think getting it into perspective is a good place to start. Having a healthy diet at home is a brilliant way of giving her the best start that you can. Then what happens when she goes to pre school, or school or gets invited around to a friends house for tea. She may even get invited to a birthday party at 'whispers' McDonalds

Making certain foods and food groups 'bad' or taboo can lead to problems in the furure. Firstly, the old adage that forbidden fruit tastes sweeter. You'll also find lots of info about links between early food issues and problems in later life - obesity and eating disorders etc.

I do think as your little one gets older, you do tend to relax a little about what they eat but if it's a big issue for you now, there is plenty of info out there to help you get a more balanced approach.

Hope that doesn't sound preachy -if it helps I still physically retch every time one of mine is given a melted pig sweet

I would avoid them simply because my daughter nagged me for ages for one of those little dish meals that she has seen on tv. Being the weak pathetic mother I am I gave in and bought one. I have never seen such an awful meal, my daughter took one bite and we ended up throwing the rest out. It would be better to just make up some meals and freeze them on teh weenend or something. (nothing wrong with any of the meals you cook by the way sound lovely to me!)

I work late-ish 2 evenings a week and so my girls (11, 5.9 and 3.3) get speedy meals on those evenings; they have:

ham, scrambled egg, beans and bread and butter.

reloaded potatoes - spuds zapped in the microwave, inside scooped out and mixed with cheese, beans, tuna etc then put back in skins.

pasta with broccoli and bacon (takes 12 minutes to make!)

I also freeze spag bol sauce and zap it whilst pasta is cooking.

I'd rather give them those sorts of meals than a ready meal, but I'm not overly anti ready meals - mine eat fish fingers, pizza etc. I just think they are expensive and don't taste very nice!

My two elder children have a main meal at school so have sandwiches in the evening. Like you life is very very busy at the moment and DH and I often have sandwiches in the evening too!

I buy the Little Dish meals for our 11 month old. She will happily eat one over 2 days and it saves me cooking a cottage pie that my two fussy older kids wouldn't eat and that we would be unlikely to eat.

I see nor harm in it - they taste fine to me! Far better than jarred baby food which all 3 of mine have turned their noses up at and smells like vomit!

Amazed at all these children who will eat sardines! That's impressive - mine would run a mile. Although I don't like sardines either so can't blame them!

I would say a Annabel Karmel meal is more balanced than oven chips.

An Annabel Karmel meal may be more balanced than oven chips alone, but I didn't suggest serving them alone. I suggested serving them with a vegetable/pule (and yes, baked beans are one of your five a day) and a simple none processed protein.