CM CLUB:What do you feed your mindees'?

[StrawberrySnowflakes]

can i have some new ideas and recipes please?

I do curry's,spag bols,cottage pie,cornbeef stews,lasagne,chilli's-I always cook big pot foods as it is so much easier and cost effective.
On occassion I may do pizza/chicken nuggets/fishcakes but not often as that is a lot more expensive!

i like quick and easy recipes (i use 1 cal spray oil for frying)

today i did veg soup
carrots, onions, peppers all fryed up add 3 pints veg stock and rice bring to boil and simmer

i do a quick pasta dish to fry some bacon while boiling some pasta add bacon to cooked pasta and pour in a tin of chicken condenced soup

chicken and butter bean cassarole
4 red onions, 2 celery, 1 garlic clove, 6 leeks, 3 pints chicken stock, soy sauce, tinned tomatoes, 2 carrots, 400g butter beans, 4 chiken breast. serve with rice
fry onions and garlic
add celery, pepper and leeks
add soy, stock, tomatoes bring to boil
add carrots, beans and chicken
simmer for 1 hour

cod in butter sauce are good

boiled egg and soilders

couscous

baked potato with vartity of toppings (beans, tuna, cheese, ham, prawns

oh and BTW Ofsted lady said dont give them dessert as its full of sugar

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Wow, how do you lot do it?

I tell the parents I provide SIMPLE meals (but healthy) - I don't like to use the oven or do too much on the hob as our kitchen is open plan. I do beans on toast, baked potato (microwave), tuna, cheese, fruit, cucumber, carrot sticks, packets of raisins, fromage frais, jelly, different types of bread, crackers, hard boiled egg, sweetcorn, milk, diluted pure fruit juices, etc, etc. - anything that I can put together quickly and gives the right balance of food groups. If I've got children who will actually eat 'proper meals' I save some from the night before.

In school hols. I ask the older ones to bring a packed lunch.

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Today Braised steak with mashed pots, broccoli, peas, carrots, Plain Fromage frais and stewed plums

Tuesday Undyed smoked haddock and cod loin fish pie with sweet potato mash, green beans, savoy cabbage, Fresh fruit

Wednesday Roast chicken dinner, usual 3 or 4 veg and roasted new baby pots. Plain youghurt with raspberries

Thursday Lamb casserole, with parsnips, carrots, broccoli and potatoes. Fresh fruit salad - melon, grapoes, nectarine, blueberries

Friday Salmon with pasta and spinach and courgettes sticks
baked apples with sultanas and treat of ice ceam

Snacks, bread sticks with humous, rice crackers, cherry tomatoes, cheddar chunks, apple slices, dried apricots, pitta with dips.

Water only or milk if preferred.

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shosha - how do u make fish pie - fancy doing that

All my mindees parents provide packed lunches!

my version of fish pie is a can of tuna with peas mixed in, add a little milk and corn flour then put mashed poptato on the top and cook for 40 mins

so what do you avoid giving them, like the plague????
my mindees always want sandwhiches which we do have once/twice a wek but am beginning to feel inadequate now

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I batch cook too. Lasagne - chicken and bacon/beef, fish pie, couscous, sausage casserole, bolognese, macaroni cheese with ham, cottage pie.

I struggle a bit with lunches. I have 2 toddlers who only really like pitta bread with marmite for lunch. I tried a cheese snadwich the other day with one of them and he ate it, then tried it a few days later with both of them and neither would touch the cheese! I have managed to convince them that soup is good but could do with more lunchtime meal ideas. Jacket pots sound like a good idea but take quite a while and I'm not usually organised enough to get them ready in time for lunch!

lisalisa, it is mostly what we have had the night before, I have never cooked any differently. I use my combination microwave to do a roast chicken, it takes 35 mins for a beautiful crisp and moist 2 kg chicken.It is all simple stuff, easily made in advance, make one freeze one

I don't cook desserts as a rule, only apples and plums because of th fruit trees in the garden, so I buy hiuge pots of plain yog and fromage frais, I use the greengrocer for fruit, I buty my meat from the farm 5 min away and the mindies love going there each week, same as specialist fish shop, on a farm site, he lets the children handle the fish.

My own children are away in France and canada, but they cook properly for themselves too, I got a text from DS the other night - he's a sjki instructor in Canada, I'm cooking sea bass! he's obviously just got paid!

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alibubbles can I & my dd come for tea? It all sounds very yummy

alibubbles , where in Canada is your son?, my cousin is also ski instructer, she's in Banff??

oh and it was lunch's i was stuck on..i only have one for dinner, but all are v.helpful

lisalisa, my own two have always loved vegetables, so we always have a large selection. DS wouldn't eat meat but ate cabbage, he'd pile all his veg into a yorkshire pud and cover it in gravy. he misses roast dinners the most.

I buy carefully, sometimes I visit sainsburys on a wednesday night as they have amazing bargains. I bought a huge forerib of aberdeen angus beef off the butcher counter as it was reduced from £22.99 a kilo to £9.99, so I bought the whole piece weighing 2.5 kilos! Likewise 2 kilos of haddock and 1 of cod loin.

They often reduce their undyed smoked haddock, so I buy the whole lot and freeze it. It is not going off, they have just "undersold and over bought" according to the assistant. My mother used to cook this for us when a child, with spinach and poached eggs and I love it!

With all my mindies, I have cooked from scratch and they are all good eaters. One of them said at my Ofsted inspection, "this is a yummy lunch" Lamb casserole, using neck of lamb fillet, very cheap, with pasrsnips, again sweet potato chopped and cooked in the gravy.

strawberrysnowflakes, he is in Paanorama, not far from Banff, he goes to Banff on days off, but he went heli skiing today, paid for on my credit card! Loved it so much he had to do 4 trips! He is 19 and a Level 2 instructor, about to do level 3.

I've never eaten a main meal at lunch time and my mindees all have tea/dinner with their families in the evening.
So they either have a packed lunch from home or we have crackers, cheese,eggs, quorn, bread, any salad they'll eat, fromage frais, yoghurt, fruit in any combination.
They have fruit and toast for snacks and a biscuit or a little choc in the afternoon.
I've tried soup a few times but they don't seem too keen. However, on this cold winter's day I'm just off to do some veg and try again.

I've never eaten a main meal at lunch time and my mindees all have tea/dinner with their families in the evening.
So they either have a packed lunch from home or we have crackers, cheese,eggs, quorn, bread, any salad they'll eat, fromage frais, yoghurt, fruit in any combination.
They have fruit and toast for snacks and a biscuit or a little choc in the afternoon.
I've tried soup a few times but they don't seem too keen. However, on this cold winter's day I'm just off to do some veg and try again.