following on from fr chicken bun fight - challenge to suggest cruelty free menu & convert the unbelievers

[ErnestTheBavarian]

I actually agreed with the fr argument.

But I seemd to have read several people ask how it can be done.

Maybe you can educate me, as I guess I have got lazy too.

so can any of you ardent fr'ers - show me a cheap, filling fr/cruelty free menu thats realistically achievable for your average family? Esp with fussy arsed kids?

How do you ensure plenty of iron? How do you get kids to eat lentils if they're used to crap meat?

Anyone take up the challenge?

We have no fussy kids (DS only 8.5 months and currently asleep on lap!), but a typical week's menu for 2 of us would be:

Sun dinner: pot roast brisket with carrts, mash etc
Mon lunch: leftover beef with bread/salad
Mon dinner: stir fried leftover beef with egg fried rice and spinach (mostly rice, everything else is really a garnish/flavour)
Tue lunch: leftovers from freezer or cheese sandwiches
Tue dinner: vegetarian chilli (lots of veg, kidney beans, tinned toms, rice)
Wed lunch: leftovers
Wed dinner: eggs benedict on english muffins, probably something like ice cream or homemade pudding to make it a bigger meal
Thu lunch: cheese sandwiches/freezer leftovers
Thu dinner: boston baked beans - a bit of pork belly with loads and loads of haricot beans, tinned toms, treacle and salt. gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous
Fri lunch: leftover boston baked beans
Fri dinner: something easy like veggie pizza (theoretically homemade, usually from sainsbury's)
Sat lunch: whatever's looking lonely in the fridge
Sat dinner: more boston baked beans, or possibly bolognese or stir fry

We make loads of everything, and bulk everything out with rice/bread/potatoes/pasta, but not lentils as I am very bored of them. We rarely get less than 4 servings out of one meal, usually 6, and we eat for anything from £25-45 a week, so probably average £35.

Appreciate that our nice meals will probably alter a lot when DS is old enough to make his feelings known!!

We also eat a lots of thing like:

• sausages (max 2 each) with lots of mash and seasonal greens
• stuff with mince, like bolognese or shepherds pie, bulked out with extra veg and toms, with pasta or whatever
• soup in winter - we practically live off it

Oh, what riven said - we started cutting down on meat and upping veg bit by bit, so it didn't come as a hideous shock. DP used to be one of those men who doesn't believe it's a meal unless it's got meat, now he'll happily eat veggie several times a week.

Actually, above menu is a bit generous, we probably only have meat 3 times a week, including leftovers.

My DS eats hardly any meat and is perfectly healthy. Baked beans, pasta with a tomato sauce. A pack of FR mince costs about £3 and will easily feed a family of 4 2 meals (chilli one day, bolognaise the next). Shepherds pie, cottage pie. Lamb is free range anyway. Fishcakes are not expensive and easy to make. Baked potatoes with tuna and cheese and sweetcorn. Pitta bread with houmous and felafels.

Just off the top of my head. It's not at all hard.

that's useful, hopefully. Thanks you. Can you be -arsed-- troubles to elaborate on your bbb? sounds delicious. Or maybe I can google it? Is it a 'real' recipe?

Riven, we eat meat, but I'd like to drastically reduce.

Trouble is, with 4 kids, there seems to be nothing, apart from roast chicken (how ironic) and broccoli that all 4 of them like. 2 like cheese, 2 hate it, there is practically nothing where at least 1 or 2 like & other hate. It makes cooking (my least favourite job anyway) a real drag. depressing to lovingly prepare something only to end up with moans (on a good day) or tears.

Yes, tears in response to an hours cooking is not a good feeling. Hense, over the years, I've turned from a varied, competant, good cook, to a very limited one. A vicious circle and no mistake.

I would like to get the kids eating a lot better. Strange really as dh and I both love lentils, vegetables, and him, fish.

Riven we do BLW, and I have fingers crossed that he won't be fussy. Although he's already turning his nose up at all other food if oranges are within sight... He did a luminous orange poo this morning, which was exceptionally delightful.

Ernest DS on lap at the moment, but will post BBB recipe later - it is my addiction at the moment and I am planning to make it tomorrow!

I read something the other week that many toddlers turn their noses up at foods they don't need. No idea if it's true, but the nutritionist said that the average young child will happily eat peas, fish fingers, burgers, potatoes and bananas, because they don't need or want low cal fruit and veg, and actually they can survive pretty well on that kind of diet with only occasional variation. Was very reassuring!

Ok I've had a go at this, as believe it has to be possible. Been trying to work out costs using my supermarket and put together a menu with good amount of organic/free range meat, plus range of veg. It's not accurate down to the penny but here goes. Also assuming some basics in stock and have halved cost of some items to allow for carry over into another week. For family of four:

roast free range chicken with roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli
leftover chicken and mushroom risotto with stock from chicken the next day.
big vat of veg/tomato pasta with cheese for sprinkling.
pizzas made with leftover veg sauce and mozzarella
big vat of lentil soup with sandwiches (organic ham)
shepherds pie using organic mince carrots, celery and lentils to bulk out
remainder of mince with kidney beans and rice and chilli
lunches - baked potatoes, sandwiches with cheese or ham, leftover soup

I make this about £31 of basic ingredients. You'd obviously have other stuff to buy on top of that but HAVE included cost of basics like rice pasta etc.
Main costs - chicken £10, organic ham £2.69, cheese £2.29, organic mince £2.50. Everything else works out under £1

Suspect some people on tighter budget that this though.

We would eat less meat in a typical week - e.g. leftover mince would be frozen for meal the next week.

These menus are great! Unfortunately, most of it I could say either ds or dd wouldn't eat. It's ok for people to say bulk it out with lentils, kidney beans and the like but when one of your children doesn't like what the other does and vice versa, it gets quite challenging!

Oh and it doesn't matter how you start them off as babies as both of mine had the same foods and are totally different now with their tastes! It's pot-luck I tell ye

DD wouldn't eat a lot of that tbh, but she'd still get it! She's still only three though - suspect it'll be a lot harder when her sibling comes along and she's more vocal about what she wants rather than what she doesn't want!

I do too, but when you know there'll be tears it puts you off. Plus, tbh, dh gets really arsey with the kids and can loose his temper if they are moaning or not wanting to eat it or if they don't like it, and then there's so much stress at the dinner table, it's more to avoid trouble bwn dh & kids as much as them not liking it that makes me avoid stuff I know iwll be a battle.

Started off ds on vegan lentil & kidney bean mousaka etc, and that hasn't affected how he's turned out!

OK, have never done it - tell me about bulking mince out with lentils? WHat kind of lentils? Do you cook them 1st etc etc?

Boston baked beans: (recipe copied from very ancient cordon bleu cookery course recipe book of my mother's!)

1lb dried haricot beans (I think I used more like 1 3/4 or 2lbs)
1lb fat pork (belly)
1oz sugar
1 tbsp black treacle
2-3 tsp salt (I think I put in less)
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 pts boiling water (obv add more if you add more beans)
3 large onions
2tsp cumin powder
tinned toms (think I added 4 or 5 normal sized tins)

• Soak beans overnight, drain
• cover with fresh water and simmer till beginning to soften (recipe says 2hrs, I found it took less than 30 mins, may depend on beans?)
• fry onions in a bit of pork fat in a large pan, chuck pork (chopped into 1/2 inch chunks) and beans in
• mix sugar, salt, treacle, pepper and cumin with boiling water and pour on top
• cook for 3-5 hours on low heat
• chop and add toms after an hour or two (no reason why you can't put them in at the beginning that I can see. I think I did)

DP and I seemed to live off this for ages, but I can't remember exactly how many portions we got.

You may want to add a bit more treacle, pepper and cumin if you're upping the beans as much as I did.

sounds wonderful. what can i use instead of treacle? honey?

Hmm... I think treacle adds a slightly rich, less sweet than sugar flavour. I might be inclined to try either dark brown sugar of some description, or honey would probably work in a pinch. You could always try heating some in a hot pan and getting it caramlised/just to the brink of burning, which would give it that ever so slightly less sweet flavour, if you wanted to be hardcore about it.

I too give my children food that I know they might not particularly like but bearing in mind I cook most meals from scratch, it's very disheartening when you've stood there for an age cooking the meal, only for your little darlings to moan and groan and take an hour to eat it. My ds will unwillingly soldier on, hating every lentil, courgette, or whatever, whilst dd will just leave it and go hungry. Sometimes I don't know what to do for the best.

Just wrote out recipe for Baked Beans, thank you, licking my lips in anticipation, when I remembered that DP doesn't like beans
He also hates lentils.

Hmmm... Could you make all the sauce business (tinned toms, treacle, spice etc) and have it with loads of bread? Or pasta? Or rice?

Thank goodness for DP who has yet to turn up his nose at anything I have ever served him, even mackerel, which he later confessed he hates (ah, the early days of a relationship when you actually care what the other thinks )

Obv with the pork as well...

hopegfully, that recipe sounds gorgeous. i don;t eat pork, do yuo reckon it would work with breast of lamb/? it is quite fatty and works well with slow cooking

maybe i cuold use my blackstrap molasses instead of treacle?

Hopefully, my dh eats whatever is put in front of him too! He doesn't dare not to

Ooh, molasses perfect in place of treacle! Original recipe may even have called for molasses - I seem to remember subbing something.

I can't see why lamb would be a problem. TBH I'd happily have it with no meat at all, but I think the meat probably gives the sauce extra flavour.