School friend coming for tea.

[pongonperdy]

My DD is five and is having a school friend over after school.

The other childs mother said she could pick her up after tea. From what i hear she is quite a fussy eater.

What do you serve that appeals to most kids.

I would have asked the Mum if there was anything in particular she likes or dislikes.

Also, don't worry if she doesn't eat much. It's not that big a deal. Her Mum can give her extra when she gets home if she's hungry still.

pizza seems to go down well with carrot and cucumber sticks

I usually go for good old spag bol. They love it.

Bits and bobs-ham, cheese, bread, cuke/carrot/pepper sticks, bowl of sweetcorn, assorted dips, including a bowl of ketchup.

Ice cream for afters.

Leave them to it and they'll eat something.

ask the mother, i always do and other mums ask me if ds is going for tea.

I'd be careful with asking-not because the Mums will lie, but because when faced with unfamiliar surroundings, and perhaps the wrong brand of fishfingers, and chips that don't taste like Mums, they still might not eat.

That's why I always went down the route of picnic tea when DD was small and had friends over.

I also left them alone to eat, as I found small children would eat more if I wasn't around, and they were encouraged by DD stuffing her face tucking in.

The accepted fussy child food at that age is a choice of fishfingers or breaded chicken with some kind of processed potato (waffles, oven chips, smiley faces) and peas. And have some white bread handy if you're really worried.

I once had a six year old hide under the table when offered spag Bol!

i would second picnic tea

or jacket potatoes with "choices" - tuna, sweetcorn, chicken grated carrot, cheese, beans etc..
let them help themselves to the choices.
quite often fussy eaters just aren't very hungry and find it stressful at other people's houses. take away the pressure and you might find they eat really well. ime anyway.

yes def not spag bol. DD1 doesn't eat it, DD2 doesn't like it if too tomatoey or if the mince is lumpy

Nooooo, not jacket potatoes. I once had a kid refuse to entertain the idea that potatoes have skin.

Really, just bung a load of stuff down in bowls and let them get on with it.

Every time the DC have friends to play we either have sausages ( we have had toad a few times ), pizza or pasta. Get ingreds in for all if your DD likes them all, then ask the guest which she prefers, cook that and give your DD the others on the following days.

I usually do picnic teas for friends. Various rolls with fillings, crisps, fruit, carrot sticks, jelly, choco mini-rolls. There's one friend who is vegetarian so the rolls contain Dairylea but I find the others will mostly eat anything if you leave them to it. 'Fussy eaters' are often far more fussy at home

I would do pasta. Serve it plain on the table with lots of things they can put on top, eg tomato sauce, grated cheese, tuna mayo, sweetcorn. Then serve cucumber/carrot sticks on the side, maybe cherry tomotoes.

My ds is also 5 and his friend came for tea a couple of weeks ago and her mum warned me that she was a really fussy eater that usually only eats 'pale' foods like chips, bread and butter and cheese.

We all had chip and cheese butties for tea. It was flipping marvellous

I have yet to have a child round that doesn't like hot dogs!

If you haven't time to ask the mum then I would do what DD calls a rainbow platter.

We lay out, on a big platter/plate a selection of colourful food items for them to help themselves too. Things like:

cucumber
sweetcorn
cherry tomatoes
ham or tuna or chicken
cheese
cocktail sausages
crisps or potato wedges
pitta pockets or bread and butter
a dip in the middle

We sometimes do similar for dessert too with fruit and a few sweet/chocolate options in small portions with a fruit or chocolate dip.

I tend to offer a choice. I usually offer a pasta dish or something like baked beans, egg, chips.

If I know the kids have had a hot school meal it tends to be more snacky like Hulababy's ( except not so much choice cos' I ain't as kind as her).

My son's fav school friend is Muslim and I once made chicken and apple patties with veggeies for tea. He went home and told his mother he had "sausages for tea". He never mentioned they were chicken and not pork. She phoned me within a minute of getting home hyperventalating.... I now send her a note of exactly what he ate.

Agree with lots of choices plonked on table and leave them to it.

I tend to do a hot tea as they don't do hot lunches at school, so when I know there is a new DC coming for tea I always have in pizza, pasta, sausages and fish fingers and then ask them what they'd like.

If its a regular visitor then they just have what we're having.

If they've had a hot meal at school I'll go for a buffet of sandwiches, crisps, mini scotch eggs that kind of thing, and then a bun/cupcake for pudding. Party food basically.

If they've had sandwiches at lunchime, then pizza always goes down well, as a cheat I'll buy a cheese and tomato pizza and then offer toppings to add to it, again pudding is usually a bun/cupcake from the nice bakers near work picked up at lunchtime.

Thanks everyone. I think i wll go for pizzas with a choice of toppings and a bowl of carrot sticks etc. Ice cream with choc sauce for pudding.

More stressful than having adults round.