Stuck in a rut with toddler's diet

[TickledOnion]

Despite promising myself that I wouldn't feed my DD any rubbish and despite being a very competent cook, I have found myself trapped in a fish finger, chips, beans, pasta with tomato sauce, pizza and tuna sandwich rut with my 2yo dd's meals.

The main problem is that I don't plan ahead so usually have 20 mins to whip something up that she won't reject. I feel particularly guilty as I often cook nice food for DH and me once DD has gone to bed.

I was thinking of making a batch of cottage pie, but don't know what to freeze it in that's small enough for single toddler portions. What other things do you make for your toddlers that they will actually eat? Either for the freezer or for quick meals?

Why don't you save a portion of whatever you and dh have for her dinner the next day ?

I wouldn't worry. Drop the chips, the rest sounds fine: try and get some fish fingers with (wild, sustainable) salmon in them for omega oils, and get a bit of fruit/veg in her if you can - sweetcorn is great for this - but otherwise, really, I wouldn't worry too much. Cut yourself some slack. Two year olds are maddening enough without having to watch them reject something nice you've cooked.

Second CMOT. I usually cook the adult evening meal without salt, bung a toddler-sized portion in the fridge and wave it under DS's nose the next day.

All the food I like eating is madly un-toddler friendly. V boring, toddlers, in their eating habits, I found.

(Yes I know everyone else on MN has two year olds who eat oysters. I didn't. I now have a 10 year old and an eight year old who eat Human Food. They have evolved, though, over the years.)

I generally have a stash of home made pasta sauces in the freezer for really quick meals. Bolognaise, hidden veg sauce etc. Another favourite pasta sauce is a blob of philly, some chopped ham and some peas. Or you could substitute the ham for smoked salmon (I keep slices in the freezer, just peel one off with a knife when you need to use it) and teeny bits of broccoli. Carbonara sauce is really quick too, just add some cream, chopped ham (or pancetta if you want to be really authentic) and grated cheese to cooked pasta and stir all together. I sometimes add cold chopped chicken to this sauce or mushrooms finely chopped - everything has to be chopped in to miniscule pieces to get past ds!

I also freeze portions of risotto etc when I'm making it for dh, or kedgeree (dd loves it) I've got a load of those little plastic pots that hold enough for one portion of sauce or risotto. I bought some at Jojomaman ages ago when I had cash but Boots do similar sets.

I also freeze fishcakes, home made chicken nuggets, home made fishy nuggets (portions of chicken/fish dipped in beaten egg and then some breadcrumbs). I cook them straight from frozen just making sure they're thoroughly cooked through.

Another favourite are homemade pizzas with muffins as the base. I use a bit of tomato pasta sauce as the topping, add some ham, sweetcorn and grated cheese, et voila. Though if I'm really rushed I buy those small pizzas from the supermarket and bung a load more toppings on top. They're always a bit stingy with toppings.

I'm not talking about the likes of foie gras madras

I don't think she'll eat what we eat. DH and I love veg but DD rejects anything green. I will give it a go though depending on what we are having as it would save time and would also mean that DH and I eat less which can only be a good thing.

Thanks for the encouragement motherinferior, I used to try much harder but it was disheartening when she rejected my homemade chicken nuggets in favour of shop bought ones. (We actually did a little experiment and the results were pretty unambiguous.)

Also, as well as seconding all the excellent advice above (I feel that guilt about us having nice stuff OP), my fusspots had most of their best nutrition from my plate. Omelets full of small chopped veg, couscous and roast veg.... were on my plate, ostensibly for my consumption, but both DS's would eat masses of that stuff because there was no pressure (visible anyway).

In some nutrition book, it said something like "who care's if you think your toddler's diet is boring? If it is balanced and they will eat it, that's fine". Chewable vitamins and smoothies should help you get through the worst times.

HTH, sounds like you are doing well in what is a typical difficult toddler situation.

Sweetcorn is your friend. Ditto bananas. They are not green, either

ah, nothing green. Ok, cauliflower cheese goes down well chez nous, and it freezes well. Nice with fish fingers.

Thanks for the ideas. I like the smoked salmon and philly pasta one, headfairy, and could probably mash in some cauliflower for veg.

We originally did BLW when DD was first weaned and I've found it hard to get my head round the fact that the smaller the meat and veg is chopped or mushed, the more likely she is to eat it.

Yeah, I battled for years to get ds to eat some meat (he's 4). He plain refused everything unless it was breaded (I do some turkey escalopes sometimes) until someone on here suggested that the texture of meat was putting him off. I'm probably piling up problems for later but I get round the meat issue by chopping it up until it's absolutely tiny. The smoked salmon is practically grated by the time I've finished with it. Ditto the ham and chicken. But at least he's eating some meat.

DD seems funny about textures too. Sometimes she'll chew something quite happily and then spit it out rather than swallow it.
And often she'll reject something that I have made that I know she would happily eat for her grandma.

I don't think it's bad to be in a rut per se, as toddlers do seem to like routine. Maybe aim to include one or two things a week that are new, perhaps at the weekend when you can cook for the whole family, so it hasn't gone to waste.

My toddler ds eats most savoury basics, but he's still young so could change This week we've/he's had:
quick things:
pan fried chicken breast fillets (breasts sliced very thinly) with rice and green veg (he would eat green veg till the cows come home, I have to ration it
tinned sardines (whole) with pasta spirals and peas
boiled egg and soldiers
salmon with mashed potatoes and peas

Freezables:
ham and lentil soup
goulash
minestrone soup

My DC are of the basic/limited (due to allergies) variety too but these are some v quick meals they like, that don't make me feel too guilty:

Spaghetti and meatballs - batch make/freeze the tomato sauce, shop bought meatballs (they like Tesco swedish meatballs)

Chicken noodle stir fry - Tesco do a big bag of frozen chicken pieces so you just tip out what you need, stir fry with a few bits of veg (you never know, she might eat them) and noodles

Fish cakes (shop bought, so kill me) with cauli cheese and sweetcorn on the cob

OP, I have thought about starting this very thread a few times. Pizza, pasta, fishfingers, chicken fingers, check, check, check, check. You didn't mention sausages, some mistake surely?

We also started with BLW, and the only way I could find to make it work was by having our main meal at lunch. In theory this was supposed to mean that DS and I both got a healthy, wholesome, balanced meal. In practice, it just means that I also survive on pizza, pasta, fishfingers...

DS goes on and off things, but I've found spag bol is reliable (he likes mushrooms, so I put a lot of them in), and also shepherd's pie. We also do an easy oven-cooked risotto (doubtless not authentic, but it's EASY) with mushrooms, tomatoes and plenty of parmesan. He does like his roasted veggies.

My favourite quick pasta meal is king prawns and tomatoes. Just quarter loads of tomatoes and cook them until a bit mushy, then add a bit of flavouring (I use garlic, black pepper and fennel seeds - which DS picks out) and the prawns, simmer for a couple of minutes and it's ready. DS loves prawns, so it's a winner in our house.

I found that DS was not keen on chicken breast, but will really go for chicken off the bone (i.e. leg), and ate a whole chicken thigh fillet that I put in a casserole the other day (with lots of sweet potato, tomatoes and mushrooms).

Hope some of these ideas might work for your DD. Let me know if you want anything more by way of recipe details.

I forgot fajitas. DS loves the tortillas, the prawns and the sour cream. If we're really lucky he even eats the peppers and onions.

He also enjoys noodles, although prefers eating mine at Wagamamas to anything we cook at home.

I find my kids like
Meatballs and tomato sauce with pasta. I grate carrots and courgettes into the sauce)
Chicken fajitas ( onion and papers picked out but I add a bit of tinned sweet corn instead)
Chicken pie (from jamies 30 minute meals but with extra veg )
Creamy sauce pasta dishes with peas
Homemade burgers with potato wedges
Special egg fried rice with whatever's in the fridge or freezer. So sometimes peas, sweetcorn , ham chicken.
They also like veg cous cous and chicken thighs