cheepest,easiest, healthiest meal, ideas wanted for parents aged 16-18 HELP!

[lolliepops]

i have to deliver a session for young parents age 16-18 on healthy food for their children. their children range from 1 month to 3 years. I am doing things like the cost of a jar/tin vs home made purees and want to do a healthy meal vs a happy meal! i need some ideas(inc recipies) for the cheepest healist meal you make. nothing fancey and very simple. Also do any of you have any reccomendations for healthy snacks? or appealing dishes to toddles ie ants on a log(raisns on celery!) ect

get a jar of pesto ..keep it in the fridge

pasta and pesto with mixed vegetables (keep a packet of frozen veg in the freezer and just microwave)

baked potatoes in the microwave rather than packet smash.

tell them they can add fresh tomatoes to a saucepan of baked beans and heat them both together? And boost the protein in a meal by putting some grated cheese on top - just small adjustments like this can make a meal more healty and nutritious.

tinned fish is another good way of adding cheap protein.

sort of agree, stitch, and these will be kids with possibly little experience of eating 'proper' food themselves.

Which is why I think that bulk cooking....if the have access to a freezer, is the key. A week of cooking will do a month of meals IYSWIM

Stitch is right, it's the culture of avoiding the kitchen that is the killer for many parents. Id there any way that you can provide a very basic cookery lesson, ie boil pasta (add frozen peas/corn/mixed veg to boiling pasta water) while pasta is cooking, fry an onion, add tin of tomatoes and cook for 10 mins. I would also say find things that can be done entirely in microwave - baked potato with cheese/tinned tuna and mayo and celery/baked beans, or baked sweet potato with same. These may not be top of the quinoa nutrition tree, but they're a lot better than a happy meal, as are peanut butter sandwiches on brown bread if possible. With a banana for pudding.

pasta with cooked frozen veg, ham cut up into it and some grated cheese on the top (always a fast stand by in our house)

left over meat cut up, tin of tomtoes and cooked pasta, baked in the oven with some cheese sause on top

A good halfway house recipe towards learning to cook / giving the kids something they recognise and will eat:

Sausage casserole:

Cook a pack of sausages under the grill or in the oven
Fry an onion (you can omit this if you are not in the mood to chop onions)
Put in a pan:
1 tin baked beans
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin chickpeas
Pack of frankfurters chopped up

Optional
1 tin kidney beans
Handful frozen corn (or tin of corn)

Chop up cooked sausages and add to other stuff. Cook over medium heat for 20 mins or so. Eat, yummy.

Oh and cous cous! What could be faster and easier than that!, with any sort of sauce that you would have with pasta....I used it with cooked meat when running short of time. Pour over boiling water and wait for 5 minutes, stir in a knob of butter.....no e numbers or preservatives and 'instant food' Dead easy to have in the store cupboards as well

some v speedy things I do for my two (3 and a half and 11 months) involve frozen cod or haddock which can be cooked in microwave in 5 mins, frozen veg - on hob in 5 mins and cheese sauce (make it in bulk and freeze)

v quick and easy pasta saue
chop up some onion and a small amount of garlic - fry in a pan

put some boling water from a kettle in a pan and put tomatoes in for 1 minute - then take their skins off
chop up tomatoes
stick onion, garlic and tomatoes in a big pan. bring to boil then reduce heat to as low as possible for an hour
blitz it with blender
done

serve with pasta and veg

will come back with more - they are our 'fast food'

given a range of options mine will always go for pasta and sauce

andother 'fast food'
creme fraiche and a small dollop of cream cheese added to pasta with tuna and veg of your choice (usuaully frozen brocolli and cauli here) takes about 5 mins to make

Get over the point of a 'rainbow of colours' regarding fruit and veg, so eat some of each colour, Tomatoes, brocolli, peaches, blueberries etc

When you do these sessions can you provide some healthy snacks as examples for the coffee break? Will the children be there too or are the sessions parents only?

I used to work with a similar client group and we ran a variety of parenting sessions (although not just on food) - we used to time the sessions so they finished at lunchtime and the families used to stay on for a simple, healthy lunch such as baked potatoes, cheese and beans.

i'd agree that sitting down together to eat regularly is as important as what you give them.

usual meals in our house:

toasted cheese in the microwave (slice bread, slices cheese, 2 mins/900w) and froz peas (cooked separately)

pasta and peas, tomato sauce, cheese

beans on toast

stews - onion, a small amount of meat, carrots, green veg, beans or lentils, diced potatoes (I leave the skin on) and stock cube.

fish in the microwave - takes about 3 mins

scrambled egg on toast

baked potatoes with a variety of stuff

baked apples: remove core, fill with sugar, 20 - 30 mins in the oven - good if you're doing baked potatoes too

The rainbow is a good one. Hidden veg and all that is good but i hope ds will grow up to think a plate looks wrong without some green on it.

sorry i've just remembered that the reason i toast cheese in the microwave is that we have a microwave/grill! duh x many, sorry

bump

Thought of another great one, fritatta.....a great way to encorporate lots of veg. They can eat it hot or cold.

wow thanxs loads of food for thought i will read this propley once i have fed my own child!

Would finding out that their children would be calmer and easier to manage if it wasn't full of E numbers help?

Maybe it would be worth talking about healthier options in fast food places. For a lot of teenage parents these are cheap places to meet friends so they will want to go there. Children could have fish fingers, fruit bag and milk instead of burger, chips and coke for example.

toasted sandwiches! can do almost anything in those (choc & banana has fruit in!)

i always throw a handful of red lentils in pasta sauces, soups etc - they help thicken it up and are v nutritious. dont buy them from english supermarket if you can help it, if you have an indian supermarket close by they are 1/4 of the price.

frozen cubes of spinach are fab, not v expensive and dont taste very strong, you can put them in with baked beans or anything really to bump up the veg content. i get them from sainburys and the spinach is so finely chopped i tell my kids its just herbs like you get on pizza and they believe me.

like the spinage herbs]wink]

Lolliepops, I know this isn't what you've asked, but what about contacting Organix? They might be able to send you some freebies. The company is local to me and we used to get them at our under one's group. They do a really good poster of what constitutes 5 a day for littlies of different age groups.

do they have a website? sounds a very good idea