Healthy convenience foods for toddler

[Poosnu]

I wonder if any of you could recommend some reasonably healthy convenience foods that I could feed my DD (13mo) on an occasional basis - for main meals?

Everything I've given her so far has pretty much been made from scratch, but I'm going back to work in a couple of weeks and won't have so much time on my hands.

Thanks in advance.

Could you batch cook and freeze? I always used to have a couple bags of chilli, bolognaise and casserole in the freezer at that age so if I couldn't be bothered to cook I had something ready also if you make a shepherds pie you could do a couple in little ramakins and freeze until needed. To be honest it a lot quicker than heating up the oven to cook fishfingers and chips.

I made fish cakes last night (mashed potato, tinned salmon and spring onion). These can be frozen so I'm planning to make a batch of them!

Yy to small portions of chilli etc - I've been freezing them in a silicon muffin mold, easy to pop out and put in a freezer bag to save space.

If not batch cooking, fresh pasta (ravioli etc) is on my list too.

Frozen vegetable fingers
Steamed veg
Sweet corn
Frozen peas
Bolognese made in advance
Slow cookers are a god send.
Scrambled egg with beans or mushrooms or flaked mackerel (though my ds2 doesn't like egg)
The occasional toasted sandwich
Tuna pasta
Mackerel and pasta

And quick puddings like bananas and custard, yoghurts, chopped fruit, rice pudding

Children seem to love pasta and pesto. Using fresh pasta and pesto from a jar, sweetcorn from a tin and some leftover chicken or fish this is ready in 5 minutes.

Yy to all these suggestions. We also buy Little Dish ready meals or Annabel Karmel one - microwave from frozen.

I almost never cook in evening. We take something out of freezer and give him that. I do freeze ds portions of mash etc so that I'm not always giving his his frozen dinner with toast or couscous.

And ds loves cappelletti with pesto. Takes 3 minutes.

Also just got a baby pizza from marks which we might try one day but its less convenient really and probably not as good for him.

One last thing - a lot of the time when I'm cooking for me and dh or whatever, I will make extra and freeze it for ds so I don't have to do as much batch cooking. Eg yesterday I was cooking butternut for dh and me and I cooked extra and mashed it for ds and froze it so he's got that to have with fish fingers or something. If I'd had more energy I would have turned it into a butternut risotto for him while I was cooking our dinner. I do that a lot - use similar ingredients to what we are having and create something for him simultaneously.

I also freeze random extra things eg cheese sauce. So I have fish fillets in freezer I can poach from frozen and mix them up with the sauce and some cooked frozen peas.

Hi Poosnu,
I agree with those comments above - scrambled eggs are cooked often here, but what we have found a revolution in our house are Little Dish - I use them about once/twice a week when everyone is home late and extra hungry! They taste (and are) freshly prepared, healthy and low in salt. They are good portions and can be cooked from frozen, yippee!
My two (5 year old and 17mth old both love the Meatballs, but my son's favourite is the Fish Pie) - they are on offer at the moment in Sainsbury's and Little Dish have a deal on too - if you buy two from Sainsbury's and send in a photo of your receipt then you get a free meal!
I have found their website really user friendly too. www.littledish.co.uk
Anyway, enough of my preaching, good luck with going back to work. I hope you get back into a new routine again soon!

Asda sell mini meals in a pack of 3 for little kids, they are a perfect size and taste lovely. :)

They're from a range called "Great Stuff", there's a couple of different types of packs and I think they taste better and are cheaper than the little dish meals. Here