Family meal ideas please!

[Orlea]

My parents and sister-in-law, complete with two kids (girl of 4 and boy of 19 months) are coming for Christmas and I'm a bit panicked about what food to serve!

I don't have a lot of cold storage - very small fridge and freezer, which will be 80% full with Christmas dinner stuff, so need ideas for meals which don't need cold storage or to go to the shops every day. I also have quite a small oven, so can't do more than e.g. two pizzas at a time (otherwise that would be our menu for the full week, believe me!).

I also don't have kids so no clue about what they do/don't eat (have asked, but was told 'whatever we're having'), and my previous 'mass' catering experiences were for a grand total of 4 adults, so 5 adults plus two kids is a bit scary as I am not a great cook - I'm more of a skilled jar-opener! Christmas dinner is going to be my big Cooking Event anyway, so looking for ideas which are easy to do in bulk, quick, not technically-challenging (no specialist equipment or ingredients!) and are also child-friendly as I think cooking more than one meal at once will give me heart failure.

I also have slightly fussy eaters to deal with - my parents like their food well-cooked, so no nice rare roast meats, and opinions vary on fish... Although the kids 'eat anything', I've seen for myself that this isn't the case, so I need easy contingency food for when they refuse to eat whatever I've made! Is cereal ok for this? Seriously?

DH will be around to help so I'm not flying solo, but he tends to get a bit fancy/creative so I'm not sure the kids or my parents will actually eat whatever he invents, so I need to make him stick to a set menu.

So far, my ideas are: lasagne, tuna pasta bake (kids' favourite so can do this twice??), sausage and mash, spag bol (I know it's the same as lasagne!) and then I have to resort to takeaways - Chinese and chippy. Can anyone suggest anything else please???

Something similar to a risotto, basically rice with veg and or meat/fish in it, you make a huge pan and just dish it out. You can use water or stock to cook the rice. I use a mix of water and orange juice with smoked fish.

Beans on toast.

Get a baking tray and a packet of chicken wings. Cut the wings in 3. Mix honey, OJ salt pepper and any spices/herbs you like and pour over the chicken. Stick in the oven for 30 mins and serve with rice (if you have done veg risotto the day before use that.

Shepherds pie. You can do it more than once and instead of mashed potato use mashed sweet potato/swede/butternut squash.

If someone else is cooking for me & my DC I'm happy just because I don't have to cook yet another meal One of mine is a fussy eater but I try not to pander to it. If he really doesn't eat a thing he can have some crackers or some cereal before bed however I won't tell him that! So your ideas of lasagne etc are all good & to add to that maybe a big ham, sausages &/or chicken drumsticks (all hot or cold), jacket potatoes? On stand by, fish fingers, chips, crackers & cheese, beans/chese on toast, soup, tuna wraps, pasta, pasta, pasta? Those part baked bread rolls warmed with butter & cheese, ham etc on the side? Good luck!

Anything that it a one pot meal:

shepherds pie
moussaka
chunky veg soup and bread rolls
stuffed peppers (with rice)
Mexican wraps with guacamole chilli beans and salsa
Stir fry with rice/noodles
potatoes dauphinoise
Baked or boiled ham and oven chips with peas
Frozen breaded cod and oven chips mushy peas
Beef stew with dumplings
Ready made pancakes and stuff with savoury fillings (cheese and mushroom) with tomato sauce
rice pudding with stewed apples
salmon plait/pie made with shop bought puff pastry
Oven roasted veg and bulghar or rice

Aunt Bessie's is your helper for yorkies,
It might help to write out a meal plan