I have some chicken breasts and half a bottle of white wine...

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You are all just show-offs and I bet you have Mcdonalds every day. I've just - day before yesterday - booked a holiday at Eurodisney - traveling on Eurostar - and I'm cacking myself. Know this isn't the right thread - but should I cancel???

carla, ikwym but no don't have McDonalds much, absolutely love cooking fresh food, as is so much more fun and cheaper than processed, 20 mins a day is nothing to mix things together...Ainsley Harriotts "Low fat meals in minutes" is brilliant...have got a copy from local library...am not posey just love food

Colmans do sme fantastic packs and they make you look like a domestic godess

lavender1 that was supposed to be a !! But how can you enjoy cooking with children? I used to love it, but now, unless it's a ready meal, we don't eat it!! 'Specially as dd1 doesn't eat the same thing as dd2, and neither will eat the same thing as both of us.....

I know Carla, but try that book if you can...thing is a lot of our time with children is doing things like swimming, dancing, arty stuff and then showing them how to cook...we've grown our own tomatoes and potatoes and because we love cooking our children do too try to follow it I guess from your reply that you don't much like cooking...what sort of stuff do you do with your children in the kitchen?

God, lavender1, nothing, 'cos I know unless it's Fairy cakes they wouldn't touch it. Not to say I haven't tried (enormously) in the past, though

You know Carla, mine used to be just like that, then over the last couple of years I have said they can come and help me...involving chopping up vegetables, licking bowl of chocolate bun mixture and putting garlic under chicken skin....have offered them with a treat if they help...like I'll play with them, read a story or go to playground and be their troll, usually works...neither of mine are that helpful but try and make cooking fun, get 2 chairs in, the getto blaster with their choice of music and they get to measure, mix the ingredients, please let me know how you get on, not all children like cooking, they are all different,fingers crossed! as most children like to help

lavender1, they'll be all helpful in the cooking bit .. but just refuse to try the result. How old are yours? And thanks for the encouragement!

No probs Carla, they're 8 1/2 ds ans 7 dd. If you don't mind me asking why don't they try the end result?

You lovely thing - and I really mean that!! They're 4 and 5, and up until 18 months they'd eat anything - then it went horribbly downhill thereafter.

Carla, why not let them watch their ready meals being cooked and then let them get them out on to the plates...then maybe get a couple of beefburgers to start with on a plate and say would anyone like to help me eat these! but first we must cook them...we need rolls like in McDonalds...where does Mummy keep them?..I don't know where the chips are...can you guess as I'm quite forgetfull today and then we can put tomato ketchup all over them...it's a start!

Ainsley Harriott's books are fantastic, so quick.

I am making your garlic/lemon/rosemary chicken tonight lavender. It smells gorgeous