Quick toddler recipes

[MilchundCookies]

Pretty much every day I cook one meal and we all eat together at 5 p.m. It's always from scratch (well, not Mumsnet-scratch, I use stock cubes and tins of passata, etc.).

But every so often the kids (2.8 yrs and 11mo) and I want to go out in the afternoon, which means we don't get home until nearly dinner time.

What can I give them that's healthy AND quick to make? The only two things I make like that are pasta with cheese/pesto/peas and chicken dippers with couscous/cream cheese/pesto/peas. (I assume the chicken dippers aren't that healthy, but they're probably not going to kill them once in a while.)

I do rice (microwave rice!) peas, sweetcorn and ham all mixed together, sometimes with a pepper chopped up in it if I have time. That's my go to v v speedy toddler tea. The other thing I do is have some toddler portions of mash in the freezer to add to something like roast chicken slices and peas for a mega quick toddler "roast". I also freeze toddler sizes portions when I batch cook.

Quesadillas are a big hit here - just one tortilla in a hot pan, smudge on some tomato purée then grated cheese (and peppers, onions or whatever) add another tortilla and press down, flip over for a mo then cut into slices like a pizza.

Quick teas are eggs here! Boiled or poached with bread/toast, cucumber, tomatoes or potatoes and broccoli. Cut new potatoes small so they cook in same time as eggs. I do the lot in the steamer, eggs in the water at the bottom, potato and broccoli on top.

Those are all really good ideas! DH and I would probably eat them too at a push. Particularly like the idea of doing the whole meal in one steamer.

My friend make s a rice and pesto salad with salmon- stir jar of pesto through cooked short grain rice and add some flaked salmon.

Loving these ideas - bohoec esp freezing toddler portions of mash! Will be doing that...

Bags of frozen veg are my friend, as are portions of frozen fish. Both only take a couple of mins in the microwave from the freezer. While they are cooking, I quickly make a basic cheese sauce. Whole thing takes 5 mins. Often do this when I have some left over new pots in the fridge too.

Similar idea to googietheegg, another super quick one is to halve a bit of pitta bread, spread tomato puree on each and top with grated veg of your choice, followed by cheese. Goes under the grill for about a minute, if that. Just enough to get the cheese to seal in the veg

I always have frozen salmon in the freezer! Normally I do a proper salmon-in-foil-with-soy-and-ginger thing with it, but I could easily defrost one portion in the microwave for the little ones.

Yesterday I made fish cakes for the first time. It was about 30 mins from start to finish, and they didn't exactly hold together in the frying pan, but both DC gobbled them up. Mashed potatoes + tin of tuna + spring onions + frozen peas fried in a bit of oil. I was going to defrost them some green beans to go with it, but they ate them frozen as an apetizer.

Neither like frittata annoyingly, but omelette goes down quite well. DD would happily live off eggs but DS is fussier more selective.

We're going out this afternoon, but I need to feed DH at 5 as well, so I'm about to make cottage pie that will just need reheating.

Great thread with some lovely ideas ! I'm always on the look out for quick meals for my little one!

My dd LOVES gnocchi (this has been a godsend as only takes 2 minutes to cook ) with sauces I have pre made from the freezer or cook quickly there and then, favourites include:

• Jamie Oliver's "full of veg sauce"
• cream cheese and Parmesan, mixed with any green veg we have spinach/leeks/peas etc
• creme fraiche, lemon, peas and salmon (which I microwave for a few mins as a really quick way of cooking it)
• cheese sauce with any chopped up veggies I have at hand
• have also been known to mix little pots of frozen soup such as tomato or butternut squash soup into gnocchi too!

We put all the above sauces with pasta and rice too!

Thise mug shots, with some poached chicken breast and extra peas and sweet corn. Fast as could be!