I want to learn to cook healthier meals for my DC and I.

[tortoise]

I need to get healthy and stop feeding my DC and me crap all the time!
I'm not a confident cook and where meat is concerned I worry that I won't cook it properly and we will all be ill!

So I need tips,advice,very easy recipes or recommendations for good easy cookbooks please.
TIA and Happy New Year!

mmmmmmmmmmm....... I just had tuna and pasta. I used to (think i) hate tuna. I love it now! Can't get enough of it!

DS1 likes tinned tuna.I bought some a while ago for him and this saturday he got to make him a tuna sandwich and told me try some! I didn't like it but DD2 tried it and liked.DS2 wouldn't try it!

I was thinking of trying them on tuna fish cakes.iirc there was a recipe in the 2nd dinner lady book.

I'm hard to please aren't I?

tortoise, don't take this personally, but I would hate to have you round for dinner (I wouldn't know what to cook for you

best luck with the receipes though, I love tuna and almost anything else that comes out of the sea !

Sausages,veg and mash??!
Ummmm curry?
Roast?
OK,I probably would be hard to feed!

I am not much of an expert with curries and DH is now on a strict low fat/low cholestrol diet (he has high bp) so curries are out I am afraid !

I could make you some very nice basmati rice though : )

I can't make curry but my Mum makes a great one.Infact why couldn't her cooking skills of been passed to me.
Rice is ok with curry/sweet and sour on it.

Sausages,veg and mash!! You are making me hungry tort!

Need to have gravy with it though

Rice is a great back up for kids and much healthier than chips ; ) DS will eat rice with anything !

Lol HN.Yes,needs gravy!

Ok so i need to buy some rice! I just can't imagine giving them rice with out something on it.

My lot like egg fried rice.
There are a lots different meals but all using rice. Even sausages and veg with rice. It makes a different meal and is still easy to cook. You can cook up enough rice for for 2 days. The first night just have it boiled and then egg fry it the next night. To do egg fried rice, the rice needs to be cooked and left to go cold. Even if its only a little warm it can take on too much of the oil you use to fry it. So it needs to be rally cold before you fry it. You dont have to put egg in it, but it does give it a little more taste.

Hazel - agree rice can be used in masses of different ways. I also put lentils, or carrots or peas, different kinds of beans, any kind of veg. can be chopped up and put into rice. Add small bits of chicken, fish or lamb (if you like lamb : )

I do a sort of Japanese thing, where I add flakes of steamed cod and a few drops of soya sauce into DS's rice.

Also if your kids need fattening up (DS is quite skinny !) add a few drops of olive oil or butter to your rice. Lovely !

Thanks for all the advice so far.
I am going to put rice on the shopping list and see how it goes with them.
They tend to have mash potato the most because i know they will eat it.

I think a lot of DC are put off from rice b/c it has not got any real taste to it. Need to make it taste nice. The other thing that puts them off is picking it up to eat it. They cant really use fingers, it falls of forks to easily so spoons are best to be used for littuns. I got to admit I still use a spoon to eat rice sometimes at home

A trick for rice is to cook in chicken, veg, or beef stock instead of water. It adds a nice flavor.

Another suggestion:

Risotto rice (Tesco do an organic range !!), gets nice and sticky (like mash : ) you can add any kind of stock, veg. or meat, lovely with mushroom.

When ready to serve grate some parmesan or any other kind of hard cheese on top. It is absolutely gorgeous !

All the risotto rice packets have receipe suggestions on them tortoise, the trick is to cook it in a non-stick pan and keep checking, stirring and adding a little stock at a time, otherwise it can burn quite easily.