My mum only used to cook me chips & quick things for my brother and me,can you help me feed my own daughter better please?

[AliQ]

Hi its my first time on here, I wondered if anyone could help me please. I was brought up by my single Mum and she worked alot, my brother and me were only really fed stuff like chips, beans, eggs, nuggets and stuff like that. I didnt think much of it at the time but now I have a little girl and I dont really know where to start and how to cook things. I can't ask my mum, and I dont want to ask my mates as they are young like me and I dont think they would know either. She will be 2 next month and so far I give her things like cereal for breakfast, tin of tuna & pasta (tomatoe sauce) for lunch and then maybe things like spagetti, or potatoes and peas with a piece of chicken for our tea. I worry all i know what to cook is pasta with tomatos and I do give her fruit, but is there easy ways to cook different things for her i dont know where to start and what food to put with with things for her. I just want to be able to cook good food for her. thanks you if i get any replies. I dont get on the internet often but I will print off any ideas as and when I am able to.

I think what you are giving her sounds fairly healthy but you think it is lacking in variety. What about jacket potoes with cheese and beans for lunch? Or could you cook an omelette or scrambled eggs? Could you make a sausage casserole or a stew? They are quite easy really.

hello - sounds like you are doing a pretty good job so far. Pasta is always a safe bet. You can do it with just a teaspoon or so of pesto stirred in and some grated cheese on top - very quick and easy and your dd will love it. I am sure others will come along with some nice recipes so keep watch.

There are a lot of good recipe books for cooking for babies and children. I have an Annable Karmel one called Feeding Your Baby and Toddler. It's got a lot of varied stuff in it

sheperds pie?
spaghetti bolognaise?

Beans on toast can be nutritious. Scrambled eggs/omlette - a good way to sneak veggies in, too, jacket potatoes, roast chicken.

You can make your own chips pretty easily and cheaply in the oven.

Just slice the potatoes into wedges or rounds. Spray or brush some oil onto a baking sheet and sprinkle a little seasoning over the oil. Lay the potato wedges of slices over the oil. Then spray or brush another layer of oil on the top of the wedges or slices.

Bake in the oven at about 180 until golden at the edges.

You can even sprinkle some grated cheese over the tops of the potatoes just before they are cooked until the cheese goes all melty.

Yoghurt is a good choice. You can buy natural yoghurt and put in some canned fruit and a little honey to sweeten it.

The Dinner Lady is full of easy recipes and I strongly recommend to new cooks (as well as experienced ones)

this one

yes i have thaat Dinner Lady book like Twig

recipes are DEAD easy with nice short ingredient lists

highly recommended

Good housekeeping does cookbooks with simple easy to follow recipes. Lots of casseroles and things. Also try buying the magazine monthly, they always have loads of new recipes. There is also an excellent book called Yummy , its about nutrition for kids. I can't remember the authors name but it was very informative.

mince with rice, onion and peas.

just fry up a chopped onion, chuck in the mince.

boil the rice with frozen peas.

mix.

season with a little italian seasoning or pepper.

fry up a cut up onion and a couple of peppers.

add some diced chicken or even a can of tuna.

then add a can of chopped tomatoes.

serve over rice.

Hi AliQ,
I will try and think of some ideas that work with my dcs.

Cous cous is quick, cheap and seems popular. You can get it in most supermarkets. So you can add veg or cooked meat to it, and you cookit by pouring boiling water over it, and leaving then stirring in.

As some one else says, pasta is always good. You do a tuna one, which is great. You could also try making a spagetti bolegnese, and then you can freeze a big batch and thaw out for you and your dd as you go.
Or mix in some butter, peas and parmesan/cheddar cheese

Shephards pie is nice. You could buy a joint of lamb and roast it on Sunday, with the usual veg and roast potatoes. Then on monday you can cut up left over lamb into pieces, and add it to a casserole pot with fried onions, some carrots, leeks, celery (what ever you have really). Then mix it all up with some lamb stock (knorr stock cubes are pretty good) OXO cubes not so nice. Then mash some potato and put it onto of the meat mixture and put it in the oven for 25 minutes at 200.

I am a great lover of soups, for the fact that they are usually very good for you, and cheap. I think they are nice for lunch, but also a filling tea with some nice bread and some grated chees on top.

Potato Soup:

3 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 onion
1 clove of garlic

Saute in a big pan, then add veg stock to cover and a sprinkle of paprika if you have it. when the veg is soft,(about 20 mins) mash it up and add more milk to thin it to how you like it.

Dd loves soup and bread. I can liquidise almost anything and call it soup and she'll eat it. Her favourite is soup from the carcass of a roast chicken. I just boil it up for 20 mins, remove the bones, add onion, potato, cabbage, broccoli, brussels, simmer for another half hour or so, then liquidise. She wolfs it down.

She likes fish too, just a piece of cod or salmon, dot of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice and cooked in the oven for about 20 mins. She has mashed potato, peas and sweetcorn with that.

Get a chicken breast fillet. Wrap in cling film and bash with a rolling pin until much thinner. Dip in beaten egg then undyed breadcrumbs(you could mix some grated parmesan in with the breadcrumbs for a bit of extra flavour - spread them out on a plate) fry gently in olive oil for about 5 to 6 mins (check the thickest part is cooked through before serving - the meat should be white and moist but not pink). Cut into slices and serve with chips or new pots, and veg. Or you could cut the chicken into strips before egging and breadcrumbing and bake in the oven on an oiled baking sheet = home made chicken goujons.

If I want a really quick meal then I cook a shop-bought margherita pizza (best quality I can afford) and serve it with carrot sticks, cucumber, cherry tomatoes. MY DS loves celery!!! and both love black olives and raw red, yellow and orange peppers

I cook a piece of salmon fillet in the oven for them (wrapped in tin foil with a dot of butter on the top). Takes about 20 mins at 180 deg.

Nothing wrong with fish fingers. But now my children are older I usually buy them a breaded fish fillet, like cod or haddock, from the fresh fish section in the supermarket. You get more fish and less breadcrumbs that way. Try serving with mash or new potatoes instead of chips. Steamed green beans, sweetcorn - makes a change from peas.

Jacket potatoes with cheese, some sliced ham and raw vegetables as above - another firm favourite.

TBH I only really cook a big complicated meal like a roast or a casserole at the weekends so most of the meals I serve my children are relatively quick, but they really enjoy their food and I think they eat pretty healthily 95% of the time. Fast food doesn't have to be junk food.

Excellent post, am so pleased for your daughter and you that you are interested in cooking. Its never too late. And honestly not difficult!

I started cooking with my daughter when she was that age. It can be fun to discover things together. I started off with:

SCONES

2 Cups of Flour
4 Teaspoons of baking powder
Pinch of Salt
50 grams of butter
2/3 cup of milk (or thereabouts)

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Cut the butter into chunks and rub it into the flour (this is the bit 2 year olds love) When the mixture looks a bit like breadcrumbs i.e. all the butter is rubbed in, add the milk. For some reason, mixing it with a table knife works best at this point, don't ask me why.

You should have a reasonably sticky dough which you then turn out onto a floured surface and thump and pat into shape (another toddler favourite) Cut or mould into shapes and bake at 220 degrees C for 12-15 minutes.

You can add a desertspoon of sugar and sultanas or rasins for sweet scones or some grated cheese for savoury. Add before the milk stage.

My other standby is:
FRITTERS

Make a batter by whisking an egg with about half a cup or less of flour, a pinch of baking powder and some milk. The mixture needs to be about the same consistency as thick pouring cream. Don't worry about exact proportions of flour and milk, its a fairly forgiving recipe.

To this batter add one, some or any of the following:
Can of sweetcorn
Chopped raw spinach
Grated carrot
mushrooms
mashed potato
left over chopped meat
Any leftovers really. (I make this really successfully with left over curry)
Basically any veg that needs little or no cooking.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and drop spoonfuls of the mixture in. Cook for a few minutes then turn over and cook the other side.

These are a family favourite as it's a great way of using up left overs, it's finger food and therefore good for small hands, you can endlessly tweak with the recipe until you find a mix you like (I once caught dh giving the sluglet black pudding and spinach fritters and she was wolfing them down) and they can be equally good cold with tomato sauce on top.

One final quick and easy recipe.

I keep pitta breads in the freezer. Fish one out, turn on the grill, spread a thin layer of tomato pase over it, cut up a few bits of pepper/tomato/leftover dinner and allow your daughter to arrange it on top. Add some thinly sliced or grated cheese, pop under the grill for a minute ot melt in and hey presto instant pizza.

i love you lot

Good on you for wanting better for your daughter (and yourself!). What kind of food do you like to eat?

Hi there. Welcome. Regarding fruit....my son eats a lot of fruit but on days when he doesn't seem to want o I put a little bit of cream on it (just a splash!) and this seems to do the trick. hope this helps

Very quick egg fried rice:

You'll need some boiled up rice first!

Heat 1sp oil in a pan and stir fry 50g peas, 2 sliced spring onions and the rice for about 4-5 minutes. Beat an egg in a bowl with a teaspoon of soy sauce. Stir into the rice until the egg is cooked and scrambled.

I do mini pizzas like slugs only I use muffins sliced in two.

I have a fab book called Superfoods by Annabel Karmel and is is full of easy family recipes. I like it because there are lots of pictures and it explains why the foods are good ie what benefits there are. I really enjoy using it. She does a great fish pie that we all polish off.
Our normal meals are Shepherds/Cottage Pie, Spag bol, Fish Pie, Casseroles (done in the slow cooker so all cooked in the morning), Ommelettes and homemade chips, Sausages and veggies, Rattatouie and pasta, Homemade pizza's, roast chicken and veggies. Friday fave is fishfingers, peas and homemade chips so dh and I can have a curry later on.
Have fun with it . You will do great.

Hi, glad you want to feed your dd better food.
I would say try to avoid frying and if you do, do it with not much oil in a frying pan rather than use a deep fat fryer. Olive oil is the only vegetable oil that is still good for you when heated.
Try steaming too- you can get little round bamboo boxes with lids for steaming in chinese supermarkets (some charity shops that have new stuff sell them sometimes- try Oxfam or Shelter). You just chop everything up the same size and pop it in and sit it over a pan with water, about half full or less and boil. The water shouldn't touch the food just the steam - careful when you take the lid off, steam is hotter than boiling water! It works best with vegetables. If you get a stack of steamers you can put different things in different levels that cook at different speeds.
Salads are great tho it can be hard to get kids to eat them. I like pasta salads: - put pasta on to cook, meanwhile in a big bowl mix olive oil, lemon juice, pepper, a little salt, a plain unsweetened yoghurt, a can of tuna, can of sweet corn, red and/or green pepper chopped very small, then cool pasta under the cold tap, drain and stir in. You can also put some frozen peas in with the pasta about 2 mins before its ready.
Also, its good you're giving your dd fruit, it always makes a better snack than biscuits or sweet things. A little bit of bread and cheese is a good healthy snack too.
I would also try and replace white bread, pasta and rice with brown. As someone else said soups are great and you can make them with just about anything, just puree it with a hand held blender and add some milk at the end. Good luck.