Inspiration/ideas please (challenging kids and dinner)

[morepatiencerequired]

I'm sooo sick of cooking the same food each week for the kids, but am struggling to find meals they will all eat and get at least some of their 5 a day. I try and get veg into them but generally have to hide it....

DC1: ASD, doesn't really eat veg you can 'see', except potato and a small amount of mushroom. will eat a few fruits that are often hard to get where I live. (strawberries/pineapple/mango)
DC2: For allergy reasons, had an extremely limited diet until about 6. Hence doesn't enjoy a lot of veg as he couldn't eat them when younger. Can't eat nuts. Has to have very low wheat and low dairy. We usually substitute with a GF alternative when cooking pasta/flour etc. Will eat enough fruit when pressed.
DC3: Just copies what DC1/2 do; used to eat everything but getting fussy; doesn't like to eat veg she can identify a piece of (will occasionally eat half a raw carrot or a few nibbles of broccoli). Eats lots of fruit at least!

Menu at the moment seems to be a permanent rotation of 'hidden veg' foods; veg all go into the food processor before being cooked: spaghetti sauce / Mexican chilli / Moroccan lamb casserole / fish cakes / chicken noodle soup (really veg soup with chicken pieces and GF noodles)/ ham & zucchini slice.

Husband aims for a vegan low carb diet so I'm already cooking a different meal for him so dinners that don't require me cooking different dishes for DC2 are a bonus.

Please help; I used to love cooking and now it's just an absolute chore!

Are eggs okfor the kids?

Homemade veggie burgers with hidden veg?

Cottage pie with mash made with carrots and squashes as well as potatoes?

How about introducing salad? So cut all of the salad into batons and make your own wraps with say chicken or halloumi? (Gf wraps?). They may not eat much at first, but eventually they might get the hang of it. You could even start with dick wraps and just the batons of cucumber.

Any of these any good?

Would they eat a very mild daal?

Not dick wraps! Omg. Duck wraps! Ha ha ha

Lentil stew with mash? Lovely with sausages in it (you could take DH's portion out before adding the sausages).

Do they count tinned tomatoes as veg? If not there are loads of good options for stews and sauces to go with pasta/rice/potatoes etc.

Suggest dealing with DH by adding meat at the end and telling him he can eat more of the veg/protein element with just a bit of carbs on the side. If he wants to be fussier than this he knows where the stove is! Or batch cook loads of DH dinners and he can get one out the freezer every night...

@JuneOsborne

Not dick wraps! Omg. Duck wraps! Ha ha ha

Now I could imagine my kids running around with tortillas flapping over their nether regions 🤣🤣.

We do similar stick veg for the Mexican wraps we do here. Only child who will eat them without extreme pain on all sides will happily eat them anyway (but only carrot and cucumber). We've tried all the varieties of GF wraps we can find but they don't wrap so much as crumble. His gets turned pizzaish instead; he's the one that will eat the batons on their own.

Mild Dahl might be worth a try again, it's been a while and they might eat it now as I've gotten curry chicken into them occasionally (but not the veg parts).

This is a list of ideas
Stewed pears
Baked ham and apples
Jacket potato
Fish and chips
Sausage rolls
Pies
Smiley face
Pizza and pasta

Lentil stew with sausages might work. They used to enjoy lentils as a 'veg' when I fried them with cumin and cinnamon... then when one went off it they all did but maybe it's worth a go again.

For some reason they won't eat cottage pie 😩. Even when made with the spaghetti sauce they eat and with the mash they eat (mixed potato and sweet potato).

A very wise woman once told me "Garlic butter, it's like crack for children". I have managed to feed our neighbour's child, a girl famous for never knowingly eating anything green, edaname beans this way.

Ah, you've just reminded me of what my mil told me when my kids went through a fussy phase.

All children will eat anything if it has a bag of crisps on the top. She used to make meals and crush up crisps and out them on the top. Didn't matter what the meal was! Made me laugh because she's a chef trained in classic French cookery!

She also said that no child can resist pink shit. Don't like mash? Mix it with ketchup, it becomes pink mash. She said anything that you can mix ketchup into is bound to be eaten....

I'm seeing my DH eating pink mash with a packet of crisps crumbled all over the top when he was a kid....

@slug .... I think you may have the gem of an idea there! maybe there is just not enough butter in our lives. I know it works for me.

@JuneOsborne ... I find that if I crumb things, they'll often eat it. Has gotten me through a lot of nose upturning (particularly at meat). I can usually get a little veg past them before they realise too. Chips on top I haven't tried yet. Will report back.

DC1 puts ketchup on most things. just recently graduated to adding truffle flavoured mayonnaise too.

What about a katsu curry? I use the katsu sauce recipe from Meera Sodha's East cookbook. The sauce takes a while to cook down but I make it on the weekend for the week and freeze extra portions (one recipe serves four apparently but we get a good 8 servings). Instead of chicken we have slices of sweet potato/ aubergine/ pumpkin that we cook in the oven then cover in breadcrumbs and fry (not fans oh her oven only method). The sauce is made with carrots, sweet potato and onion so you could incorporate some chicken nuggets guilt free. The original recipe is vegan

thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/meera-sodhas-aubergine-katsu-curry-with-pickled-radishes/

Have you tried them with falafel? I make my own and mix mashed butternut squash or sweet potato in with the chickpeas and bake them. You can add garlic, herbs, spices etc if that would help. Gluten free pitas are fairly readily available.

MilduraS, that katsu curry is a great idea, thanks!

Falafel usually gets past one child, but not the others... a good reminder to retry it, though.

Have prepped for a 1980's curry recipe for dinner! Remember sultanas in curry (or perhaps I'm showing my age)? DC1 cooked this during a summer school lesson... I'm hoping if they cook dinner tonight they might eat a little more of the veg. I"ll have crisps to the ready just in case :-)