Im banning nuggetts after Xmas!

[charliecat]

My kids are ever so fussy and wont eat this and wont eat that and dinners consist of nuggets, smiley faces, peas carrots, mini sausages...not NORMAL ones etc etc..all the crap under the sun.
So feeling I now have the strenght to fight back against them(!) I am banning nuggetts after Xmas and each meal till then will have something new on the plate they have to try...or come 2005 they will be very hungry little girls.
Any ideas for simpleish things they might eat?
They both had a quarter of a vegetable pie this evening..

Great plan. Tuna with pasta and cheese. Fillets of white fish or pink (salmon/trout) with peas and potatoes (dd's favourite meal). Include interesting veggies mashed up with mashed potato e.g. sweet potato, celeriac (tried this first time yesterday and dd who hates mash usually couldn't get enough of it). Wrap chicken fillets up in foil with a bit of lemon juice or any other flavouring and cook for half an hour or so, taste yummy. Do they go shopping with you? Would they be up for choosing one new vegetable to try each week or something, so the trying new things is a bit of a game?

ease them in with home made nuggets.

annabel karmel has a recipe but it is basically something like:

Chuck an onion in the processor and blitz. Add a chicken breast, chopped up, and blitz again to mince it. Add one grated apple and seasoning. Wet your hands and shape the mix into little patties, then dip in beaten egg and breadcrumbs. I do a big batch and then open-freeze them and tip into bags when frozen.

To cook,just fry in a little olive oil. Yum yum.

Bought chicken nuggets are made from mechanically recovered meat, and if you knew how that is "made", you woudn't be waiting till Christmas to ban it! Sorry, don't want to sound like a food snob and I KNOW how hard it is with fussy kids, but honestly, that stuff is vile.

Im a vegetarian...I know how vile it is and I was an inch away from telling the kids the other night...I have put up a chart with different foods on it and am going to put a happy smile for eaten, a wobby face for tried + disliked and a sad face for spat out with disgust.....im saying this is so i know what they do and do like but its more because a chart spurs them on for everything...going well so far!
Hausfrau...Im easing them into this by saying No nuggetts after Xmas as TBH I couldnt cope with the fights that would happen if I cold turkeyed...My VERY fussy DD1 asked what we were trying tonight Which can only be a good sign....!

Is it just me who sings this thread title to the tune of I'm getting married in the morning?

Have been watching with interest though - getting tips for when DS is fussy (not kidding myself he won't be as I still am )

Charliecat, why not just tell them what they're eating? It would certainly put them off, and hopefully make them think about food in general, and where it all comes from (ie not out of a cardboard box!)

I'm a real believer in children growing up seeing where things come from. Of course in our house we have fishfingers every now and then, but I try to make them up myself in bulk and then freeze them - I can honestly say my DS doesn't know the difference between these and what he has at friends' houses.

One small thing which I'm sure someone else has probably said, is I find if children have had something to do with making their food, they seem to always eat it. DS is only 3 but loves "helping" to put all the ingredients in the bread machine, and to him it's like magic when 4 hours later a loaf of bread comes out.

He also enjoys "helping" me make meatballs, which his little hands are perfect for. Needless to say, any baking we do goes down a treat.

I admit I do like to cook, but even if I didn't I think I'd do these things with DS, as it's a nice way to spend time together, and the only way to get him to try things he'd otherwise refuse to put near his mouth. Yesterday he had kedgeree for tea! I couldn't believe it!

All going well here, they are interested in what each new food will be, we found out that dd2 hates parsnip, dd1 doesnt mind it and I did tell them how nuggetts are made and dd1 age nearly 7 looked a bit green and I ended my speech with ...and that is why you have got to eat better food, good food ...nice food...not that utter crap!
I told my mum what i was doing, and considering she has always had a something to say about what they DONT eat she said You can get these LOVELY nuggetts from M+S and I was like...er thats not the point...explained the point and she shrugged...I think this comes under the Cant Win situation..
Never the less its going well!

Glad to hear it's going well, Charliecat. A chart sounds like a great idea - I'm certainly going to try that when ds gets a bit older as he is still pretty fussy, although he does love his fruit which is one good thing.

My mum is a bit like yours! Every night, without fail, when I'm thinking aloud as to what I might give ds for his tea, she'll say 'But he doesn't like that/didn't eat that last time/won't like that.' Drives me mad! And every time I buy or make something new for him to try, she says 'Oh, I don't know why you bother, he's not going to eat it.' Grrrr!

What do you cook yourself when they are having nuggets and smiley faces? Can't they just have the same as you?

I will have casserole mash sausages vege burger baked spud or whatever and they would have the mash part or the baked spud part but with the same things each time...nuggetts wee sausages beans cucumber and tomatoe..if I was having a burger then that would be the time they would have smiley faces and nuggetts.
With me being a vege, them being fussy and dp eating meat cooking id a nightmare!
They eat lots of fruit and only drink water...its the total lack of variety in thier diet that was starting to get to me and the fact if they suddendly went off baked spuds and mash the only "meal" we would be left with that they liked would be smiley faces and nuggetts...thats grim to realise.