I don’t know how to feed my family well!

[Rinoachicken]

2 adults 2 children in the house. All with different dietary needs. I have found myself now is such a rut, trying to cater to everyone with such restricted options. We’re now stuck in a cycle of eating the same few foods/meals every night, invariable something beige I chuck in the oven, and often having to cook at least two if not three different meals to meet all needs.

This suits one of my children perfectly as he’d happily live on dry breadsticks alone given the choice, but not so much the rest of us. DH and I long for more variety and I am
desperate to improve the kids diets if at all possible within the limits of their sensory rigidities.

So I’m desperate for some guidance. I’m not a natural meal planner, but I like the idea of it so everyone knows what we’re having for the week - remove some stress from me! I can follow a recipe easily so not frightened of cooking from scratch.

Here’s the deal:

Adult 1 (me) - I’ll eat anything!!!
Adult 2 (DH) - celiac - needs to be GF and high fibre where possible
DS1 - ASD - can’t tolerate anything containing onions or peppers or anything he perceives to be ‘spicy’. Can’t tolerate anything granular in texture (mince, rice etc). Eats most other things. Especially loves pasta dishes and veg.
DS2 - ASD+complex - Won’t eat any visible veg (doesn’t notice if it’s puréed in and hidden though 😉). Won’t touch pasta if it has a sauce. Won’t touch anything with ‘bits’ in (eg soup with stuff in). Does eat mince in a plain tomato only ‘sauce’ with spaghetti. Won’t eat anything that is ‘unreliable’. For example, a potato waffle always tastes the same, has the same texture. Mashed potato can taste different every time (texture, consistency, ratio of milk or butter added, butter or marg etc). Preference for dry hard or crunchy foods. If the food is mixed together he won’t touch it - it has to be separate on the plate. I can’t tell you how excited I was when he decided he would eat baked beans, how pathetic is that! He has recently also decided bananas are ‘safe’ which I’m over the moon about.

How the fuck do I feed us, without having to cook for each person separately??!!

Very tricky!

Home made pizza with hidden veg sauce.

Jackets. You and DH chilli, kids beans.

Omelette, veg/salad on the side for those that will.

Hot wraps with cooked meat or veg and bits to add at the table, salad, hot sauce, guacamole, creme fraiche, grated cheese. Also works for tacos.

Well blended veg and lentil soup with garlic bread.

Ramen, add boiled eggs, meat and whatever veg will be tolerated by each person, can be customised.

When you say ds won't tolerate onion do you mean from a digestive perspective or texture/taste. Basically could you get away with onion if blitzed?

Bloody hell OP I came onto this thread expecting to be full of ideas for you. I love batch cooking and am GF myself so quite switched on to dietary requirements but you do have a challenge.

Have you thought about batch cooking so you don’t need to serve everyone the same but you aren’t cooking twice each day?

Flaming hec that's tough!

I'm looking for possible common ingredients

You don't mention much about meat (other than mince), fish, cheese or eggs? I'm guessing the boys would struggle with beans, lentils etc! Would they eat any nuts? They're crunchy at least!

Carb wise pasta seems ok (do you cook gf for all or separate for dh?)
How about corn, hard taco shells? Many are gf.
Other wise spuds!

Thanks everyone! I’ll try and answer some questions:

the onion for DS1 - it’s the texture/taste. I have managed to ‘hide’ it sometimes but he does detect it most of the time.

meat: everyone eats chicken, gammon, bacon, white fish. DH and I also eat beef, salmon etc.

we all love cheese except DS2 who will only eat cheese if it’s on a pizza!

we all like eggs in one form or another. DH and I eat them in any form. DS1 loves a soft boiled egg, omelette, poached. DS2 will eat the yolk of a soft boiled egg if he has something to dip in it, and eats scrambled egg.

When we have pasta I used to just cook GF pasta for everyone as it was easier, but the price has shot up so much I can’t really afford that so I cook basic pasta for everyone else and cook his pasta separately.

me, DH and DS1 all enjoy a good spud. DS2 reacts like I’ve put a grenade in front of him 🤣