Mismatched food likes

[Reluctantadult]

Age old problem. I don't know what the funk to feed my family anymore. Partly I'm fed up of thinking about it! Taken as individuals everyone is OK, but the cross over is limited!

Neither child likes things cooked in sauces so any hot pots or casseroles are out. Both don't like mashed potatoes, anything stir fried, or noodles. Or eggs.

Ds age 5 doesn't like jacket potato, and only really likes carrots, broccoli and sweetcorn. OK with most meat types, sausages, burgers, nuggets, pies. Doesn't touch any fish not even fish fingers.

Dd age 8 doesn't like processed meat like mince, sausages or burgers, will eat some fish, eats things like roast chicken, pork or beef, likes mild chicken curry but ds doesn't, likes pulses like chickpeas, kidney beans but ds & dh don't, likes a wider variety of fruit and veg than ds.

Both kids like pasta, wraps depending what's in them, and meat and 2 veg type meals.

Dh doesn't really veggie, pulses or meals heavy on the brassica veg. I'll eat most things but if I had my choice I'd reduce my meat intake further. But whatever.

I made a chunky soup today, started with a chicken carcass and used loads of veg that was going over. None of my family are going to eat it. My back up plan was to do jacket potato but I just found out the kids had that at school. And of course ds didn't eat it. I'm just stood scratching my head in the kitchen right now...

Oh and neither kid likes tomatoes or tomato sauces and ds doesn't like baked beans.

At least a couple of times a week we have chicken/meat with veg and chips/potatoes as it's one of the few things everyone will eat. We do have the added advantage that everyone around here likes spaghetti bolognaise and spaghetti and meatballs.

The rest of the time is half-meals. eg, last night, DD had left over roast chicken with some steamed veg. The rest of us had the REST of the leftover chicken made into a pasta sauce with tomatoes, onion and aubergine. Similarly, It's not unusual to cook something like steak, plain with veg, for DD and the rest of us then have a stir fry or a wrap with steak and chargrilled veg or similar. So using similar ingredients but different cooking. It's annoying, but not as annoying as having everything completely different.

This is also why my air fryer is such a god send. DH just made DD a crumbed chicken breast with potatoes and veg and I'll be doing tuna jacket potatoes for the rest of us when I go downstairs shortly.

Might not work for you as your DC don't like sauces, but I also freeze things like bolognaise or meatballs as I can then use that for the fussy one (DD) while the rest of us are enjoying a curry or something.

Have you tried burgers? Beef or chicken? or, if your no-processed-meat-child will eat them, crumbed chicken breasts cooked in oven/air fryer make great chicken burgers. DH, DS and me have them will all the extras and a big salad, DD has hers with cucumber and avocado.....

Oh, and on pasta - DD will often have pasta pesto with bacon while the rest of us have some other sauce. I usually insist she has some steamed broccoli or something on the side.

A friend regularly has:
DC1: pasta pesto, crudités on side
DC2: Pasta with olive oil, cooked veg on side
Her and her DH: pasta with whatever is left!

Thank you @MsMarch you understand!!!!

Total PITA, I have 2X veggies, 1X gym freak who does do dairy and me who would like to eat less processed food. The list of things everyone will eat is basically down to veggi chilli ( made with quorn), and a stir fry with cashew nuts and chicken breast cooked separately with egg fried rice for 2 and noodles for the other 2.

Living the same nightmare and am struggling to get the mental energy to feed anyone at all!!!

To be completely frank you need to stop pandering to them. I have a fussy one (asd) and I refused to let her dictate the family meals, eg if I was making a casserole i would strain her veg and meat out with a slotted spoon and dry off with kitchen paper a bit. But no separate meals. With veg she could pick 5 things she didn't like, everything else got served (she disliked all veg) and you ate it end of. It's hard but at 5 I had had enough of the fussiness and took action

@gogohmm i would do the same as what you've described there. Is that pandering?

I feel your pain. My kids are older and I was at the end of my tether with this, the only light at the end of my tunnel is DS moving to uni for half the year. It gives a small break cooking wise, though DD and DH remain fussy and like very different things. After so many years I’m almost at the point where I start cooking for me and buy a pile of ready meals for them to eat if they don’t like what I’ve cooked.

when the kids were smaller I did try and do things like cook sausages and serve them in tomato sauce with pasta for half the family and with mash and veg for the other half. Or pizzas with different toppings and veg sticks so they could choose which veg they would eat. Or make a turkey mince ‘shepards pie’ one time and freeze half of it and then next time a beef mince one, and defrost the turkey one for the ones that won’t eat beef. But the mental effort is huge! My fussiest DC often eats the same thing 2 days running (and is happy to do this) and the rest of us have something different the second day.

and in my mind this really is pandering and I wish I was strong enough not to do it! Now the kids are older they will cook for themselves sometimes and they do clear up after themselves too. The problem is the tiny size of the kitchen, if DD cooks, I end up cooking for me after her and it’s really too late by the time I eat. Hey ho there are worse problems.