No food mixed together?! Recipe ideas please..

[Bubbless31]

Both of my DC are autistic and DS (8) is quite 'NT' with food and will happily eat lasagne, chilli, curry, casseroles etc, but is dairy free, and my DD (10) is very much plain tastes, everything has to be visible (invisible veg etc never works, although she does like veg!) and in separate dishes on the table so she can see what the options are and pick the bits she wants to eat. This generally works ok, with small adaptions we can make some things work- but I'm getting very very very fed up of the incredibly limited menu we are eating, and so is my DS! Plain meat, carb, veg dishes are driving me up the wall..

I have started doing more 'adventurous' stuff e.g. deconstructed curry- where the sauce is served separately to the plain chicken, 'deconstructed pasta' with the sauce as an optional extra- but I'm rapidly running out of ideas on things like this, and I can't seem to find anything by googling- I suspect because I'm not using the right search terms.

The other complicating factor is that my DS doesn't really like meat, but it's often the only part of the meal my DD will happily eat. ARGH. I'm desperately trying to make sure that our meals are for everyone, and I'm not short order cooking different dinners every night. Any ideas/ websites/ recipes/ stories of how your children are now functional eaters after being a bloody nightmare as a child is welcome!!

Honestly, I'd make the meal I wanted to make and siphon her "ingredients" off to the side so they could be cooked simply like she prefers.

Do you have an airfryer? It might be a good option for her single portions..

Chickpea curry - but have a plain chicken breast with veg on the side and some curry sauce in a pot, along with plain rice for her, if she doesn't enjoy chickpeas.

Baked potato with 3 or 4 different toppings to choose from. Egg mayo (hard boiled egg and mayo separately for her). Baked beans and grated cheese. Coleslaw (veg seperate from mayo).

Veg lasagne for you and your son. Plain pasta with the tomato sauce part separate for your daughter.

As an alternative (and only you know if this would upset your wee girl) is to batch cook the foods she likes and freeze them (ie chicken breasts or drumsticks, sausages, etc) in single portions so you can haul out something for her that she loves, and just cook the meals the rest of you want. I often had something different from the rest of the family as I hated fish, and learned to cook that way.

construct your own rice bowls, fajitas, ramen? All work for my sauce averse child- for us it turned out to be a phase and seems to be growing out of it now

Fajitas or tacos are perfect for build your own.
Pasta dishes, serve pasta, a tomato sauce, butter for those that won't eat sauce, chilli flakes for those that want a bit of heat, chopped crispy bacon for those that want meat, grated cheese for those that don't. A salad on the side.
Burgers either beef, chicken or veg with salad, cheese, relish etc
Could you do skewers? Chicken or haloumi, interspersed with peppers or courgettes with those that can eat mixed, plain for those that can't. Chicken can be marinated or coated with spice rub for those that like. Serve with potatoes, salad, roasted veg etc.
Would a full english type thing work?
Gammon steaks, wedges, pineapple, fried egg, peas.

My DD has been like this until quite recently - she ate very plain food and no meat. Then started eating chicken and then discovered she likes spicy and oriental flavours - like soy and garlic and has recently started eating curry sauces and tried gravy for the first time ever! She's 16.
Deconstructed meals have always worked for us or just cooking an alternative for her.
Mexican - chicken or beef, tacos or rice, salad, salsa etc..
Curries - rice, naan, chicken cooked with a spicy coating, Dahl.
Italian - pasta always a winner. Only with tomato sauce or parmesan though..
English - meat or Quorn and two veg. Or fish and chips..
Middle east - kebabs, cous cous, salad/veg.
Meals where you build your own end product seem to please everyone.

Also things like baked fish with noodles and steamed veg

Glazes and toppings for baked meats / meat alternatives.

You could bake your meat or meat substitute for your wee veggie, then for the last few minutes, glaze the portions that are for others with flavours and continue to bake, leaving your daughter's portion plain.

Bbq sauce, lemon sauce, sweet chilli sauce, things like that, bought ready made.

Honey and mustard mixed together is lovely with pork chops or gammon steaks.

One I like is pesto mixed with a little soft cheese then spread over chicken breasts and baked till cooked. I expect it would work lovely with firm tofu or quorn fillets.

There are so many good ideas here- thank you so much!

I hadn’t thought about making ‘freezer meals’ for her to pull out and cook quickly if dinner isn’t suitable, I don’t mind making things differently but sometimes it’s just an impossible thing.

Does anyone else find their food costs horrific when having to cook like this? Having to give so many options for things all the time is really impacting my budget, especially with the dairy free alternatives being thrown in too 🤦🏼‍♀️

Also… so bloody time consuming and the washing up of the tiny pots of everything 😂 the hidden difficulties of this kind of thing drive me insane- and obvs I do it happily but argh. Nice to find a group of people dealing with this too!!

My DC ate like this for years...not autistic, just incredibly fussy with food.

I always made a protein, a carb and 1/2 veg for every meal....rather than recipes or dishes.

So... protein could be a grilled piece of chicken, chicken in breadcrumbs, sausage, pork steak, salmon

Carb...plain pasta, rice, potatoes of some sort, cous cous

Veg, cold crudités, broccoli, carrots, peas etc etc

Think yourself lucky my autistic son only eats four kinds of food!
You might be getting fed up but put yourself in their shoes it's not their choice 😡

Dd is like yours - likes meat but all plain. I do different versions of the same thing for her on some days and others I just do something in the air fryer.

Eg - the rest of us are having chargrilled greens and steak on Pita breads. She will have the steak with steamed veg and chips.

Sausage pasta for us, sausages in air fryer for her with pasta pesto.

Vegetarian curry for us. Crumbed chicken breasts, chips and steamed veg for her.

There are some meals we all est eg spaghetti bolognaise, roast chicken, meatballs etc. So we middle along.

This is so unhelpful. Op isn't complaining about her dc. She's just saying she's bored.

Op - we cook certain things separately because dd wouldn't eat a curry if her life depended on it, for example! Also have a selection of easy or frozen options for her when the rest of us are eating something different. Eg a chicken burger made with chicken breast which I can whip up in minutes, or frozen portions of spaghetti bolognaise.

It is tedious but slowly we are seeing her options increase.