Dinners for the family

[warmmfeet]

Realistically what dinners do you have regularly that are healthy that you and your kids all actually enjoy?

I have 2 DS age 3 and 5.

Stuck in a loop of spag Bol, various pasta dishes, bacon and pea risotto, sausages, pizza or 'something' and chips

Please give me some more inspiration. Feel we need to eat a bit more healthily also.

Thank you - don't want to trawl internet just want to hear ideas from real people

This is what I’ve got this week:

Sesame chicken noodles www.myfussyeater.com/sesame-honey-chicken-noodles/

Egg fried rice www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/quick-and-easy/vegetable-and-egg-fried-rice/

Tuna burgers www.coop.co.uk/recipes/tuna-and-sweetcorn-burgers (although dc won’t eat wholemeal burger buns!)

Enchiladas realfood.tesco.com/recipes/quick-bean-enchiladas.html

Fish pie www.gestationaldiabetes.co.uk/cheats-fish-pie/

We eat more of vegetables, salads and fruits. I have a 3, 5, 6, 7 years old. My husband has always been vegan so junk food is a no, no in the house. Try different kind of foods, induced it to your kids.

You can make all those things healthy - frozen peas and sweetcorn , grated carrots, very finely chopped peppers - you get the idea ; make your own pizzas

I am out the other end but I never cracked the boredom with having the same few meals on repeat

Baked potatoes
Curry and rice
Home made burgers
Marinated chicken thighs, potatoes and veg
Fried rice with various things added

Some ideas:

• vegetable soups with some nice bread;
• chowder;
• chicken soup (saving the carcass and bones from any roast chickens, and using up any chicken pieces that didn't go into lunchboxes during the week)
• various curries - chicken, chickpea, brocc & cauli;
• chilli with a few different types of beans, veg on the side;
• Spag bol, with salad to start;
• various iterations of meat and two veg, e.g. roast chicken thighs, veg on the side; braised steak, sweet spud mash, various veg; lamb steaks with roast mediterranean veg;
• stir-fries with rice or noodles;
• jacket potatoes (with sweet potatoes), fillings including leftover chilli, garlic mushrooms, cheese, beans, with a salad on the side;
• pan-fried fish fillets, greens, new potatoes;
• paella;
• various kebabs (e.g. salmon, courgette, tomato; lamb, peppers, mushroom, onion) with brown rice and salad/veg;
• wraps with homemade flatbreads, my kids are fond of chicken goujons or breaded fish fillets with various salad.

When my kids are going to try something new, I remind them that it's a new-to-them food, that it's not going to taste the same as foods they already know, and that they need to think about its taste and texture before deciding if they like it, love it, could eat it if necessary, loathe it and so on. It seems to make them a bit more receptive to actually considering the food and they often decide it's at least edible.

One thing I do that gets a bit more fruit and veg into my kids is to check the veg drawer and chop up anything that's not going to last too many more days and pop it in a bowl for grazing on - they happily and fairly mindlessly chomp on carrots, cucumber, celery, radish, peppers, baby corn, mange tout/sugar snaps, various leaves, etc., and similarly for the fruit bowl. It helps us avoid too much food waste and gets fibre into them in an easy way.

Thanks, that's helpful. They actually do eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies and almost everything is cooked from scratch. It's the repetition that's the main problem to me! Lots of new ideas there though thanks.

We eat the same op. I've been looking at one pot cooking on tik tok.

tikka curry and rice
fajita
chilli and rice
spag bol
lasagne
alfredo
roast chicken dinner
roast chicken and salad
chicken casserole
home made burgers
chicken parmigiana
okra stew and rice
enchiladas
cottage pie
steak and chips

Some things we have regularly -

tray bakes (hairy bikers Spanish chicken is great, as is the roasting tin book, also halloumi/chorizo/new potato)

nigella chicken swarma in the oven

tacos - sloppy joe (Aldi recipe) and fish finger (Tesco recipe I think)

baked potatoes /sweet potatoes with massive range of sides/ fillings

chicken Tinga (think Waitrose recipe)

chilli

fajitas

lentil soup/Dahl (one child not keen on this)

Katsu curry
Fish cakes
Fish pie
Chicken, chorizo, beans in tomato sauce
Stir fry
Oven baked tomato orzo
Pizza
Wraps with various fillings
Steak with wedges
Frittata
Soup
Stew
Polenta chips
Tagine and cous cous

I tend to pick recipes from books and magazines to try different things... they dont all get eaten by DD, but I prefer to keep cooking a broad range rather than just catering for her... she will usually eat some of it and i often serve it with something i know she'll eat like cucumber and pepper. The ones above she'll usually eat though.