family friendly wholefood recipes?

[elliott]

I want to get us eating less saturated fat, white rice and pasta and more wholegrain type stuff - e.g. pulses, brown rice and pasta, other types of grains (e.g. barley, millet?) (mainly for my benefit but we all eat together so all have to like it!)
Any recipe ideas? Must be easy and ideally quick. Also ds1 doesn't like bits of onion or tomato (so I tend to food process onion and use less of it, and use passata). Not necessarily vegetarian.

Current things we already enjoy:

• brown rice risotto
• red lentil and tomato pasta sauce (a particular favourite!)
• green lentil and coconut 'curry' (add tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander and creamed coconut to cooked green lentils)

-lentil shepherds pie (add onion, carrot, mushroom, vegemite/marmite and bay leaf/herbs to cooked green lentils - add water/stock and a touch of cornflour to make more gravy if needed)

I'd particularly like ideas with beans and other types of grain. Thanks!

bump - busy on here today!

I add millet to any meal I make that uses mince, it bulks the meat out, adds an extra flavour and combines well with the mince so you can't even see it. It is also very high in protein. It cooks in about 15-20 minutes, boiled in water. I cook it and then add it to the meat as I'm browning it, with onions and garlic and chopped up veg too. I process the onion, garlic and carrots and caurgettes in the mix I use for bolognese and lasagne and meatballs, so when cooked with the meat it's all just a nice tiny texture.

Green lentils are also very tasty in a tomato sauce for pasta or rice.

How old are your DCs out of curiosity? Just saying because young children shouldn't actually have high fibre diets, so I wouldn't recommend switching all rice and pasta to the brown and wholewheat variety, better to alternate or do a mix of both.

One of my favourite quick and easy meals is cooked red lentils with garlic and cumin, served with brown rice and steamed white cabbage. I serve it drizzled with soy sauce and it is yummy.

Moroccan couscous tagine:

chop into chunks any combination of the following: carrots, sweet potato, potato, courgette, onions and apple.

Put into a casserole with some water, but not so much that is covers the veg.

Add a teaspoon of cumin and half a teaspoon of cinnamon and lots of crushed garlic.

Cover and cook in the oven, 200C, for 20 minutes. Take out and add a tin of chopped tomatoes, a handful of raisins, chopped dried apricots if liked, and a tin of chickpeas. Add more water if necessary. The sauce should be thin, and there should be lots of it, not thick.

Return to oven and cook for another 20-40 minutes until all veg is cooked but not falling apart and mushy.

Remove, stir in a big handful of fresh chopped coriander.

Serve with lots of couscous and some harrisa paste or tobasco sauce.

How about chillie-con-carne, with lots of kidney beans and millet added to the mince as I suggested below?

We make tabbouleh with quinoa or millet instead of bulghur wheat, (though nothing wrong with bulghur wheat, the other grains have more protein).

Brown rice salad, with spring onion, carrots, peas (put them in still frozen) or chickpeas, cucumber, sunflower seeds etc. dressed with a nice mustardy vinaigrette (pour vinaigrette over while rice is still slightly warm, then cool and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours to absorb the flavours, then add veg).

Buckwheat pancakes, with a savoury or sweet filling

Falafel (a bit of a faff to make but they freeze well and defrost in seconds). Serve with a tahini dip made from steamed and blended veg, tahini and lemon juice to taste.

Sorry, can't think of many hot dishes at the moment, it's 35 degrees here so only cold stuff springs to mind.

Oh yes Falafel, so delicious!

thanks for these ideas - particularly for adding millet to mince (glad to have found a use for the bag I rashly bought yesterday!)
I don't think there's much danger of my kids overdosing on fibre - they have school dinners and eat meat, fish and cheese - I just think they should sometimes NOT have white rice and pasta!

yes, it's fine sometimes, DS does too. Some people just forget sometimes that what is recommended as a healthy adults doesn't always apply to children

slight hijack, but I don't understand this don't give kids high fibre diet stuff, and at least one book on children's nutrition says ALWAYS give them brown stuff (but also says red meat only once a week, so I clearly pick and choose a bit).
Is the problem with brown stuff that it fills them up too much and then they don't eat other things? Cos if so, why isn't it even worse with white stuff: not all that much less filling, but no nutritional value?
(this is a real puzzle to me, I'm not stirring a pot...)

The official guidance about being cautious not to give too much fibre is really aimed at the under 5s. As far as I can make out, from 5 the usual healthy eating advice holds. Plus its really about nutrient density not just fibre.
here

Here are my grain & bean based meals:

Brown Pasta

Tagliatelle w/ Veg ribbons
Macaroni Cheese
Spaghetti w/ fontina & Kale
Conciglie con broccoli

Rice/ pulse/ grain-based

Risotto
Rainbow Rice
Lentil Lasagna
Mushroom Stroganoff (w/ brown rice)
Crunchy Lentil Loaf
Dahl & rice
Cheese & Lentil Loaf
Lentil Stew
Lentil Shepherds Pie
Spiced Lentils
Lentil Chili
Quinoa Tabbouli
Quinoa w/ avocado and mango
Jeweled Quinoa
Quinoa in coconut milk
Veg fried quinoa
Couscous with spicy chickpeas & veg
Red Beans and Rice
Felafel
Chick Pea Burgers
Tuscan beans w/ tomatoes and sage
Aduki Bean Stew
Parsley & butterbean stew
Black-eyed peas (w. rice)
Homemade baked beans

Bready (wholewheat)

Spinach, Goats Cheese & Pepper Quesadilla
Pizza
Cheese & onion pie
Leek & onion tart
Vegetable Tart
Toasties

Mexican

Burritos
Quesadillas
Mexican Lasagna (blackbeans, salsa, pasta)
Mexican Lasagna with tortillas (refried beans, sourcream, spicy veg)
Fajitas

wow UR
do your dcs eat them?

recipe for the goats cheese quesadillas pls!

That looks a good list egypt!
Can you elaborate on your lentil bakes and bean stews (and the spicy chickpeas)?
I'm not a huge fan of quinoa but maybe that shouldn't put me off - what is your best bet with that?

littlefrog the advice is really for the under five age group, who need a much higher fat content in their diet than older children and adults.

Their guts are not developed enough to handle large amounts of fibre and their stomachs are small, so too much fibre will fill them up without providing them with the calories and fat they need.

More importantly though, a high fibre diet in this age group can inhibit the absorbtion of key minerals, so even if they are eating other foods their bodies will not be able to absorb the minerals as the insoluble and undigestible fibre will absorb it instead. Iron absorbtion in particular can be inhibited by too much fibre.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with servigng high fibre foods to this age group in moderation.

Oh and littlefrog, white stuff (bread, pasta, rice) has plenty of nutritional value in it . Plenty of books out there do get their advice wrong and are not necessarily written by paediatric nutritionalists. I have always only ever had brown bread in the house, but have favoured white rice and pasta in favour of brown stuff most of the time. Those foods still have lots of nutrients in them, they just don't have bran in them.

hth

Yes, DS eats all of these things. He always has.

Um, I don't really have a recipe but :

Quesadillas

Spread goats cheese (Chevre or something soft) on a flour tortilla
Cover with spinach and roasted peppers (sliced) Put a bit more cheese on
Top with another tortilla
Fry for a couple of mins
Flip, finish

I cut them into slices like pizza

Will look for bean stew recipes later - most are beans in a tomatoey sauce of some sort.

I usually cook quinoa in veg stock and eat it with Chili or similar. It's good cooked in coconut milk too.

HTH (in a rush, sorry)

Many thanks