What cold meals do your under- fives eat?

[suiledonne]

I have a 4 year old and a 17 month old.

I am fed up with the boring dinners we have been eating all winter.

I'd love to get away from the meat/veg/potatoes, homemade soup, spaghetti bolognese meals we usually have.

DD1 ia allergic to eggs. She is also very unadventurous but I am willing to try things.

DD2 seems to like a variety of things.

Is there anything other than salad?

Maybe doesn't need to be a cold meal, just lighter and none of the above meals.

Thanks in advance.

DD loves sandwiches, we also do ham, salami, cucumber etc to pick at, smoked mackerel with some toast.

You could also try quiche, frittata, I know DS would eat it but DD wouldn't.

My kids love chicken drumsticks potato salad coleslaw and cherry tomatoes, all cold
pasta salad cold too - with tuna , cheese etc

Have you tried pesto - 2yo DS wolfs it down? I make it really quickly in mini chopper and have it with pasta sometimes with tinned tuna or grilled chicken. Could make night before to have it cold but its quite a light meal anyway and springlike!

Cold meat - roast chicken, wafer-thin turkey, ham, cold sausages - served with pitta pockets, bread rolls, salad (DS won't eat, but DD loves), potato salad, pasta salad etc

They both like cold tuna pasta salad, too

Ooh some good ideas already.

They might like the drum sticks - they are both chicken mad.

I don't like meat on the bone myself but DH would love them too.

compo Do you do a marinade or something on the drumsticks?

fivegomad DD1 is allergic to eggs so rules out loads for us. I bet dd2 would like quiche though. I always look at recipes for frittata and omlettes and think they would be lovely but never have eggs in the house these days.

DD (3) and I often have a deli style lunch, she can help herself to what she likes, normally with a selection of some/all of the following ( dependent on when I last went shopping ):

-Crackers - we like the Finn Crisp ones
-Salad - not many leaves but lots of chopped cucumber, tomato, red pepper, apple, grapes, pumpkin seeds (nb. salad can be super fun if you grow your own, and your own herbs. they can help harvest what they want to eat and if you pick stuff really young its ofetn much sweeter. great way to intro them to herbs IME.)
-Cold fish and/or meats
-Sometimes cheese but she's not keen atm
-Breadsticks and carrot batons with cream cheese to dip into
-Actimel or Smoothie to drink plus water

Sometimes we have soup and wraps to dip in( not in company I hasten to add!). Now its getting warmer a lighter soup like a broth is nice, or even a chilled one if you think they'd go for it, maybe a non chilli gazpacho or a vichyssoise?

The other thing we have at least once a week is dippy eggs with toast soldiers, although you say one has an allergy. Maybe have the dippy eggs with the little one once the bigger one starts school....

And I find she will try a lot more if I put a picnic rug out on the lawn and we eat out there........oh for the summer.

...........I've just realised you are asking for dinner rather than lunch - oops and your comments about not having eggs in the house - sorry disregard what I said about the eggs.

Cold salmon. Potato salad.

Barbeques!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Mine lurve a BBQ - in fact I have never seen a 2 year old put away so much protein as when we did a bbq with DD for the first time.

Potatoes - cubed and roasted with garlic and rosemary are great with BBQs.

i tried making some nut butters today which went down well spread on crackers, i just whizzed up some cashews and drizzled olive oil in until they were a chunky paste, so easy! i dont know if this is the correct way to do it but they went down well

We eat falafel quite a lot - the Cauldron ones can be eaten straight from the pack so qualifies as 'cold'. Also, cous cous: buy a packet of Ainsley's finest, add hot water and leave for 5 mins. I normally mix in a bit of houmous, feta, cucumber, tomatoes, whatever. Bish bosh, job done.