Favourite big family meals

[SnarkintheDark]

What are people favourite/ cheapest/ easy family meals to cook for your large family.
Mine are:
Favourite: roast lamb ( meat in slow cooker)
Cheapest: corned beef hash and veggies
Easiest: chilli con carne in slow cooker.
I also love anything that can be done in the crock pot, I have a huge one that I often just bung a load of stuff on for soups/ stews to make life easy. :-)
Getting hungry now :-)

£1 pizzas from Lidl. Porridge.

Tacos... Something for all dcs, lots of veg hidden in with the meat. One dc doesn't like the meat, they still have salad, cheese and yoghurt.

Spag bog/lasagne. Also lots of hidden veg. I batch cook, so when taking it out of the freezer, it's usually a quick dinner.

Happy to hear some vegan/veggie options with loads of hidden veg and lentils!

I often layer my lesagne with lentils, I just cook them with some tomatoes to soften and use as a top layer then put a last layer of cheese sauce- yummy!

Favourite - jerk chicken, rice and beans
Cheapest - cheesy pasta
Easiest - ginger and coconut pork

To be honest my kids will eat anything and they all have a few favourites each

Quick - carbonara - pasta, eggs, pancetta, Parmesan & I add peas
Pasta with pesto, chicken & peppers
Pasta with chorizo, peppers & homemade tomato sauce
Chicken fried rice

Easy - stew in the crockpot - need to start using it more

Full of veg - bolognese/chilli con carne and I always make enough to freeze some for another night

Mine are quite fussy these days but they love pizzas (we buy bases and add the toppings, rule is one piece of veg for every piece of meat!), burgers - I do lamb sometimes or buy venison burgers, frozen fish (donegal catch tomato & basil cod) & fish fingers when I'm feeling really lazy!

They also love Denis's meatballs which are time consuming but I double the recipe and cook them in the huge crockpot and usually get enough for 3 nights out of them, great to have them in the freezer.

I'm in the process of trying loads of new dinners coz we are down to so few that everyone eats it's getting ridiculous so will be watching this thread

Delia's meatballs!!! Who's Denis?!!!

Homemade pizza (easy pizza dough made with bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt Olive oil and water, recipe on all recipe website)
Tinned tomatoes basil olive oil whizzed up to make the sauce
Ready grated mozzarella
And any toppings you fancy!
Should qualify that we aren't a large family yet! Hoping for no 3 one day!

Sausage n mash
Cottage/shepherds pie
Toad in the hole
Any pasta dishes
Jacket potatoes

Tummy now rumbling.....

I love to cook big curries or casseroles, not necessarily spicy but something I can put in the slow cooker and serve with rice. Very filling and full of flavor.

On occasion I will get the kids to help me cook and we will do something special like a cake or our own pizzas. DH is often at work so I really enjoy having the kids round the table at dinner time.

In the winter I will quite often make huge vegetable soups and put the leftovers in the freezer for the eldest to have when she feels like it.

Favourite: Fajitas - feels 'naughty' but is full of veg and actually surprisingly balanced from the food groups!
Cheapest: 'Pasta Suprise' - Pasta with any form of casseroled/sauce based leftovers stirred through, sometimes even leftover veg and gravy!
Easiest: Spag Bol - loads of veg in mine (yes I'm one of those irritating people who can get 10 meals out of 500g mince!)
Quickest: Freezer surprise! I always batch cook bolognaise/cottage pie mix/chilli con carne etc so I always have the option to just grab it to defrost in the morning if I'm out all day/cant be arsed to cook!

my plan now is to reinstate 'sunday lunch' - get back to having a lovely roast at the weekend - time consuming cooking has gone out of the window since the arrival of DC4 in January but think I've got enough routine going now to start branching out the cooking again!

Those who use slow cookers - worth the money? easy to use? I've been debating getting one as mornings are my best time to getting dinner prep done and DC4 tends not to want to be put down between 5 and 6 which is when cooking needs to be done! slow cooker may solve this?

Fav - chilli with sweet potato in the slow cooker served with rice and sour cream and grated cheese

Cheapest (and quickest!) - pesto pasta and sweetcorn

I use my slow cooker at least twice a week I really like it. I have a slow cooker recipe book I'm working my way through!