What does your 4 yo eat?

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Need some inspiration as I feel like I'm cooking the same 5-6 meals a week.

What nice things does your 4 yo like to eat? DD is semi-fussy but pretty good with strong flavours.

TIA :)

Ooh Flubba, great list, will scrutinise that tomorrow.

YY to tiny fibs about food. DD will eat roast chicken, roast potatoes, gravy & veg as long as you tell her it isn't a roast dinner

Everything but mushrooms (he hates them) and meat/fish (we're veggie!) Having said that though, I wouldn't do him very spicy curries or chillies.
Favourites are:
Macaroni cheese
Pea and paneer curry
Lasagne
Pizza
Sausage and chips
Stir fry with tofu and satay sauce

We also eat a of of spag bol, pasta with tomato sauce, pasta pesto...you get the picture! We had gnocchi today to ring the changes a bit. With roasted butternut squash and parmesan.

Ds eats everything we eat. Not keen on spinach, but still will have two bites(all I ask of him when faced with foods he is not keen on). I have never done special meals for children (no fish fingers, chicken gougons, or chips in my repertoire), and so they have exposed to quite a range of foods since weaning (when I just whizzed up what we were eating).

Nursery, it's tge power of other kids sat their eating it I think.

Have you tried getting her to help prep/cook, or watching I can cook and making it, or even just picking a colour and having things of tgat colour and trying them all....

My 4 yo DD is quite a good eater, although also a bit reluctant with sauces, seems like that is quite common. She tends to eat with us.

Things that are popular here are:

salmon/cod spread with pesto and steamed in a foil parcel in the oven

fried mini meatballs - I use pork, beef, lamb or turkey mince, mixed with a few breadcrumbs, a beaten egg, and a load of chopped herbs - pork and dill is the favourite here, then shape them into tiny balls and fry them.

Chicken salad with toast croutons. Woe betide me if I absently mindedly put salad dressing on it though!

Courgette and feta fritters - grated courgette, mashed feta, chopped herbs, bit of wholemeal flour, beaten egg to bind, shaped into fritters and fried.

sausages baked in the oven with pumpkin, sweet potato, peppers, carrot, potatoes.

"kebabs" - skewered meat, peppers, mushrooms grilled and then served in a tortilla wrap. I usually marinate the meat first, but nothing too spicy.

pancakes filled with ham, cheese and spinach.

Although it's an absolute pain in the bits, the thing I find has helped most with DS1 (nearly five) is to serve a little smorgasbord of foods, so that there's always something on the plate that he likes. I think if they're faced with a plateful of something they don't fancy, they tend to throw up their hands, while if there's something to tempt them in, they might try the other stuff too. Yesterday, for example, we all had a curry (which he doesn't really like), but we had it with rice, naan bread and salad, all of which he loves. Ok, he mainly ate the accompaniments, but he did at least eat a little bit of the curry. As I said, it is a total pain, though, and much easier if you can eat as a family (so that at least you're not going to all that effort for just one child!!). Another thing that helps is to let them serve themselves from serving dishes - it gives them a feeling of control.

AblativeAbsolute - I like the smorgasbord.

Maamekin - fritters and pancakes - excellent suggestions. will definitely try.

Also going to try stirfry - she likes noodles mixed with butter, peas and sweetcorn so we'll start to add more toppings. :)