Please help me with my family's diet, its terrible

[xxxJess123xxx]

Hi all, I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old. Both typically fussy. No allergies.
Our diets are absolutely terrible as I seriously can't cook. I'm the type of person who can't make an omelette or burn pasta for christ sake.
We eat shit basically. Ready meals, nuggets and chips, pizza. Lunches are sarnies crisps and some grapes etc.
I'm feeling like an absolute rubbish mum and I want to change but I seriously can't cook.
Does anyone have any stupidly easy, cheap to make, fool proof recipes for dinners for my family.
I am slightly overweight. Kids are good weights and take a multi vitamin each day. Eat far too much chocolate etc
I feel so ashamed 😞
Thanks x

As it's warmer weather how about doing a bit of a ploughmans dinner one night? Salad bag, halve baby tomatoes, cucumber and apple slices, a block of cheese each (cubes for kids) and a slice of ham or wedge of pork pie each.Hardboiled egg (half each for the kids and whole for you). Dollop of mayo or salad cream. Slice of crusty bread optional.

That looks delicious. It sounds like a huge step towards getting your timings right. You don't have to cook everything from scratch. Step by step you're acquiring skills and confidence. I applaud your strategy

The other things that are easy to cook are things like pork chops and chicken thighs. Just chuck them in like you would a lasagne. It will say on the packaging how long for. As you get more confident you can throw a few herbs on top, or rub with a cut clove of garlic.

Fantastic @xxxJess123xxx 🎉❤️ Well done for sticking at it! We can't learn until we try, and we can't try without failing. The example you're setting your children by trying and trying again is brilliant. When they're learning to tie their laces or ride a bike or later when you're showing them how to cook, you'll know how they feel and how they can push on.

I have brought sausages this morning and some ready sliced mushrooms with my frozen onion in the freezer. I brought a packet mix to make a sausage casserole 🤞

I love a good sausage casserole.

OP are you taking photos? I think you should, and also keep some notes.

I love this book: usborne.com/gb/first-cookbook-9780746078716

Great thing about cooking books for kids is they actually explain things and don’t assume you know them already.

I am sashh
I have brought this, found it in a charity shop xx

@xxxJess123xxx sausage casserole sounds great 😊 if you’ve got some of the frozen mash you got left, it goes great with sausage casserole too 😊

I have some frozen mash left 😋

I'm making sausage casserole today too. I found frozen sausages lurking in the back of the freezer so I thawed them Saturday, baked them in the oven alongside roast yesterday, and will put the stew together today.
That book looks perfect.

Love sausages! Show us a pic later.

Sausage casserole sounds yum.

Have you tried doing baked potatoes OP? So healthy, you can make so many toppings from the super basic to more time consuming, and serve with salad for even more goodness depending on if salad goes with your topping.

You just wash them, rub a tiny bit of olive oil on the skin, stab with a fork a few times and bake in a hot oven (220 or gas mark 6) for 2 hours ish (depending on the size). Sprinkle with salt for the adults, delicious. Toppings I do frequently are:

Beans and cheese
Tuna Mayo
Prawn Mayo
Chicken curry (just cooked chicken mini fillets in a jar of curry sauce, nothing fancy)
Chilli (again, pan fried and drained lean mince with a jar of sauce)
Bbq chicken (again, chicken mini fillets cooked in a pan with a sauce added)

With the jars, obviously they aren't the best and you can learn to make your own curries and chillis cheaply and healthy, both are easy if you want a basic one. But as a starter (or for a quick and easy dinner) a jar isn't the end of the world sometimes.

Ohhhh bbq chicken in a potato sounds nice. I have eaten stuffed peppers before but again no clue how to do them! I don't even know how to cut a pepper 🤣
I forgot to take a picture of the casserole but it turned out lovely. Me and the OH ate it all with frozen mash and mixed veg but kids didn't eat a thing unfortunately 😔 xx

Op I'm really proud of you :)

Honestly @xxxJess123xxx not being a braggy knobhead but I'm a fairly good cook. And my kids (5 and 2) regularly turn their noses up at what I serve. And it's family favourites, cooked mostly from scratch (with jarred sauces sometimes for speed!).

It's really normal for children to refuse food sometimes especially if it's new or different things. You just have to persevere and try not to throw it at them

Bbq chicken to do in a jacket potato is easy. Either a packet bbq sauce or one of the little powder marinades. Put the chicken fillets in a bowl with a little olive oil, sprinkle the powder marinate on and rub in with fingers. You can either cook in straight away or leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours to really get the taste into the chicken.

You can marinate chicken (or any meat!) or fish like this too.

I think I'm going to try to do the bbq chicken in jackets with maybe some lettuce. Will remember to take a picture 😊

@xxxJess123xxx

I am sashh I have brought this, found it in a charity shop xx

I think I had that cookbook as a kid

Once you’ve got a few meals you can do easily, I’d think about batch cooking and meal planning so you don’t have to cook every day.

You’re doing really well!

You should try a chicken and veg tray bake. It's so simple and tasty xx

@xxxJess123xxx

Ohhhh bbq chicken in a potato sounds nice. I have eaten stuffed peppers before but again no clue how to do them! I don't even know how to cut a pepper 🤣 I forgot to take a picture of the casserole but it turned out lovely. Me and the OH ate it all with frozen mash and mixed veg but kids didn't eat a thing unfortunately 😔 xx

@xxxJess123xxx Don’t worry about it OP! You’re exposing them to lots of new foods and flavours which is amazing 😊 some days you’ll be lucky and other days you won’t 🤷🏻‍♀️ And sometimes there’s just no logic to kids 🤣 I bet if you serve the exact same dinner next week they’ll eat the lot 🙄🤣 it’s just one of the joys of parenting!

Tbh I was amazed your 5yo ate the veg last time. Mine lives on peanut butter sandwiches and fruit. You're doing great!

My kids love pasta so I cook that a lot because it's quick and you can make it healthy.

When I get organised I make a huge batch of pasta sauce - carrots, sweet potatoes, tin of chopped tomatoes, tomato purée and a bit of garlic. Blend it all up so it's smooth and freeze it in separate portions. Then just add to the pasta with lots of grated cheese on top. You could add some chicken too if you wanted.
The kids just think it's a tomato pasta sauce but it's got lots of hidden veg. You could probably throw in aubergine and other stuff too.

I also find my kids like corn in the cob with a little bit of melted butter on top

You’re doing brilliant OP, keep practicing and it’ll become so easy! The more you attempt it the more confident you’ll become. BBC good food is great for basic recipes.

I got some chicken this morning and a jar of bbq sauce stuff to put with rice and corn on the cob 🤞🤞