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

Here you go @xxxJess123xxx www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/marcus-rashford-aims-to-give-food-poverty-the-boot-as-he-and-top-chef-tom-kerridge-team-up-for-instagram-cooking-tutorials-12283596

Don’t try and overhaul everything at once or you will get overwhelmed. Aim for one different lunch and one different dinner each week, those that are hits can become part of your regular meals.

How about buying a pie then you only need to boil or steam some carrots/broccoli/ peas and make some instant gravy with hot water and you’ve got a nutritious family meal.

Chicken drumsticks or roast chicken is easy - I don’t eat meat and was happy to find that to prepare you just heat the oven bung chicken in a roasting tin and put it in the oven for the time on the packaging - check it’s cooked properly by putting a skewer into the meat and as you withdraw it the juices will come out clear - pink meat in chicken is a no no. Serve with veg and some mash or boiled potatoes.

You’re not shit. My 12 year old skipped breakfast. Ate only choc and crisps for lunch (leaving sandwich, fruit, yog etc) and then before I got home, had devoured a second pack of crisps and two mini bags of cookies. I need to make them a really healthy dinner tonight!

I was going to say about the Marcus Rasford , Tom kerridge new recipes.. good food on a budget and teaching people to cook .

One of the easiest family meals to make is delia’s cottage pie. I don’t bother with the leeks (I’m not a huge fan of them), and instead of swede, I add extra carrot. I serve with roasted parsnips and mashed swede but you don’t have to.

I couldn’t cook anything at all really until I had DS. I cooked everything from scratch for him, and then decided to start cooking for me and DH too. Over time, I’ve cooked more and more from scratch, having previously pretty much only bought ready meals.

Here is the Delia recipe: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.deliaonline.com/recipes/international/european/british/shepherds-pie-with-cheese-crusted-leeks%3famp

I’m a shit cook. My child refuses vegetables so eats a lot of cheesy sweet potatoe mash with vegetables mixed in an hidden, could be an idea ? I put fish fingers with it or tuna. The most adventurous thing I can cook is cottage pie 🤣 thats really easy to make if you have a google. Puff pastry pizzas are good you can make them with a roll of ready made pastry and put toppings on. Corn on the cobs are good just try and add veg to each meal if they won’t eat it then try an hide it. Also offer fruit/cheese/crackers as snacks instead of junk.

Hi OP, I think it sounds like you have two goals but you don't necessarily have to work on them both at once:
(i) improve your children's diet so they eat more healthily.
(ii) expand the variety of what you eat and cook some new things.

For the first one, you don't necessarily have to do a lot more than you're doing but what you do need to do is swap out some of your present unhealthy options for some healthier options. So get rid of the microwave meals, crisps, chocolate and processed food (or at least go for healthier processed options). No-effort winners here are ready-prepared soups and salads, ready-cut sweet potato wedges, carrot sticks instead of crisps, cold chicken slices, nut butter toast, shop-bought fish fingers and fishcakes, shop-bought couscous, houmous with cut up veg. Also grilled cheese on 50/50 bread. None of these require much effort. I always serve every dinner with at least 2 sides of vegetables even if they don't really go with the dinner. Yesterday's dinner was cold chicken, couscous, broccoli and peas.

If we're actually cooking, our favourite meals are pesto pasta, veggie chilli, roast chicken or beef, spaghetti bolognese or carbonara, sausages and chips (not healthy but my DS loves it ), homemade pizza and fajitas. We have a waffle and toastie machine and like making scrambled eggs and sweet potato waffles with bacon, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and maple syrup for weekend lunches as a treat.

I have just finished work, once the kiddos are in bed I am going to throughly read everyone's replies xx

How about tray bakes? Just stick it all in a tray and wing it in the oven

Good Food link

The big roasting tin series is great -basically chuck a load of veg/meat/flavourings into a roasting tin and just leave to cook for 15-45 minutes depending on the recipe. Use a timer so you don't forget when to take them out of the oven and it's hard to go wrong!

You don’t need to cook initially. Just buy some fruit for dessert, and chop up a huge salad with your kids’ favourite veg to eat with dinner. You could even eat salads for dinner if you want with precooked chicken and cheese and a bit of seasoning.

Then start cooking with a really basic cook book (I personally find American ones much better as they describe the reasons why they do certain things) and start cooking. You do need to focus when you’re cooking. At least at the beginning.

I think it makes more sense to master the basics first

So omelette, scrambled eggs, pasta. If you are struggling to get those done, it seems like a better foundation to get those right than to start looking for easy recipes. Those are your first easy recipes.

Have jacket potatoes instead of chips, or boiled new potatoes if your DC will eat them. I think meat is the hardest to cook, so I'd start with the basics and then move to meat in the slow cooker. It will reduce your ready meals if you buy some chicken with a marinade that goes in the oven and have side salads, learn time veggies so they're not mushy etc.

The easiest thing in the world to make is bechamel IF you have a whisk. Just melt a spooon of butter, an equal amount of flour, and keep whisking until it looks combined then keep whisking as you slowly add a cup of wholemilk. You know it’s done when it gets thicker.

The easiest thing in the world to make is bechamel
Is it?!

@PurpleDaisies

The easiest thing in the world to make is bechamel Is it?!

I can't make it either and I don't plan to try again, life is too short.

@PurpleDaisies

The easiest thing in the world to make is bechamel Is it?!

Yep. I’m dyslexic and dyspraxic and so not a natural cook. It takes a lot of concentration for me to do it and white sauce never made sense until I saw Rick Stein make it with a whisk. Now I can make it so effortlessly.

@xxxJess123xxx You are NOT a rubbish mum! You’re feeding your kids 😊 if you want to make improvements for the whole family then great, but don’t overwhelm yourself trying to overhaul everything at once 😊

It start by mastering a few easier dishes then take it from there 😊 Cottage pie, fajitas, chilli? What have you tried in the slow cooker that didn’t turn out well?

I just got a great recipe book for starting weaning. It’s called “What Mummy Makes” - gives recipes for the whole family then just ways to adapt them to make them kid friendly 😊

@BigGreen

How about tray bakes? Just stick it all in a tray and wing it in the oven

Good Food link

I agree! Traybakes are fab!! Big fan of anything that also reduces washing up 🤣

If you have a slow cooker try this: buy a piece of unsmoked gammon ham and take it out of the packet, if it has a plastic wrap to hold it together remove that too. Put it in the slow cooker with 1 heaped tablespoon of brown sugar sprinkled over it. Put it on Low setting for 7 hours. It will be really tasty and tender. Eat it with mash potatoes, or jacket potato cooked in the microwave for about 6 mins, and a heap of tonned sweetcorn. If you have some Bisto gravy granules, make some gravy and mix in some of the liquid in the bottom of the slow cooker. You can eat the leftover ham in sandwiches.

Maybe for the next month keep their meal
Foods the same but add a fresh side option, like steamed veg and focus on 2 healthy fresh snacks a day-
So no extra cooking and just some fruit chopping for now.

www.dk.com/uk/book/9780241196885-complete-childrens-cookbook/

Although it's a children's cookbook, there are a variety of good recipes in here with step by step picture and written instructions which might help if you're not sure what something should look like as you're making it. To help get your confidence up.

Well done for not accepting it and trying to change it.

Spaghetti Bol for 4-6 people

Dried spaghetti
2 onions- chopped small
4 carrots- grated
1 carton of passata
1 tin of tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic- crushed
Packed of lean beef mince
Fresh basil- about 10 leaves and stems washed and chopped small
Beef stock cube

In a large frying pan put in 2 desert spoonfuls of oil. Veg or olive oil. Ether is finer.
Turn on hob- set on a medium heat wait for 30 secs and then add into the pan your onions. Gently fry for 10 mins until golden and soft. Add in the mince and poke and prod and move it all around until all the mince is brown. Add in the grated carrot, garlic, the tinned tomatoes and pasata, add in the beef sock cube. Give everything a good mix. Add in the chopped up basil. Stir and mix for about 3 minutes then turn down the heat to low and let it all cook for 30 mins.

Cook the spaghetti like this-
In the biggest saucepan you have fill up with leaving about 5cm from the top. Put on high heat. Add in two teaspoons of salt. Bring to the boil. Let the water bubble the add the packet spaghetti. Turn down to a med/high heat and give the spag a stir to seperate. Cook for 11 mins. Then drain.

Put pasta on plan. Then ladle on the sauce.

Serve with salad- bagged up salad with some chopped cucumber and tomatoes and a ahopbought balsamic dressing would be lovely. Add garlic bread too if you like. Or leave that if it’s too annoying to work out the timings.

If you have sauce left over you can

Add in a packet mix of Chilli con carne, drained tin of black beans, drained tin of chickpeas, another can of tinned tomatoes. Reheat and cook for about 10 mins. Serve with rice or taco sells or jacket potatoes.

The sauce freezes well too.

I’ve just thrown veg out from the fridge from the healthy meals I didn’t make this week. You are not a bad mum we are all juggling and aspire to be brilliant on all fronts, we should accept that is unrealistic and sometimes we just burn out!

@GrumpyHoonMain béchamel sauce is such an odd thing to say is the easiest thing in the world to make for a complete beginner cook. I really don’t think it’s a realistic statement. It’s a useful thing to be able to make but it isn’t that simple and can quite easily go wrong. I say that as a confident cook.

My husband says he can’t remember how to make a basic white sauce despite me showing him - 50g melted butter, add in 50g plain flour bit by bit then over moderate heat add 500ml milk bit by bit stirring continuously until it thickens Worth persisting with as the sauce is the basis for many family meals - cauliflower and broccoli cheese, lasagne and macaroni cheese. He can cook so I don’t know why he claims remembering 50/50/500 is beyond him.