Tell McCain what your favourite family teatime meal is - £300 voucher prize draw!NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

McCain has asked us to find out what Mumsnetters’ favourite family teatime meal is.

Here’s what they say, “5th October sees the launch of the Nation’s Teatimes campaign by McCain, which sees the brand turn real families into teatime TV stars. McCain is asking real families from across the UK to share real life video clips of themselves enjoying their tea on their dedicated hub www.mccainteatime.co.uk. From Monday to Thursday, the family videos from across the country will be edited against the clock into a McCain ’Teatime Today' advert and aired on ITV later that same evening at 8.45pm during a teatime ad-break.”

Whether you eat tea around the table or tucked up on the sofa, from the hectic to the calm, to over in a flash, no matter what teatime is like in your house there is always good stuff happening and it's where some great family moments take place.

So, what’s your favourite family teatime meal? Maybe you love your family pizza evenings when everyone helps to add their own toppings? Do you have a great beef casserole that everyone enjoys? Or is just beans on toast that the family love?! Whatever it is, we’d love to hear it!

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 Love2Shop voucher!

Thanks
MNHQ

I cook everything from scratch so I can avoid the ingredients the family is allergic/intolerant to and only cook one meal (though I often cook rice as well as potatoes). Chicken and mushroom casserole, and fish cooked in mushroom sauce are two of the top favourites.

Sausage dinners first, sausage burgers with a corn on the cob side second. After that it varies...Ds loves rice dishes, especially risottos. Wheras dd adores dinners with Yorkshire puddings and gravy (the more gravy the better the dinner). Both love fish though. We usually eat around the table but make exceptions when they are really tired (tues, fri & sat) when they can have a TV dinner on the settee. In fact, as I write this, dd has put down her fork and has her eyelids drooping. She was up crying at 9:30pm last night about a trivial playground incident that hurt her deeply. She was asleep before I finished that sentence.

Barista chicken traybake with cous cous, love it!

Toad in the hole with peas and onion gravy, mmmm.

Good old fish (cod) finger sandwiches, beans and chips in our house. Which is tea tonight!

We just sat down and enjoyed a chicken curry. Other teatime favourites everyone will eat include Tuna Pasta Bake, Fish and Chips, lasagne, omelettes, spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni cheese and enchiladas.

Fajitas

Chicken strips in a spice mix I bring back from the US, sauted peppers and onions, home made guacamole and salsa, cheese, lettuce, jalapenos, sour cream, refried beans and tortillas. Also not just for family nights, visitors young and old can find something there to eat, we all assemble our own.

We eat as a family pretty much all of the time when both girls are at home. The best meal that feels a bit special but is easy to make, and that we all really enjoy is a big pan of black bean soup. That's delicious in itself but what makes it even better is the pile of nachos, soured cream, homemade guacamole, pink pickled onions and fresh tomato salsa that we have alongside. It is my absolute favourite meal at the moment, and it's nice to sit around over several bowls of soup each, picking at all the side bits and pieces.

Spag bol every time!
If we're feeling fancier, then chilli with wraps

We love a roast chicken dinner, with crispy roast potatoes, lots of different vegetables, homemade cranberry sauce, gravy and sausage meat stuffing. Pigs in blankets are a must. It is lovely to be able to sit down to family meal as only happens once a week due to work and after school activities.

Fish and chips and lots of vegetables always goes down well

If you ask my DD it would fish fingers, chips and beans. DH would say sausages, cheesy mash and beans. But one that we all enjoy is fajitas - we love loading up tortillas with spicy chicken, cheese, salsa and sour cream - but only I add lots of jalapeño peppers!

Spag Bol. Can't be beaten, everyone will eat it and quick and easy to make. An all round winner!

Our 7 year old is a hugely picky eater, so it is nice when we have pizza and salad. He moans about eating the salad but not as much as other meals we make!

No-one moans on the rare occasions we have a takeaway from the chip shop though

Fishfingers, peas and McCain oven chips - and no, I'm not making that up!

As a parent to fussy eaters, my favourite family meal is the only meal that the whole family will eat - roast chicken dinner!

Roast chicken, goose fat roasted potatoes, green veg and lots of gravy.
Then some sort of chocolate dessert.

Top favourites here:

Slow cooked Bolognese in tortilla boats with grated cheese
Gammon, jacket potatoes and veg
Pizza night

All three are guaranteed to be demolished every time, and with happy faces - by DS1 and 2 aged 7 and 9 and me and DP in our 30s. None of them are amazingly fancy or special, but tbh with our hectic lifestyles right now at least 2/3 I know are balanced meals!

Lasagne is a family favourite. I make my own white sauce and mincemeat red sauce and it's well loved.

For us it's beef casserole with crusty bread. We cook it for 5 hours in the slow cooker and when you come in the door it smells amazing!

Our favourite meal is "party tea". We do this for birthdays, but also for days when we all need a bit of cheering up (ie if something awful has happened and I need to divert their attention and also can't face cooking!)
We get out a picnic blanket and they put teddies round too and then I put out sausage rolls, chips, sweetcorn, roast veg, ham or chicken, and any other favourite foods we happen to have in, plus biscuits /cake and some chocolates/sweets in a little bowl and we all just dig in

We enjoy all sorts of meals, but our two favourites (can't choose just one ) have got to be pasta in tomato sauce or sausage, egg from our hens & chips. Yummy!

Saturday night is fajita night in our house.. It's the one eve we slob out and eat in front of the tv. Dh makes the bread and chicken and we have lots of fillings, fresh salsa, avocado and lime, grated carrots and cucumber and sour cream. My teen boys never seem to get sick of it ??

Oops that's meant to be a smile, not a question

DS (7) loves our "Pizza in front of the telly" nights. We usually eat together at the table so being able to eat in front of the telly is a big treat!
We do it on a Saturday night so we have time to make pizza from scratch. I use A Girl Called Jack's recipe for the dough, using wholemeal flour and make a tomato sauce with lots of extra veg, so it's a fairly healthy recipe. We both love olives, capers and sundried tomatoes and DS always adds pineapple too.

We love baked potatoes, cheesy beans, sweet corn and salad. It's all piled up in the middle of the table so we all get stuck in & help ourselves. Tasty and I think not too unhealthy?