Struggling with Dinner Ideas: Seeking Easy, Kid-Friendly Meals for a Busy Schedule

[fragilelily]

I feel your pain, my kids make me feel like the worse cook ever, pretty sure I’m not & used to enjoy cooking but since having kids, I detest cooking! As my eldest is a pain to feed! The blander the better! (But the cheeky fecker said to me the other day when I said I was doing pasta can you make it more tomatoey ) can’t win sometimes!! I like chilli can’t have that, they don’t like beans, I can’t add mushrooms to anything they don’t like them, could go on and on. Roast dinners they love but do not want to cook one each day
In the week I try & keep it simple so Fatijas are a winner, cos they pick their own wraps & fill them.
Goujons & wedges with salad/veg
But they do like to try & cook themselves and they love noodles so add chicken & veg stir fry as well.
I often cook chicken & just add salads or mash & veg. I could do with some more ideas for variety on meals too!!

 

[rattler]

@fragilelily with the mushrooms I saw on a TV chef that it you chop them very small or mince them it's very hard to detect them if with minced beef, they were using as a bulking out money saving method but just an idea for those kind of meals x

 

[mark1976]

@fragilelily i have to cook plain foods and then cook mushrooms, onions, bacon etc separately and scatter on top of my portion so not to contaminate theirs.

 

[ajak]

https://www.jamieoliver.com/fea.../10-ingredients-3-recipes/

 

[goldendillicious]

I like roasting a chicken or Turkey or ham at the beginning of the week and making meals off of those. Spaghetti and meatballs is a quick and easy go to. Tacos. Stew in the crock pot.

 

[seek123]

Try gousto for a few weeks. You can reuse recipes.

 

[mchenry1]

I tend to do 1 meal and if one of the kids don't like that I always have few tins of beans and sausages and eggs and bread so thats the go 2 for the child that won't eat what I cook or tin of soup they all have hot meal at school as well but this is always a back up or a big warm bowl of cereal trying to please 4 kids all the time is impossible usually 3 out of 4 like a meal

 

[aerols]

@yuri48 has a cook book coming out very soon. Easy one pot, quick, delicious meals

 

[sandy505]

Sandwiches, wraps, pastabake, fry up, eggy bread & sausages , ham egg chips & beans

 

[kevin1961]

Eggy bread, it’s literally scrambled eggs, dip the bread in and then fry in a little oil, easy as pie, my partner who can’t even cook a frozen pizza makes it or another easy one, pitta bread pizza! Whole meal pittas, passata and cheese, under the grill for a couple of minutes, kids can make it themselves and add whatever toppings they like x

 

[henbre2]

Hello fresh or gusto are brilliant x

 

[rattler]

Your slow cooker is your best friend. You can make near enough any meat or vegetable dish in it. I use to cook spag bowl, chilli, all chicken dishes, gammon, can even cook jacket pot in it.
It's also good to make 'dump bags' at the weekend when you buy your ingredients, makes week day cooking so much easier. So I would make a meal plan I.e chilli, sweet and sour chicken, sausage casserole, spag bowl, roast gammon, chicken biriyani. In each bag I would chop and place all vegetables/potatoes and chicken if chicken dish. In the morning grab the bag you want to cook for that day, if its a chicken dish it's generally all in the bag, I empty into slow cooker, pour over sauce, I use lots of different schwartz/colmans mixes (I cook all in slow cooker not just the ones that say slow cook on them) and I cook on high all day until 5/6pm meat just melts in the mouth. With the mince dishes I fry off the mince and chopped frozen onion in the morning, add all other ingredients into slow cooker, so all veg that's in the dump bag plus say tins of tomatoes and kidney beans in chilli sauce, can also add dried red lentils or tinned drained green lentils (no one will notice as it just blends into consistency of the meat), add packet sauce mix once mince browned add to slow cooker stir and leave to cook all day.
I would also do this for cottage pie, just move mince to oven dish in the evening, cook a bag of frozen mashed potato in microwave (can even get away with adding some frozen cauliflower and carrots to it. Add milk and knob of butter. Once cooked mash it all together in bowl add ontop of the mince you've been cooking all day and pop in oven for 20 mins.
Gammon joint I buy unsmoked, rinse in cold water, cut off the large white rind, place in slow cooker with an inch of cold water, cook on high, will be cooked for dinnertime, take out and I generally shred like you would pulled pork, we then have in wraps with some salad, or gammon, egg and chips, lots of people use as meat for a roast, leftovers for sandwiches, a small £4ish joint can easily do 2 meals for 4.
Other things we have regularly
Pasta bake and garlic bread
Breaded chicken wraps with salad, mayo and sweet chilli sauce.
Pasta, tuna, cucumber, tomatoes, sweetcorn, mayo.
Slow cooked sweet potato chilli
Pizza pasta bake
Wrap pizzas (use a wrap as the base with some tomato puree or bbq sauce, everyone adds filling of choice, we generally have mozzarella (pre grated from bag) pepperoni, peppers and mushrooms that I fry off before adding, takes minutes, bit more cheese, throw in oven for 8 mins, lovely thin crisp base and any toppings you like.
Chicken casserole in slow cooker
Braising steak stew in slow cooker
Mini meatballs in slow cooker, I get normal meatballs, split in half and re roll, brown in frying pan before adding to slow cooker with other ingredients, my kids just prefer them smaller, looks like more meatballs per person too.
Vegetarian kebab meat in pitta breads with salad and sweet chilli sauce or just mayo (firm favourite in our house)
All dishes once slow cooked can take just mins to pull together xx

 

[luzzanamary]

Following

 

[the_funky_gibbon]

If they are having a full hot meal at lunch time at school you can get away with something light for dinner on school days. Make a list of what they will eat then can slowly try to add to it. There's nothing wrong with simple stuff like beans on toast, a jacket potato, eggs on toast or toasted sandwiches, or the odd chicken nugget with a few of whatever veg you can get into them on the side.
If you don't want to eat that you could try budget frozen meals (try the yellow range), or batch cook and freeze something you like such as soups, chilli, pasta etc.
I also make things I can easily adapt for me vs the kids, so make curried sausages and take out the kids meat and veg before adding the sauce for me.

 

[ghazala7]

Not alone babe! Not alone! " I don't want to eat their food and they don't want to eat mine! Hahahaha

 

[hairybikerrev]

Completely feel your pain. Everything one of them likes, the other likes the opposite! Causes so much daily stress!

 

[arjunsuresh]

We do at least 2 'easy' meals a week - jacket poatatoes/ egg or beans on toast/ wraps/ soup and garlic bread

 

[manoffear]

My kids love things like bangers and mash, gammon chips and egg, slow cooker stew etc which I hate so I order meal preps for myself (£40 for 5 days lunch and tea so not bad) then I can make them what they fancy.

 

[cliffrose]

I hate cooking, thankfully the kids aren't fussy and my husband does all the cooking but when he is away I like to cook from the joe wicks veggie book, his meals are all simple and pretty quick. I try to do semi healthy but fast meals. Last night I just did panini's with pesto, cherry tomato's basil and mozarella. We aim to have 2-3 healthy recipes a week, my husband often cooks it at the weekend and freezes so we just reheat in the week. He often batch cooks too so one meal will do us over two days. He makes soup with all the leftovers and then we fill the gaps with eggs on toast, pesto pasta, beans on toast, bruschetta etc

 

[mrshappyhen]

The fact that you describe yourself as the 'worlds worst cook' but still don't really do takeaways (except for the occasional McDonalds) says that you're a brilliant mum (Just in case you're doubting yourself)
My cooking skills are also quite limited so I try to keep our meals simple. One night last week, we had sausages and a Bird's-eye steam fresh rice as a risotto and in the past, I've used readymeals but added some veg to the side.
As long as your kids are eating, that's the main thing.
Its hard to cook when you struggle with getting things to cook at the same time, following instructions and having the energy in general!
There's a group on Facebook called Executive Dysfunction Meals- it might be helpful to you or it might just remind you that you're not alone
In my house, we have plenty of fruit and my son knows that he can eat as much of that as he wants. That way, I'm not worrying too much about him having only the healthiest of healthy meals