ilovethelordgear
New member
Slow cooker meals are a life saver, no cooking just prep and then go to work and let tbe cooker do its thing
Struggling with Dinner Ideas: Seeking Easy, Kid-Friendly Meals for a Busy Schedule
- Thread starter arancf13
- Start date
I wonder how many parents with fussy eaters and dietary requirements to cater for actually like cooking? I used to think I enjoyed it, but that was when it was one or two adults enjoying a variety of meals. Now I make multiple meal variations at once, my heart sinks every night and I feel like I’m working in a restaurant for no pay! Sorry, no suggestions, my kids won’t touch a lot of the “most kids love this” ideas! 
Boiled eggs and soldiers, bowls of chopped fruit, cereal night, beans on toast, chicken strips and peas. I keep it really simple and easy during the week due to fussy eaters and schedukes/work. I just serve fruit with everything cos they won't eat much veg. Sometimes it's a crisp sandwich but I use wholemeal! 
Meal plan and batch cook where you can to save yourself stress and time for the next mealtime.
When my son has a hot dinner at school, he tends to have a cold picnic style lighter tea at home. Eg. Sandwiches/thins/bagels/crumpets, babybel, cucumber and carrot sticks, crisps.
When my son has a hot dinner at school, he tends to have a cold picnic style lighter tea at home. Eg. Sandwiches/thins/bagels/crumpets, babybel, cucumber and carrot sticks, crisps.
I have fussy kids too
I use a slow cookers alot so I can put it on before work
Some of my go to tho
Full English
Spag bol
Curry
Frazzle nuggets (chicken chunks dip in egg then dip in blitz frazzles)
Chow mein
Shepherd pie
Pizza
Omelette
Gammon egg and chips
Lasagne
Sausage and mash
Fish fingers
Pinch of nom have great recipes and we are trying lots out as our problem we mind we always eat the same and get board
I use a slow cookers alot so I can put it on before work
Some of my go to tho
Full English
Spag bol
Curry
Frazzle nuggets (chicken chunks dip in egg then dip in blitz frazzles)
Chow mein
Shepherd pie
Pizza
Omelette
Gammon egg and chips
Lasagne
Sausage and mash
Fish fingers
Pinch of nom have great recipes and we are trying lots out as our problem we mind we always eat the same and get board
suchasthese
New member
Try gusto or something like that for the 4 weeks trial as it's cheaper then shopping at a super market. Step by step guild and the kids can get involved. That will give you the basic too of how to cook. I'm a mum of 5, single parent but work full time. Pre-planning is everything in our house as the kids start cooking it for me if I'm running late.
christwon1
New member
Cheesy pasta, tuna and pasta I add broccoli to the cheesy pasta sweetcorn to the tuna, so easy and so yummy, bread pizza they can put there own bits on it, sausage casserole, oven fish and chips and nuggets, chicken burgers, meals don't have to be fresh cooked every night x
I work in a school over lunch time and we have some real picky eaters, I'm surprised your kids will not eat what you wish to make but they will have hot dinners daily, sounds odd. No offence intended. Are you sire if they are having hot meals at school they are just not being picky at home as hot dinners have quite alot of variety. But try and focus on the things they do like and build around that, see if you can incorporate it with what you want to eat but maybe just changing something or just say its this or go hungry. Either way good luck, hope you find a happy medium. Both my kids are completely different and don't like what each other like or what we like as such so we just try and do what we all like and have to make do lol on the days we're not keen, my eldest if he don't like ot ge can make something himself but he's a older teen
singnewsong
New member
Don't put too much pressure on yourself, beans or egg on toast is a perfectly good meal. I hate cooking too & have fussy eaters. Yesterday I did a roast dinner. I substituted veg with a corn on the cob for one child & the other had a bowl of porridge after I'd eaten. He was sat Infront of a small plate of meat, mash & peas but only ate 3 peas so the dog got lucky.
Look at one pot meals that you could tweak. If I do sausage casserole for the little ones who don't like all the veg I open a tin of beans.
Look at one pot meals that you could tweak. If I do sausage casserole for the little ones who don't like all the veg I open a tin of beans.doomsayer2
New member
No wonder kids are such fussy eaters these days. If seen it time and time again parents making a rod for their own backs and perpetuating bad eating habits. When I was a kid you ate what was put down for you or you went hungry. My parents couldn't afford to waste food. Chocolate or sweets were a treat once a week on a Sunday. We ate fruit and vegetables and meat from the butchers all home cooked. With the advent of supermarkets I had more choice when my children were young however as there is very little I wouldn't eat they were brought up to try everything that was put down for them. I worked full time and as a single parent it was hard at times to make the effort at meal times but both my daughter's eat healthy now. Once a week they were allowed to have a treat usually a Friday night a Macdonald's or whatever they fancied for tea. I certainly didn't cook different meals for each child. We all ate the same. At 16 thanks to the college my daughter went to she was brainwashed into becoming a vegetarian. I told her fine if that's what she wanted to do but she would have to cook for herself as I wasn't cooking two separate meals which she did. There are things which my kids flatly refused to eat such as baked beans. I soon realized it was a waste of time cooking them so learned what they really didn't like. Vegetables such as carrots and turnip were mashed in with potatoes to get them to eat them at first also broccoli. They soon learned to like the taste. It's easier to pander to their wishes but in the long run they won't eat healthily which isn't doing them any favours. Perhaps that is why my grandma was 96 when she died and my mother 97. If like me you find coking a chore rather than a pleasure. Batch cook and freeze when you do have the time. Then when you don't feel like cooking there's always something you can pull out of the freezer.
@doomsayer2 in those days the moms stayed at home and cooked though. I leave the house at 8 and get in at 6, 5 days a week as a single parent. If I had time to cook wonderful meals every night then maybe the girls would be different but I’m exhausted and then we still have the sports clubs to do, as mentioned above, my eldest is also disabled so it’s not that easy.
laurnetiuman
New member
@arancf13 I struggle too and I finish at 4.30 but sometimes the clubs start at 6 so that night especially is tricky. I usually plan to do a quick dinner that night. Like lasagne (made the night before) or a curry(out of a jar). It’s not unheard of for my lad to have sandwiches but once a week won’t hurt him! Quick dinners though: saus n mash, curry, lasagne, pasta n meatballs, chicken drumsticks n golden veg rice, microwave salmon, baby pots n veg
laurnetiuman
New member
Rodrick Richardson No! I have no idea who you are! 
I think you’re trying to be helpful here, but I don’t understand, how come you couldn’t teach yours to eat baked beans? Is it not just faintly possible there are some kids that really “can’t” eat things in the same way? But it just so happens to be with more foods? I’m happy for you that you managed to achieve everyone eating the same meal, but simply because you managed it doesn’t that everyone should be able to. Perhaps your children were just naturally less fussy - mine certainly started off eating anything and everything before becoming more picky (not encouraged by me - I eat almost everything). I for one could not take the route of “eat it or don’t eat” with my children for health reasons. And it’s pure myth that children being fussy eaters is a modern phenomenon.