Cooking for kids

LOD was 13 months when she suddenly decided she didn't eat anything except yoghurt. A week or so later I trundled up to the GP like any worried first time mother and expressed my concern. The GP's response - 'let her eat yoghurt'. And so we did and 3 weeks later she started eating again. That wasn't the first food issue we had and I am sure it certainly wont be the last! Add in suddenly hating peas after 2 years of loving peas, refusing to try anything and then suddenly eating a load of new things at nursery (I love peer pressure). Anyway, the gist of it all is that I long ago ran out of energy to do major cooking for my small people as invariably if it isn't pasta pesto, it just gets rejected. I have become the queen of quick and (vaguely) healthy for small people and thought I might share 1 or 2 recipes and ideas in case you are interested.

First though, a few things that really are ok (this is my opinion and in no way sould be mistaken for sound parental or dietary advice):

• They will survive if you feed them pasta once a day, every day. It's easy and quick.
• The more time it has taken you to create, the less likely they are to eat it
• Fish fingers can be microwaved directly from frozen (2 fish fingers = 1 min)
• Frozen veg is cheaper, easier and doesn't go off. Embrace it.
• Bribing with chocolate is completely acceptable from about 8 months (I only learned this second time round....)
• They will not keel over and die if they occassionally have sugar, salt, non organic or any of the other crap we aren't supposed to feed them
• Pizza - covers a number of food groups.
• If you can get them to eat sandwiches, these too are fine once a day, every day
• Raisins can be used as sweeties or pills depending on what needs curing - at least that's what LOD believes. EEROD doesn't like raisins. 
• Give them pudding after lunch and dinner and not always fruit or yoghurt. The occassional chocolate bickie is no bad thing

Uber quick cheese sauce:
When I can, I make up a large batch of cheese sauce and freeze in ice cubes to defrost and use when needed. I often run out before I have gotten round to making more so try this....

Put a heaped table spoon of creme fraiche into a pot and heat gently. Grate in a decent amount of cheddar, add a pinch of pepper and a miniscule amount of sea salt. Stir until the cheese has melted and mix into lots of yummy pasta.A sort of Mac'nCheese.

Pasta pesto with ham and peas:
Add cooked peas and chopped ham to pasta pesto for added goodness. Stir in some double cream, creme fraiche or plain yoghurt to make more saucy if needed. 

Fish fingers with rice and veg:
Cook up some basmati rice and add a vaiety of veg to the pot while you cook (frozen broccoli and cauliflower....), throw some fish fingers in the microwave and hey presto - dinner. Add some cheese sauce to the rice and veg - my kids lurve it!

Pureed veg for all ages!
One of the things I continue to cook up in huge batches is essentially thick veggie soup. I add in whatever veg I can find, cover with enough water to cook and then blend into a thick gloopy, soupyness and freeze in ice trays. This menas I can instantly add veg to a sauce, put straight on rice or pasta or heat and grate in some cheese for a cheesy veg sauce.

Pitta pizza
Toast a wholemeal pitta bread, slice in half to get two crispy bases. Cover with tomato paste, grated cheddar and add your topping of choice (I add a tiny bit of olive oil and mixed herbs to the tomato paste). Pop in a preheated oven (180) for ten mins. Insta-pizza.

Key tip for weaning - you can spend a lot of money on suction plates to hold bowls to the table but in my experience they don't work however, two things I found successful were to either velcro the bowls to the table (you can buy the stick on velcro stuff) or use blutack to hold bowls down.

You will see from the photos below that EEROD and LOD eat a lot of pasta and EEROD has no manners!