Childminders Weekly Meal Plan

msb5262

Ideas for lunches - cheese on toast; home-made chicken broth with bits of chicken and small pasta shapes cooked in it; jacket potatoes halved, middles mashed with cheese and chopped ham, replaced in skins then baked till golden; risotto (easy to make then freeze); home-made fishcakes; pasta with baked beans and grated cheese.

My children's favourite dinner is pasta, peas and ham - takes a total of 11 minutes and only uses one pan. Boil fusilli pasta for 5 minutes, then ADD frozen peas to the same pan and cook for another 5 minutes. Drain and return to pan, add fresh cream, chopped ham and grated cheese. Stir over low heat for 30 seconds to melt together. Protein, carbohydrate and a green vegetable, quick and pretty cheap. Also delicious! Honestly, try it. You can also vary this by replacing the frozen peas with frozen sweetcorn and replacing the ham with mashed up tinned tuna. This looks particularly nice sprinkled with chopped parsley or chives as it's a bit pale.

Valli

what about getting the children to select their own pizza toppings? you can make a selection available for them to choose from.
When DS was small (and I was working) I used to do a casserole with smaller 'bits' and keep them in the freezer. I'd do a different one each weekend so kept a variety available.
Shepherd/cottage pie
Fish Pie (I put peas and sweetcorn in mine)
Also homemade milk pudding (rice, tapioca, macaroni, semolina) or egg custard? (you don't need a pastry case)
Jacket spuds/ wedges in the oven?
One of my kids favourite was pasta+tuna+sweetcorn salad
DS liked it with salad cream/mayonnaise; DD without.
they still LOVE it and they are 15 and 13 now!

Eggy bread? AKA Gypsy toast? (bread soaked in omelette mix - egg+milk and fried)
Omelettes - cheese toppings/ham in/ spanish omelette

But I remember yoghurt being 'new' - and asking my mum what she fed us on pre-yoghurt!
(Not least because DD was a fussy eater and breakfasted on yoghurt at nursery for a while - I used to take them in with me - unitl I had her I used to doubt these people who couldn't eat first thing in the morning - well DD had problems 'eating' from birth -I just made sure she had something suitable available - thank goodness for bananas!)

Quillion

Have a look on Annabel Karmel website she is fabulous and there are lots and lots of ideas.
My ds is awkward he does not like anything tomato based it makes him sick always has even as a baby.

Valli

Hi Quill
My DDis exactly the same
she had her first bolognaise sauce this week...was 13 in Jan!
That's a long time of offering it withoutfussing!

Quillion

Its not like he doesn't like it when he was a baby if he ate the bolognaise he chucked up he doesn't like beans spaghetti pasta shapes in that kind of sauce.

He will eat fish and liver (small bit) but would live on his nan nans yorkshire puddings if i let him !!

kim85

If you look on the british dietic assossiations (not sure if i'm allowed to post link as i'm new) website they have facts sheet about recommendations for children's eating. Notice you haven't got fish on the menu- the recommendation is at least two portions a week( for nurseries) - with one being oily fish, we normally do salmon fishcakes for this and a basic fish pie or somehting along those lines - tuna pasta bake.

More pudding recommendations:
- chocolate courgette cake.
- hoemmade apple pie
- fruit on its own- piece of melon etc, or you could say a piece of seaonla fruit, as they are often the cheapest at that time
- fruit salad
- muffins, with fruit etc in
- oat cakes
We have used quite alot of sainsbursy £5 meal menus and adapted them at our nursery e.g. the morocaan chicken and adapted these as they are easy to cook in bulk.

Dreamy

Snack wise Fruit (fresh or dried you can even give frozen to teething babys you can get a special thing now so they can't choke) is always a good one the kids I work with love it they also love toast ! I like to vary it by using diffrent spreads ie chesse, peanut butter ect crackers and various forms of crisp breads, rice cakes the occasional biscuits or cakes, choc dipped fruit sounds great and the kids could make it to
Definatly second the pizza idea would love to do that with ours but don't think wed fit 24 in the oven !
Fruit fool is a fab pudding as well as a great snack just mush fruit in to natural yoghurt we let the kids decorate so much fun used bannana, apple and kiwi slices and choc chips I made a bear the kids thought it was hilerious !
Also flap jacks are fab packed with fruit and oats but only as a treat as also packed with sugar (even home made ones !)

Valli

Quillion wrote: »

Its not like he doesn't like it when he was a baby if he ate the bolognaise he chucked up he doesn't like beans spaghetti pasta shapes in that kind of sauce.

He will eat fish and liver (small bit) but would live on his nan nans yorkshire puddings if i let him !!

my dd (13 remember) won't eat anything (beans pasta) in tom sauce.
I just keep offering...
BUT as both my kids eat massive quantities of fruit and veg - even sprouts I MUST not complain.

Patchwork_Quilt

Hi what an interesting idea. I was going to say jacket spuds with various fillings but someone got there before me. How about home made wedges and dahl with fruit afterwards? I do notice that a lot of quick and inexpensive food is based on wheat, so that you can have cereal, then sandwiches then pasta in one day but that may be because I am sensitive to it myself. Why not include some quinoa or brown rice for a change?

Boodle

These are the things DD tends to have as snacks:

Rice cakes
Breadsticks
A couple of cubes of cheese
Carrot sticks
Apples
Bananas
Dried fruit
Digestive or other oaty biscuit
A paper bag mix of dried fruit, mini rice cakes/cornflakes (or popcorn) and the odd time I have any in the house, I will pop some choc pieces in there too.

You could also do plain popcorn which I have only recently discovered DD loves!

Good luck with the diploma!