Weezl and friends Phase 3 - sitting pretty with Kitty

domesticgoddess789

MadDogWoman wrote: »

I made Cottage pie tonight - one word yummy - the colour was a bit :eek:, but that's because I'm used to making it with gravy, There's plenty left for tomorrow. Both DH and DD liked it. I think I overcooked the potatoes as they mashed themselves when I was draining the water off.

I usually make cottage pie with gravy too but this way makes a nice change.

Thank you for getting stuck in and testing so many of the recipes, it really is appreciated :T:A

weezl74

snowedunderitall wrote: »

Can I ask a really dumb question.. I thought this was £40 a month? The recipe plan says £100 a month

yep, it's quite a bit less than £40 if you meant per person!

Where's the linkie you came from snowedunderitall? And welcome by the way!

pinkie_pie

I didn't mean it as a dig, just another thread links the two and I was a little confused. £100 a month is still ridiculously cheap as you say

I'm very tempted, but I doubt as a family we'd stick to it. I have no issues with serving up cheap dinners, and I love the thought that's gone into the plan - we'd have to follow a vegetarian plan though as I am rather iffy with meat esp organs and such. The problem for us lies in the breakfast and lunches - while they love porridge and would probably willingly have the toast/porridge occassionally, they wouldn't every day/alternating day. And lunches would prove a problem, as they have two packed lunches each a week and I'm not entirely sure what I'd be filling it up with from the menu plan, especially what they'd eat! (They're 4 and 6). Plus when I'm at work/uni, there's no fridge, no stove, no microwave, nothing. And as I don't drive it has to be really transportable

I'm not entirely sure how I'd adapt the shopping/recipes for us either (three of us as opposed to your four) and manage to accurately shop without stressing myself out. A pity because I would love to try something like this...

pinkie_pie

Hmm... I'm wondering now if I could tweak it, and manage a bit of a shuffle. The kids go to their dads quite frequently (meaning it's just me for those meals, which would probably mean some sort of tweaking and batch cooking/freezing for my meals) then could the money saved on meals missed then possibly stretch to a few 'extras' that would make this entirely amenable for the kids. A cakey treat, home made sandwiches and fruit for lunch isn't awful obviously, but the addition of the option of perhaps a cereal or some honey for the bread (for breakfast) and maybe a humzinger in the lunchbox and they'd more than likely happily have everything else I think it's the bread we'd need to work on - they've only ever had two slices a day max! And that's not entirely often

artybear

Hi snow,

I can see you are putting alot of thought into this and trying to adapt it to your needs. We are getting a few people saying that they would love to do the plan but their children probably wouldnt like it. Would it be possible for you to give us an idea of what meals your children have on a regular basis? And how many different lunches/brekkies they have in a week? Obviously if you would rather not say that is fine, but I would like to know so we could maybe adapt the planner or see what ways we could tempt parents a little more?:)

If you do any of the recipes please ask for help here, I know Bigjenny has often just cooked for one from the planner and I regularly cook for two so we are practiced at tweaking the planner to suit our individual needs.

Hope you dont mind the questions:)

artyxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

pinkie_pie

Thanks for the reply arty

Looking at the meat one briefly, the only recipe that stood out as liver was the pate so maybe I need to stop being a baby and consider that as an option moving swiftly on...


Forgetting about the time/batch booking/work constraints that we all suffer, from a simple food point of view these are my thoughts... based on the vegetarian plan, and my family in particular (which is me, dd who is 4 and started big school today, and ds who is 6).

1. It's a lot of bread. As I said, my two have at most had two slices a day, but I'd be prepared to stretch this, with nice homemade bread. I'd give it a go, but I don't know if they'd get a bit grumpy at bread for breakfast and lunch (haven't looked if any dinners have bread as an accompaniment too) every other day, granted this is about breaking away from habits and going to frugal home cooking which I thoroughly understand, but they've been spoilt with wraps and cereals and things granted they like bran flakes and aren't eating coco pops but still

2. Is it a lot of carbohydrate? This may have already been answered so my apologies if so, but again breakfast of bread/porridge, lunch of bread, most snack options are baked goods... Is this balanced out by the 'healthiness' of the diet in comparison to the chicken nuggets and sweets lots of children are fed? It's just in my mindset of knowing I could do with losing [STRIKE]more than[/STRIKE] a few pounds, everything seems very bready

3. Just a personal thing again, my two love raw fruit and veg. I'm fully aware this is expensive, but just an area mine would protest if only having one piece a day.

4. I'm not entirely sure things like the seed spread/walnut spread are things that are (my) child friendly, though whilst trialling the menu I would reserve judgement till they had tried it My son loves hummous (although my daughter doesn't!) so things like those are more of a personal thing imo.


Onto what mine eat...

For breakfast, a fruit smoothie and cereal. Cereal is usually branflakes, cornflakes, shreddies, porridge with honey or weetabix. To be honest usually three or more varieties in cupboard. Not too worried at loss of smoothie. Ds enjoys honey on toast very occassionally, he'd possibly like it more often.

Then for lunch, they have wraps/rolls/crackers and the such like. Ds enjoys hummous and roasted veg, ham, tomatoes, and cheese. Dd likes ham/cheese/marmite. Then for the rest of lunch it's usually two portions of fruit (from grapes, strawberries, melon, satsumas, apple, banana, cherry tomatoes usually) or a portion of fruit and one veg (cucumber, carrot, very rarely celery.) Occassionally a little cake or biscuit, and normally one of those humzinger bars. Never chocolate bars, rarely crisps though they do like them of course

Dinner is anything really, I have no qualms with the varieties of dinners, and would trial most things (like I said, just iffy with meat). We tend to eat standard meals, spaghetti bolognese, carbonara, chili, curry, we eat at least one mexican-based meal a week (fajitas, enchildas etc), cottage pie, occassionally roast, sausages and mash, toad in the hole... and lots of random stuff too. They sometimes have a biscuit, yoghurt or another piece of fruit after dinner.
ETA - those meals are all meat sounding aren't they! We eat a lot of vegetarian meals too, those just sprung to mind

My breakfast/lunch is something I'd need to consider. When I go to uni we leave at 6.30am and I can't eat at that awful hour I usually eat around 8.30am on the train so would need to consider that. Lunch is then without a fridge or microwave, and after a two hour commute by multiple train. Usually for these meals I've bought something (which is one of the habits I want to break) or I'll make a salad which goes all nasty out the fridge, or homemade sushi which still isn't cheap




Okay so that's my twopenceworth Despite that, I'm still very keen to give it a go, and I'm interested in how the kids would take it.

artybear

Thank you so much for that post Snow (and yay for your DD starting school, hope she does ok:j) I see what you are saying now, and understand your concerns re: health.

I am not the best on this thread in terms of knowing the nutritional aspect of this planner (my areas of expertise are really chat and support ) however I have picked up many nutritional pointers so far, so could offer you some advice until the clever ones can answer. In terms of carbs and bread especially, the planner is healthy. In modern day society we tend to equate low carb/fat with health when this is actually untrue. Although many people could do with losing weight in this day and age (and trust me I need to lose lots!!!) a low carb diet is not a 'healthy' diet for human children and adults and we confuse weight loss diets with a 'healthy' diets iyswim??

In terms of raw fruit and veg, I also understand. I think we forget that our 5 fruit and day can come from ANY fruit and veg, so dried fruit, frozen veg and even simple things like onions in bolognaise can be counted (something I didnt realise for a long time!!:o) but having fresh is nice, however maybe you could cut down slightly if needed too, I still have apples/pears because I like to have them and if you can afford them then that's fine, if you are struggling a little then maybe you could just use alternatives for a while, e.g I have frozen broccolli rather than fresh as its cheaper and doesn't get wasted.

In regards to changing your childrens eating habits then obviously that is up to you, maybe you could just start on main meals and slowly introduce some lunches etc??? Even just having some cfr meals a few times a week will reduce your budget and many of your standard meals sound like things we have on the planner so not too different to normal. Im sure that maybe getting them involved with bread making then they might like to eat some more...:money:

In regards to your lunch, a sandwich would keep ok in that time, so maybe just start making lunches with things you know you like and then you can frugalise if you wish!!

I promise you CFR can work for everyone with a bit of tweaking (and everyone here is very good at helping tweak:)) I am one of the fussyest people on this thread, I dont like porridge, nut butters etc....:obut I still eat cfr meals the majority of the time!!:beer:
Thank you so much for answering my questions and I hope I have answered some of your queries??



artyxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:)

shanks77

Just organising myself for the fritters tonight. Mixed feelings about it as ex thinks they should accompany something not be the main event so will be interesting to see how he enjoys it. Will report back later with the verdict

pinkie_pie

Thanks arty I appreciate the reply

The carb info is good, I have got into the mindset of carbs = bad, so maybe this would help break that a bit.

I should have rephased what I said, I thoroughly see this is good for the veg/fruit in different meals, I'm not querying the '5-a-day' aspect by any means, I think it's more that I'm more chuffed my kids love their raw fruit and veg, so it would be a bit hard to say 'I know you want grapes honey, but here's a home-cooked doughnut - your grapes were actually in the porridge this morning!' I think it's more that I know they wouldn't understand that they can't have things that are good for them, or the reasons why, where an adult/teen might be more inclined to.

I think what I may try is what I feel is sensible for us - buy the shopping list (hopefully tweaked for our lesser family size so if anyone has some advice there please offer!) and just stick a box of cereal, a pot of honey and a wee bit extra fruit on top and see how we get on!

pinkie_pie

shanks77 wrote: »

Just organising myself for the fritters tonight. Mixed feelings about it as ex thinks they should accompany something not be the main event so will be interesting to see how he enjoys it. Will report back later with the verdict

lol this reminds me of cooking slimming world meals for the ex + kids, slaved all day over a veg/bread bake (which ended up really horrid to boot) and he took one look at it and asked where the meat and potatoes were.