Suggestions for cheap/ filling meals for teenager sons who never fill up!

catandy

Hi


after some suggestions please - I've got 2 bottomless pits of teenage sons both of whom just never fill up.


I've just gone back to work so am out of the house up to 11 hours a day sometimes so cannot monitor what they eat whilst I'm out - problem is they don't like to take the time to prepare something so it has to be grab and go - to fit in with their oh so busy lives... in reality their idea of grab and go is make themselves an omelette using 6 eggs! (for one person) or make a tuna sandwich using 2 tins of tuna and no bread (again for one person).


my idea is to stock the fridge with ready to grab portions of stuff that they can manage to nuke if need be and tell them how many portions there are in each dish... sounds draconian I know but food just seems to be inhaled by them and its getting silly.


they eat just about anything - both are health conscious so don't do fried/ fast food and my cooking skills are quite good (when I concentrate). they don't do breakfast either of them - they eat a meal (brunch?) at about 11am then another at around 3 then we all sit down to a cooked meal in the evening - they also graze between meals....


all suggestions gratefully received

pennypusher

What a challenge for you! If only you could get them to eat cereal it would be a lot cheaper and would fill them up. How about jacket potatoes and baked beans, you could just use ordinary potatoes you don't need to buy 'jacket' potatoes. Pasta Salad, Sandwiches, Ploughmans, Rice Salad. You could make cakes to fill them up although they may not consider them 'healthy enough'.

Are they working? Should they be paying housekeeping if they are? I think it's time you had a talk with them and explained that you cannot afford for them to just help themselves to expensive food all the time and they need to find cheaper things to eat. You could ask them for suggestions as to what they would like and work out how expensive it is together.

catandy

DS1 starts work at the end of the month and his 'board' will go up accordingly - and yes if they actually ate carbs ie bread/ cereal etc it would be so much easier. and no neither of them have any concept of how expensive food is - the one of them drank 4 pints of milk on his own yesterday and couldn't work out why I asked him to go and buy a bottle .... I think they both have a major shock coming when the realise how expensive the real world is.


pasta salad/ rice salad are definates - I will do a bowl of each in the fridge plus the bowl of green salad they can pad it out with. then its just they add some protein and we should be good to go...


I'm currently baking some scones and flapjacks as 'fillers' and was going to do a fruit salad bowl with everything just cut up and they can have a serving of that when they want...


I just don't want it to be like it was last week - I got home two nights to find the food I had taken out to defrost for dinner/ tea had been wolfed down whilst I was out

happydays89

My two sons were just the same as yours,I found a toasty sandwich machine was very handy,then I left tubs of various fillings in the fridge.I used to buy a French stick and make French bread pizzas,left them in the fridge and they had them cold or microwaved for a minute.cold cooked sausages were popular.

Ladyluck1

Chicken/egg fried rice fills up my bottomless hubby and he loves it!
I like this recipe;
http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/popular-cuisines/chinese/yangzhou-fried-rice-recipe

allybee101

Could you have a designated shelf in the fridge for 'snack food' or a 'hands-off shelf' so they know what they can and can't eat. That should at least help to prevent a recurrence of last week?
Perhaps you need to sit down with them and explain the cost of food. Maybe if they have to budget the shopping for a few weeks they'll realise just how much they eat

happy35

my DS is the same, he eats fruit which I buy from the wholesalers, yoghurts that come from Herons or Farmfoods, jacket potatoes with tuna and extra light mayo, wraps and pittas that he can stuff with leftover chicken, bits of ham and salad

I also do rice salad or a pasta salad with chicken and honey and mustard dressing

I also cook extra at night so that there is leftovers to ping

DS is at work though so isnt as much of a problem as it was, although he is starving when he gets in despite a packed lunch that would feed me for a week !!!

maman

I think you need a family meeting!


There has to be an understanding that things planned for a meal are not to be wolfed down. I can see that you want to feed them well but there have to be some ground rules. Perhaps you could agree a rough meal plan so they know which ingredients are available for them. Then you can explain about budgeting for meals. It'll be doing them a favour in the long run.


What about making a frittata or quiche and having plenty of pickles like beetroot to go with it. I do a quiche recipe which has mashed potato as a base rather than pastry so it's quite filling. Or could you put some chunky soup/stew in a slow cooker in the morning/overnight that would be ready for them to help themselves too.

catandy

fantastic - loads of ideas there for me to get busy with


thank you all!

themarsbargirl

Why not add in some coleslaw- grate a white cabbage 1-2 carrots and an onion and mix it all together with some salad cream-make a HUGE bowl for about 70p, filling, healthy and cheap.

M.E.

With 5 of us, my three brothers were ravenous as teenagers, in the '50's
Hollow legs!!!

Mum had a biscuit tin in which she put ANYTHING that could be eaten, without asking. Left over toast, vegetables, cakes, biscuits anything,,
It always got eaten by them. The fridge was no-go.
We had to ask if we wanted to cook anything. Normally she would be OK with eggs/cheese/toast or canned beans and canned soup. No microwave and no freezer. We could buy own own exotic Vesta meals and icecream from pocket money.