What (if any) ready made food items do you feed your toddler?

[awilliams123]

I have to date been very good with making meals and storing them, but as time goes on and DS becomes more and more of a handful (just over a year old at the moment), I am finding myself looking for quick relatively healthy alternatives. DS feeds himself quite well (not with a spoon) and can eat quite mushy food with his fingers surprisingly well.

What I'm looking for are finger foods that I can keep in the freezer and heat in microwave/grill/oven. Basically, the convenience of chicken nuggets, without the chicken nuggets...

Any suggestions?

[Sanne Panne]

Speaking of chicken nuggets, Waitrose (that is - Ocado, but I think it's Waitrose brand) has organic breaded "chicken fingers". Not too much guilt about those.

[Beany]

My little one loves veggie sausages (usually chopped up) - just 10 minutes under the grill - good for iron and protein.

Mini quiches are sometimes acceptable to her. Strangely, mini arancini (sp?) balls (cooked from frozen in 10 minutes) have also gone down well. Latter not very healthy I don't suppose.

She definitely favors the home cooked stuff, so I reckon they like to make us work ;-)

[Kes]

ooh Beany - where do you get the mini arancini from?

I'm afraid I resort to pre-packed food a fair bit, especially when I'm working, fish fingers, vege sausages and vege burgers (the type that are lots of veges in breadcrumbs) go down well and good old beans on toast if you get the reduced salt and sugar type

[sbain]

Hi - my nearly two year old loves franklins fish cakes served with frozen peas and has done since he was about 12 months old (which I give him almost entirely guilt free - surely that is a healthy meal). It's my go-to meal when I have forgotten to plan anything - 20 mins in the oven and done.

He also loves baked beans with some cheddar cheese grated on top - I buy the reduced sugar and salt version to assuage the guilt (still not super healthy but not that bad).

I also keep homemade fish fingers and chicken fingers in the freezer - slices of fish\chicken dipped in egg then flour then breadcrumbs. So although literally chicken nuggets I know exactly what has gone into them - served with veggies - he loves them.

The final super easy meal that he really likes is tuna and bean salad - 1 tin of chickpeas, 1 tin of giant white beans, 1 tin of red kidney beans, 2 tins of tuna (in spring water rather than brine to keep down the salt content) lots of chopped parsley, olive oil and lemon juice served in a pita bread. All i have to do is open the tins and mix. I serve this a lot even when people are over - it looks like you have made an effort when really it takes 5 mins to make.

Sbain

[awilliams123]

Ah! Thanks everyone for the suggestions....mini quiches sound like a very good idea. Also curious where you get frozen mini arancini Beany?

Little one not into beans...or peas....such a disappointment!!

sbain....franklins fishcakes, you mean from the shop on lordship lane? Forgive me if this is obvious, but you could be talking about a famous brand I have never heard of!

I think I'm gonna make a trip to the supermarket and see what I can find...straight after lunch, which I have no idea what it will be...

[oimissus]

not a ready meal but quick and easy - omelette, scrambled eggs, cheese and tomato puree on toast, sandwiches.

[Pickle]

You shouldn't feel guilty about using ready made food, as long as you check the labels. There's a lot of nice stuff available these days.

My ultra quick fallback is gnocchi - in boiling water for about 2 mins and it's done. Team it with cheese sauce, tomato based sauce etc (I tend to have portion sized pots of each in the freezer). Gnocchi can be kept in the freezer and cooked from frozen so it's really convenient.

[awilliams123]

Gnocchi! Excellent idea.

Already do omellettes, he'll eat egg mayo and tuna mayo sandwiches...I'm basically trying to reduce the amount of my 'free time' that I spend preparing, cooking, and cleaning up after meals - whether for the baby or for ourselves. He'll eat a lot of what we eat ourselves, but he's still a little way off from eating a red curry...

[akc74]

My toddler loves spinach & ricotta tortelloni, gnocchi...I've had mixed success with chicken & broccoli crispbakes from Sainsbury's. He also likes sweet potato falafels (from Waitrose/Ocado I think).

Sainsbury's sell arancini - sold as butternut squash and sage risotto balls, if I remember correctly - these have also gone down well.

[hellosailor]

gnocchi is a winner in our house too - I buy one of those fresh packs which actually stay fresh for days and days after they've been opened and also buy (very lazy) one of the big packs of ready grated cheese from saisnburys and then stir some of that in when they're just cooked and it melts on top. love that it takes 2-3 mins to cook only as others have said

you can buy packs of freezable organic meatballs for children in sainsburys

I also give my daughter veggie sausages, there is one particular brand in SMBS which you don't have to cook first even, they are pre-cooked, so they can be eaten cold as they are or warm them up. (I forget which brand but it says 'eat hot or cold' on the packet. I freeze them individually and then get them out to defrost overnight as I need them, one or two at a time.

got tired of my daughter throwing my lovingly prepared Annable Karmel recipe organic fish fingers on the floor so have given up and now on occasion offer her good old Catptain Birdseye's ones...they don't get greeted with much enthusiasm either to be fair! Would quite like her to get into these as so easy!

I haven't tried yet but have quite a few friends who give those filled pasts shells you buy fresh in saisnburys, I guess some must haves a much higher salt content than others though?

[Carbonara]

Birds Eye fillet fish fingers are perfectly OK - no 'unnatural' ingredients. The orange colour is carotene.

Good quality thick cut oven chips - just potato and a small amount of sunflower oil, what's the matter with that?

Pasta and pesto

You can make your own oven chips - cut potatoes onto chips sized wedges (leave the skin on) coat very lightly in olive or sunflower oil, sprinkle lightly in salt, bake in the oven on a mdium-high heat.

The fresh chilled (but keep for ages) stuffed pasta with spinach and ricotta.

Good quality pizza - it's just bread dough, cheese and tomato! Pizza Express Margarita, pre cut into the right sized slices and then frozen so you can just cook one or two slices. Add some tuna and frozen / defrosted leaf spinach, or ham, or mushroom slices before cooking.

The Health Visitor advice is that over a year old, babies can eat what we eat, within reason - there is no need for all this guilt and hand wringing.

Also, if a chicken nugget says it is all fillet, that is what they must put in. Just check the good quality packets.

[sanity girl]

Gnocchi are brill - quickest dinner ever when cooked together with frozen veg and then serve with butter and grated cheese. Or slightly longer to cook but still quick is pasta with butter and cheese rather than gnocchi. Or omelette cut into strips and veg. My 18 month old adores the Little Dish chicken and butternut squash pies - hoovers them up. Doesn't like any of the other little dish meals though.

[awilliams123]

Yes! This is what I'm talking about! Food that takes no time at all to prepare but still does not fall into the 'junk' category. Thank you all! Off to the supermarket.

[snowboarder]

There's a pot of ready made bolognaise pasta sauce for kids that is my tea time life saver - called miniscoff I think - from ocado. I do use fresh tomato and cheese pasta sauces too. Veggie sausages good. Quorn goes down quite well with my 13m old as not too chewy. Ocado (and I think sainsburys) do fresh rather than frozen fish fingers.

[Fuschia]

Covent garden tomato soup

[scareyt]

For my nearly two year old I use pancakes, either bought or home made with wholemeal flour and lots of eggs and then frozen. I use them either for breakfast or for desert if the main meal has been a bit lacking or not got down well. You can put them in the toaster from frozen and then put jam or anything on them to make them more palatable. Filling and very quick.

I also in real emergencies use one of those Plum baby stage 4 ready meals, mixed with some cous cous (made up with boiling water then microwaved for a minute) to make it more filling and less sloppy. Probably not great nutrition but if you've been out all day and get home with a starving toddler it's very quick!

Or toast fingers with peanut or cashew butter plus some strips of raw red/yellow pepper. Well balanced meal with no cooking at all!

[sbain]

Hi - yes Franklins the shop on Lordship lane (Sorry that wasn't very clear).

[Fuschia]

Hummous pitta and crudit?s is balanced

Fresh Pasta with grated cheese and raw veg or fruit, ditto

[mima08]

Great thread, can we make these into a recipe book? My go to meal is couscous with peas and tuna - depending what's in the house, I add some tomato sauce, or sweetcorn & herbs etc

[jennyh]

My 13mo is a massive fan of macaroni cheese and I hide chunks of fish and lots of veg in there, make a batch for our dinner and then freeze in portion sizes in sandwich bags.

Failsafe things include avocado (either as chunks or spread on toast with cheese), hummous sandwiches, roasted peppers (or just shoved in microwave with a little water if running late), any chunks of roasted veg with a little honey and herbs, meatballs (I freeze in portions of 2 and then defrost), fishcakes (although I am a bigger fan than she is).

i also make a lot of spanish omelettes with potato, tuna, masses of veg...make a big one and then cut into slices and freeze.

Sounds simple but up until a month ago we didn't have a microwave so i would spend an hour steaming chunks of carrot and getting quite stressed out about it all. I am sure you have one already but I LOVE my microwave now and if I am running late I can put all sorts of stuff in there, for me it is a revelation!

Love the thread, all great ideas!

[Saffron]

awilliams123 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Ah! Thanks everyone for the suggestions....mini

> quiches sound like a very good idea. Also curious

> where you get frozen mini arancini Beany?

>

> Little one not into beans...or peas....such a

> disappointment!!

>

Don't give up! :) After showing initial interest in tuna when weaning, Little Saff then went through a phase of refusing it completely. I thought maybe it was just something she genuinely didn't like. Then after months of not offering any, we had salad nicoise, and she ate loads of tuna. Don't offer beans/peas for a while, then reintroduce them along side some favourites. Tastes can change.

As far as ready meals go, Little Saff always eats with us. Mr Saff and I gen cook from scratch, but we do enjoy the occasional take-away. I think anything is fine, as long as you don't have it too often. That being said, Little Saff is partial to chips. I use the frozen, oven-bake type, keep salt and oil to a minimum. Instead of ketchup, I always used to mix plain yogurt with tomato puree. Then Mr Saff introduced her to real ketchup and the game was up! Oh well.

[awilliams123]

Till now, I've always kept portion sizes of homemade bolognese sauce or cheese sauce (in which I hide loads of veg) and just boil up some pasta shapes when needed. The only true 'ready-made' things he's been eating are fish fingers and chips (same as you Saffron, the oven type). I also keep a bag of frozen broccoli and cauliflower to steam or boil short notice...still I need more short notice meals!

Found a lot of the items you've all mentioned at the supermarket. The organic meatballs were a big hit so far...I also got some fresh tortellini, found the risotto balls, a few other things. I will try them all one by one and see what goes down well and what doesn't.

Really hope he starts eating beans soon...they're such a fantastic source of nutrients.

[Bonfire2010]

Baked beans (low salt & sugar version), alphabetti spaghetti, sausages (skins off, rolled into meatballs), fishfingers, pasta with ready-made pesto. Also Jamie Oliver's 'Little Meals' are handy - mini-bonfire likes the Salmon & Broccoli pie and the 'Yummy Pollack Fish Pie'. I've tried and failed to find the risotto balls in Sainsburys - can anyone direct me to where they are?

[njc97]

pasta/rice with tomato sauce (batch made and frozen, or from a jar) or pesto.

Blinis from sainsburys plus tomato puree and slice of cheese = mini pizzas.

Scrambled eggs/omelettes.

Our son currently has a thing about parsnip chips - basically roasted parsnips.

Anabelle carmelle's chicken balls can be frozen and then fried. Or homemade burgers.