I Need Help with Meal Ideas

it would be helpful if you could share a bit about your kitchen experience. do you feel okay with cooking freestyle with no recipe? do you stick with a recipe, or add what you like, change spices, etc. what are you feeding your daughter now and does she enjoy it?

i love going to trader joes, picking up some dough for 99 cents or $1.09 based on what kind, pizza sauce, and fresh mozarella (it melts and tastes better). if you control the ingredients, pizza is fun and healthy. i put eggplant or spinach, but you could do whatever. or instead of pizza sauce, you could do BBQ sauce or pesto w/chicken, throw on some cilantro or onions.

have you done stir fry before? that's pretty easy and you can pretty much throw anything you like together.

how do you feel about ethnic foods? when i'm in a bind, i throw on some buckwheat soba in a pot of vegetable boullion, add some veggies, garnish with some sesame oil and a hard boiled egg. sometimes i add tofu or tilapia filets. great on a cold day. you can cut up the soba noodles to make it a little easier for your daughter to eat.

do you want cookbook recs?

There is an awesome book call Once A Month Cooking - don't worry they have 2 week plans, too. It's fairly reasonable to make and you only cook once! If you are a single mom with a young daughter, you could probably make the 2 week plan last three times over! For me, it took out the "what's for dinner" question and I just had it "made" already!

This sound impossible, but really it's not. I started this when me 3 kids were really little - especially if you have any help from friends/family at all. It can be really fun if you get together with someone and help each other.

R.

Hi C., I was a single first time mom 9 years ago and sometimes I felt like McDonalds and Mac-n-Cheese constituted dinner. (My poor baby girl lol) Well now I am married and a SAHM to 3 beautiful girls. If it is just the two of you I would keep it simple.

One super simple recipe I use is this:

Vegie Stew

In a large stock pot or crock put 4 cups water
2 vegie boullion cubes
1 bag baby carrots
2-4 chopped potatoes
1 can green beans drained
1/2 head cabbage chopped
1 small yellow onion chopped
2 small cloves garlic
**optional add ons 1 can corn, 4 celery stalks chopped, 1 can beans of your choice, black, pinto, garbanzo, whatever you like...and meat of course. I add stewed tomatoes if I use meat. It cuts the flavor just right.
Bring to a boil then set on low all day.
Serve with buttered french bread. Salt and pepper to taste.

GREAT for babies, all vegies are soft and chewy and yummy and warm. My girls LOVE this one! Left overs can be blended into homemade baby food too. :)
Best wishes.

My favorite source to run to for a new recipe when I am stumped is:
http://www.recipezaar.com
You can sign up and use it for free. You can search by recipe, ingredient, members, or member cookbooks. You can also save recipes to your own cookbook. There are also forums to ask for recipes, about recipes, lost recipes, whatever you need. I am never at a loss with this site! Hope this helps!

**Edit** There is also nutritional information on all of the recipes, as well as ratings from other members so you can get an idea of how it will turn out.

Good luck & have fun! :)

I was in the EXACT same spot a couple months ago and I signed up for "Saving Dinner.com". It is a menu planning service. The cost was $10 but I don't remember how long that subscription is for...3 months possibly. I chose the shortest option to see if I like it first. They have a variety of different menus to choose from: regular menus, slow cooker menus, some diet friendly, kosher, and I believe milk or dairy free menus. Anyway, it completely took the hassle out of coming up with something to make for dinner. Every Wednesday a week of dinner recipes is emailed to me along with a shopping list (I love the shopping list!). I haven't cooked an entire weeks menu yet (I still like some old favorites when the mood strikes), but we are trying new things constantly now. Searching cookbooks and trying new recipes is something I hate but for some reason this works for me. And the recipes have been easy and time friendly too!!

She's still young... so your child is probably okay with eating the same stuff over agian. Perhaps you could find new fun ways to serve it, i.e. pretending you have a restaurant, erving food to look like a face or the park. I went to culinary school and I cook different things for my three children all the time and so far they don't seem to really notice much unless I do restaurant night, or make faces out of the food. LOL!

They have grown to have more openness in the foods they;ll try. They had feried calamari the other night, and I told them they were eating Squidwort from Spongbob Squarepants, they thought it was hilarious and asked for more! They also have grown to like a salmon dish I make.

if you really want to try making different things buy a cookbook, not a fancy one...something that shows you how to make great meals in 15 minutes or something like that. But ultimately as long as you are preparing cooked meals for your child, you're already a step ahead of millions of McDonald's Mom's (as i call them) who only really feed their young children fast food and take out.

yYou're on the right path.

I am a Pampered Chef Consultant. We have a great cookbook geared toward children. Would you be intered in something like that?

First of all, hats off to you! Being a single mom is HARD! I was for many years.

I am a chef, so I look at recipe books, online sites and such when I run out of ideas and such and my younges of five, a seven-year old is still very picky. I just feed her her faves and introduce her to new things periodically. You will be amazed at what you can get your little one to eat. I wish you the best.

I also look to www.epicurious.com for many of my recipe ideas and nothing is wrong with some of the "grown-up" recipies, as long as they are nutritious and it encourages your daughter to try new things. Still, always keep a few faves close at hand just in case she doesn't like the new introductions.

we also have meal planning as a celebrity foods customer. call for a consult. D. ###-###-####

I have found a great series of cookbooks! "Simple Suppers" "Slow Cooker" "Busy Moms Weeknight Favorites" "Easy Weeknoght Favorites" they all have great recipes! go to www.southernlivingathome.com/danacarey and see the online catalog, or email me and I will send you one. ____@____.com Thanks Dana

I started going to Dream Dinners about a year ago and LOVE IT. I, too, have no creativity when it comes to meal prep, and really do not enjoy cooking - but I love eating good food. At Dream Dinners you prepare your own food (you choose any or all of about 15 recipes each month), and the food is nutritious and generally low in fat and sodium. When you get home, you put all your dinners in the freezer and every day, pick which one you want, thaw it out, and make it. Most of the dinners take only very minimal prep time at home, which is nice when you have little ones. I don't know where you live, but maybe there is a Dream Dinners near you that you could try out and see if you like it.

My girls are 2 and 5 and they really seem to love dinner every night. My husband and I have been thrilled to have so much variety as well. I like that we are not stuck in that same rut that we were at this time last year, we're not ordering out so much, etc.