These days, serving nutritious, tasty menus with five daily portions of fruit and vegetables takes some planning. But the winning formula is simple: write the week's menus of everything you intend to offer, check its value and cost, then write a full shopping list.
THE GOOD FOOD PLAN
Plan your menus around foods that are nutritious and filling.
- Pulses (peas, beans, lentils, chick peas) and root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, onions, swede, beetroot) can form the basis of a range of delicious main courses.
- Potatoes are economical, filling and more nutritious than pasta or rice.
- Wholemeal flour and bread are nutritionally better than white, and more filling.
Meat and protein
Meat can be an expensive form of protein, so sometimes go for alternatives.
- The protein in eggs, milk, yoghurt and cheese is just as useful.
- Combining pulses with grains (rice, pasta, bread, couscous, sweetcorn) creates excellent protein.
- Milk puddings supply protein.
Meat can be stretched by serving less of it but adding another protein food. For example, in casseroles, add beans or lentils; make chicken risotto; serve white fish with cheese or mushroom sauce and peas.
A high-protein breakfast staves off hunger, reducing the need for snacks later on, and maintains energy levels well into afternoon. Eggs, cheese, sardines or beans on wholewheat toast plus a milky drink all fit the bill, as does all-milk porridge.
Choice and variety
No-choice menus cut expense, waste and the disappointment of seeing the preferred choice run out, and widen children's food experiences. For variety, turn menus around every two to four weeks and vary with the seasons.
SHOPPING
The best plan for nurseries is to buy directly from farmers and producers, cutting out the middleman. Jeanette Orrey, the school cook who inspired Jamie Oliver, says she doubled her available money by doing this. 'Just go out and find them!' she says, 'And try to establish a 38-week contract with them.' She says farmers were delighted to have a market for 'wrong shaped' potatoes and such rejected by supermarkets.
- Otherwise, look for alternatives to the usual suppliers. Beat supermarket fruit and vegetable prices by using markets and small shops. Explain who you are and ask what their best price would be for, say, x kilos of carrots a week. Could they deliver? Would stallholders save you any very ripe tomatoes or fruit for a suitable sum? Soft tomatoes, peppers and fruit are fine when cooked (see below).
- Bulk-buy non-perishables and store them somewhere cool and safe. Jumbo bags of rice, lentils and such in Indian shops are a bargain, but be sure to use them up!
- When making your shopping list, check cupboards, fridge and freezer to avoid duplication.
- Take your list with you, stick to it, and know what things should cost. But quickly rework your plan if there's an unexpected high price - or a bargain.
- It's easier and quicker for parents to shop without children in tow. If you must take them, go round quickly with your list. Avoid asking children what they would like unless the choice is limited, such as 'Red or yellow peppers tonight?' Pleas for extra items can be answered with 'Yes, perhaps we'll try that some time, but it's not on the list today and we've spent all our money.'
FOOD PREPARATION AND STORAGE
Much food is wasted through thoughtlessness. Before you discard it, ask yourself what exactly is wrong with it. If it's just something you can't use yet, freeze it. Lion-stamped eggs and most cheeses keep for weeks in the fridge, tins and jars for months or years!
- Unnecessary peeling is massively wasteful. Only peel things if the peel is inedible, damaged or too irregular to clean properly. Instead, scrub potatoes and root vegetables, and wash apples and cucumbers.
- Use the outside leaves on vegetables unless they are yellowing or damaged. Boil up tough ones along with soft carrots, celery leaves, spring onion tops, cucumber ends, leftover salad and other 'waste' items for a nutrient-rich vegetable stock. Refrigerate or freeze it; cook tastier vegetables in it, or puree and use it in stews, soup and gravy.
- Wrap lettuces, green vegetables and carrots in damp paper and put inside closed plastic bags in the fridge. They will crisp up and last for ages.
- Loose potatoes will keep for weeks in a cool, dark place.
GETTING IT EATEN
- Children eat better when they can serve themselves from serving bowls on their tables. For the system to work, adults should not criticise, suggest or urge, apart from overseeing basic 'fair shares'.
- Presenting food well also helps. Use a little garnish: snipped chives, English marigold petals, variegated lemon balm leaves. Golden toppings always look inviting - make one with breadcrumbs, grated cheese and paprika.
- Urging children to eat more than they want has no place in our bid to cut waste. It creates tension and can lead to future eating problems.
AVOIDING WASTE
It is estimated that in Britain we waste 7 million slices of bread, 5 million potatoes, 4.4 million apples, 2.8 million tomatoes and 1.6 million bananas each week. To cut down on waste:
- Keep monitoring your waste and adjust procedures accordingly.
- Use up soft tomatoes in tomato sauce; perhaps add peppers.
- Stew leftover fruit; puree into a 'special fruity custard' or yoghurt.
- Boil up all bones for stock.
- Stale bread makes good crumbs and bread and butter pudding.
- Save raw waste for garden compost.
GROW IT YOURSELF
Home-grown food is cheaper, nicer and educational. Dig the soil over well, fork in some organic matter, then begin. Or use any deep container with drainage holes.
Once established, chives, rosemary, lemon balm, asparagus, rhubarb, wild strawberries, vines and bay trees last forever. Currant bushes and raspberries last ten to 15 years. Sage and thyme plants last several years, and you can take cuttings rather than buying new ones. Save your own runner bean, pea and tomato seed each year. Potatoes are easy. So are spinach, chard and rocket, and they self-seed.
FOOD TIPS
Waste of money!
- Children's breakfast cereals: often 38 per cent sugar, low in nutrients and poor value
- Bag snacks: mostly greasy, salty and stuffed with additives
- Ice-cream, lollies, biscuits: over-priced, high-sugar, often wasted; can cause plunges in energy and mood
- Bottled drinks - pointless
- Packaged salads, vegetables and fruit - always pricier
Bargain home-made treats!
- Ice-cream: stew apples with sultanas, cinnamon, nutmeg and a speck of sugar. Puree, add a dab of cream and freeze.
- Lollies: freeze banana pieces or orange segments on sticks; freeze fruit juice in small pots with a stick in each (when semi-frozen, stand sticks upright).
- Dip satsuma segments in melted dark chocolate and let set.
- Extend strawberries by baking in a sweet quiche.
- Toss potato wedges in olive oil, bake until crisp.
Yummy bargain veg!
- Roast diced carrot and parsnip until soft and caramelised.
- Slowly stew thin carrot sticks until soft in a little olive oil in a tightly lidded pan.
- Crush cooked carrot and swede together with butter and black pepper.
- A big dab of butter on greens can get them eaten.
- Brussels sprouts pureed with a little mashed potato get eaten.
INFORMATION
- WRAP: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com has good tips and recipes
- The Dinner Lady by Jeanette Orrey (Bantam) features her winning school recipes
- The Nursery Food Book by Mary Whiting and Tim Lobstein (Hodder Arnold) has a long chapter on growing food (available in libraries)
- Mary Whiting, a former nursery and infant teacher, is author of The Nursery Food Book and Managing Nursery Food (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/Books) and is also a keen gardener. She will be giving a seminar, 'Growing and cooking food with young children', at Nursery World's exhibition in London on 23 and 24 January. Visit www.nurseryworldshow.com for more information.
