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Kids' faves - the healthy way

If your child will only eat burgers and fish fingers, why not try some home-made and healthy versions? Suzannah Olivier, author of Healthy Food for Happy Kids, tells us how

By far the easiest plan for time-pressured parents is to develop a child's tastes towards eating the same food that the rest of the family eats. However, we live in times in which the market for specific kid's foods has grown into a huge beast and it is hard to get away from that fact. This becomes particularly relevant when young friends come round for tea and all that the children will eat are sausages or nuggets. Fixing up batches of some children's favourites, when you have time to spare, and keeping them in the freezer for when you don't, can help.

Chicken nuggets
The average commercially available chicken nugget is a disaster area. It is less than 36 per cent meat, and is heavily laden with salt, low nutrient fillers and water. They also use the lowest quality meat from battery chickens that are routinely fed with antibiotics as growth enhancers.

To make your own, make breadcrumbs with 50g of bread, put in a bowl and season. Beat two eggs in another small bowl. Cut three or four skinless chicken breast fillets into strips. Dunk the strips one by one into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs to coat on all sides. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry them for about ten minutes until cooked through on all sides. You can 'par-cook' these more gently until cooked through but not overly browned and then freeze interleaved with greaseproof paper until needed. These can then be thoroughly defrosted and grilled until cooked through. You can also make fish fingers the same way, though these cannot be frozen. Serve with lemon.

Chips
Chips with everything takes on a new meaning when you make them from scratch - five minutes of preparation, not much effort to cook, and the taste is a thousand times better than 'oven chips'. Choose baking potatoes for the right texture, scrub them clean (no need to peel), chop into chips, put a single layer in a baking pan with a fairly modest brushing of olive oil and bake in a medium-high oven for around 25 minutes until cooked (turn once or twice with a spatula and add a little bit more oil if needed, though the end result should be dry and not greasy).

Pizzas
Buy ready-made bases or, even better, make your own dough in a bread machine. This is simplicity itself. It takes just a couple of minutes to check the recipe in the book that comes with the machine and to throw in the ingredients - you just need to plan a little ahead.

Spread the base with salt-free tomato puree or passata, line up the toppings (such as ham, pitted olives, pineapple, mushrooms, broccoli, sweetcorn) for children to build their own, sprinkle on grated cheese, and bake in a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes.

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