42 TODDLER MEALS FOR £12

I've recently written a post called 'A WEEK OF TODDLER LUNCHES'. Since then I've had lots of requests to do one on toddler dinners. But we don't actually make Evie's dinner from scratch everyday. We make Evie's dinner once every six weeks. 

Because of our schedules, making batches of food from fresh & freezing them is so much easier for us than cooking every night. It's also REALLY, RIDICULOUSLY, JAW DROPPINGLY, AMAZINGLY CHEAP!

This week we made: 
RATATOUILLE
CHICKEN WITH SWEET POTATO & CARROT
BEEF STEW
CHICKEN, BROCOLLI & CHEESE.

We did Evie's dinner shop separate to ours so you can see how much we spent: £8.78! I LOVE LIDLS! 

We did already have cheese, tomato puree, a sweet potato & peas. But this would have only bumped our bill up to just under £12.That still under £2 a week for her evening meals, which means less than 29p a day for dinner. Move over Ella's Pouches! 

You will need: 
2-3 hours of a day every six weeks
Ingredients for your chosen recipes
Sandwich bags

If your little one is still having puree's you will also need: 
A blender
Ice cube trays

We use medium sized sandwich bags to separate each frozen meal. It makes it so much easier to grab one meal & go. If we're doing purees, we use these ice cube trays from Sainsbury's. They've got silicone bottoms so it's a lot easier to pop out the cubes than regular ice cube trays.

Making the dinners/purees:
Chop up ALL of your ingredients for every meal in one go & separate them into the appropriate pans/dishes. We chop all of the ingredients into small cubes. If we're making puree's this makes it quicker to blend. If you're not doing puree's this still makes them a chewable size for a toddler which saves cutting up later.

If you're baking chicken or any other meat, it's easier to put it in the oven as soon as you start so you can really make sure it's cooked through before you freeze it. Then boil up (or oven bake some of them if you're doing a ratatouille like us) all of your vegetables. It doesn't matter if some ingredients cook quicker than others. You're not serving a hot dinner right now. Just leave them on the side to cool as you go. They're going to be cooled then frozen altogether anyway.

When everything is cooked, we put each meal batch into a separate dish ready to blend. if you're not making puree's, then now is the time to portion out your individual meals into sandwich bags & put them in the freezer. Because they've already been cooked, they are safe to be microwaved till hot everyday, as & when you need them, so there is no need to defrost them the morning you're going to use them.

If you are making puree's, simply blend each batch up. We usually add a cup of water, if it's needed, to help break up the ingredients a bit more. 

Then portion them out into ice cube trays. The batch in the image below (chicken, sweet potato & carrot) made 10 meals for Evie. 

When they're frozen, simply pop them all out & put them back in the freezer in sandwich bags. This frees up your ice cube trays & makes it easier to grab cubes as you go. The cubes won't easily stick together, so don't fret about putting a whole batch of one meal in one bag! We can normally fit about 30 cubes in each sandwich bag. 

When Evie was 6 months old we only served 2-3 cubes at each dinner time, but now she's older we've increased this to 5/6 cubes a meal. If you have a younger baby, these batches will probably last you nearly 12 weeks! 

How easy & cheap was that? 

I'd really love your feedback.