[DMNewman]

I looked in the recipe section but I want to find some low calorie meals that my kids will eat too. They are coming home (the have been on vacation with the grandparents for the summer) but I really want to stick to calorie counting. They are red meat, potatoes, noodles, country cooking, loving kids so its going to be so hard to stay on track. They do love chicken, we don't eat fish so I know they will get sick of chicken real quick. Anybody have kid friendly, low calorie meals?

[MBN]

I can relate -- I have teenage boys with hollow legs that can eat everything in sight and stay skinny. What I tend to do is cook lean meats (broiled, roasted or grilled) that we all can eat. If you want to sauce it up, you can do it on only part of the meat or on the side. I always have salads and low carb vegetables, which is what I eat, mostly. Then I'll fix another high carb side dish, things like noodles, pasta, mac & cheese, fries -- things they like. Then I eat the veggies and don't eat the high cal stuff. They can eat what they want. If it's a casserole night, I just eat the salad, veggies and leftover lean meat from the night before and bypass the casserole altogether.

So, rather than trying to cook only low cal things, I take the "a la carte" approach with several dishes and just eat the things that are on my plan. It's not always easy to ignore the other things, but it's easier than trying to force the kids to stay on my plan entirely. And they are at least exposed to the healthier stuff ...

Maybe that gives you some ideas?

[paris81]

Almost every day, I make sauteed veggies. I put zucchini and red peppers in a pan with onions and garlic, a bit of olive oil and some no-salt salt. If you let it sit for awhile, heating up and carmelizing, it is delicious, I think even for people who don't like veggies (it made me crave them!). It's a good side dish that is low calorie and easy to prepare.

I also make a recipe from allrecipes.com called braised balsamic chicken. It's really easy, and super good, kinda sweet, kinda acidic, which is a combo that kids love. The serving size is just a half a breast, which I find to be plenty if paired with a veggie and a carb side, and your kids can just eat more if they want. It's also really easy to make (I'm not a big cook!)

Good luck!

[DMNewman]

Thank you so much for the ideas! We usually do the 2 or 3 different things a night when I'm eating my "diet food" but it is just too much sometimes. I have 4 kids plus babysit during the day so I hate making 10 different things, ya know?

[InWonderland]

Black bean soup, lentil soup and veggie or turkey veggie chili are all great because they're really filling and satisfying for relatively few calories, are pretty easy to make and you can make a big batch one day and eat it for days (or freeze for longer). Kids probably at least like chili!