NOW CLOSED: Share the favourite teatime treat for your family - you could win a £50 voucher - also feedback thread for Birds Eye range testers

[AnnMumsnet]

This is the feedback thread for the Birds Eye testers who are getting their family to try items from the Birds Eye range in the run up to Mother's Day.

This is part of the Birds Eye "Teatime Handover" project which is all about encouraging families to prepare, eat together and have fun teatimes together - each family were sent £15 of Birds Eye and supermarket vouchers and have been tasked with making a teatime meal for Mum in the run up to Mother's Day this year.

Birds Eye would like to invite all MNers to share on this thread their best teatime treat in your family - whether savoury or sweet - what goes down well at teatime in your household? Add your comment and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £50 John Lewis voucher

If you are a tester please share with us how your family got on with making tea for you - let us know...

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family
~ who was involved in this task and how they got on
~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes? Do include links if you can.
~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?
~ any other comments?

Everyone who takes part will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £100 John Lewis voucher.

Thanks
MNHQ

PS: For easy recipes and Teatime Handover tips visit //www.facebook.com/BirdsEye.

[Cambam2010]

Well here goes...

I will start off by saying how pleasantly surprised I was by the range of Birdseye foods available in my local ASDA. I was expecting to see fish fingers, burgers and frozen chicken products. I'm not keen on re-formed foods so I bought 'Baked to perfection' Cod Fillets with an Olive Oil, Rosemary & Tomato Sauce; Rice Fusions Mediterranean Vegetable Rice and Omega 3 Fish Fingers.

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family
As a single mum it falls to me to cook the meals in my household. TBH we try to blag meals with friends and family as often as possible...

~ who was involved in this task and how they got on
Myself and my 3 year old took on the task of creating a meal from Birdseye products. Obviously a lot of my help was needed but it was nice to be doing it together and getting him involved in chcosing what to have.

~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes? Do include links if you can.
We had the Cod fillet on a bed of Mediterranean vegetable rice with a side of oven roasted cherry tomatoes, baby corn and mini broccolli florets. We opted for the microwave method for both the Cod and the Rice.

~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?
The meal was lovely. The cod was fresh and succulent. My only issue was with the sauce. It did dry up a bit in the microwave and there wasn't really any left to serve with the fish. This may be because I put it the wrong way up in the microwave. (I placed the fillet with the sauce facing up but this meant that the writing was upside down - I couldn't see clear instructions as to which way up the sachet was supposed to go). The rice cooked perfectly. The grains were not stuck together and it wasn't sticky. Lovely balanced flavour. It was appreciated by my son and it was good to see him eat fish that wasn't wrapped in breadcrumbs.

~ any other comments?
The following day we tried an adaptation on the traditional fish finger buttie. We had fish finger and houmous stuffed pitta breads - yummy!

[Fillybuster]

Marking place. Hoping to send dh out shopping to Tesco with dcs and voucher in hand on Sunday morning....

[Cherrybright]

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family
I cook on average 5/6 times a week. Dh usually cooks once a week and sometimes we have a meal with family.

~ who was involved in this task and how they got on
Dh and 18 month DD cooked. It was great! I think it was the first time dd and dh have properly cooked together. She stood on a chair next to him and sprinkled seasoning, put the sweet potato in the bowl ready, etc. she loved it! Dh had to choose the recipe as she is too young to understand.

~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes? Do include links if you can.
Dh made what he called 'The birds eye beast burger' with sweet potato wedges although I decided to eat a smaller version.
I have added the recipe for the wedges here:
www.mumsnet.com/Recipes/i/5934-sweet-potato-wedges
They were very simple to make! He then cooked burgers. We had birds eye quarter pounder burgers, lettuce, tomato, cheese all in the bun. He was meant to add bacon but forgot.
His burger was a beast burger as he had two burgers in his, and it looked very big!

~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?
I really liked it. The burgers tasted good, they were what you would expect with those ingredients. The wedges I particularly liked, they were something we hadn't ever cooked before and they tasted healthy. DD liked the bun and burger best. She was slightly confused at the lettuce. DH enjoyed it and was very full after his burger!

~ any other comments?
Our tesco didn't appear to have the cod fillets that cambam talks about.
As Dh was coming up with something to make I decided to come up with a recipe too
www.mumsnet.com/Recipes/i/5935-Chicken-and-bacon-risotto
I made this and we all enjoyed it :)

[hermancakedestroyer]

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family
I normally cook the family meal in my family.

~ who was involved in this task and how they got on
My DD 10 and my DS 7 were involved in this task and they got on extremely well.

~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes? Do include links if you can.
They researched the birdseye site and decided that they would like to make the salmon and pea risotto dish.

birdseyecookbook.co.uk/recipes/47

They wrote down the ingredients and went with me to the supermarket to buy them. They bought birdseye salmon fillets, birdseye peas, an onion, risotto rice, vegetable stock cubes, olive oil salt and pepper.
They followed the instructions in the link above.

~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?
We all loved the meal. The children took great pleasure over planning, buying, preparing and then cooking the ingredients. I thought it was delicious, as did my husband and the children loved eating the meal they had made. It has given them real confidence in the kitchen and made them realise that they can prepare a main meal for the family.

~ any other comments?
We thought the birdseye facebook page was great inspiration for main family meals and will certainly be using this page of suggestions again.
Thanks for choosing us to taste test birdeye products - we have thoroughly enjoyed it

[gazzalw]

Waves at Fillybuster! Will be shopping for ingredients on Saturday. Looking forward to it as are the DVD.

[Fillybuster]

[elizaco]

I'm always the one to cook family tea, so it was nice to have reason to involve the rest of the family, rather than just getting on with it myself. Taking part in this coincided with my daughter starting cookery lessons at school, so she was keen to show us what she'd learnt. Being the first week, she was starting basic, and had designed a salad, so she recreated this and it accompanied BirdsEye Chicken Burgers in breadbuns (with lettuce and mayonnaise) with a few potato wedges on the side. Lucy's salad consisted of lettuce, red pepper, spring onions, apple and mango drizzled with Nando's sauce. She was very chuffed with herself (rightly so) and I hope it has inspired the children to help with tea more often.

[MissRee]

Not an official tester but our best teatime treat is fishfinger sandwiches! The kids love them and both myself and DP do too :)

[eminemmerdale]

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family
It really varies - definitley a 50/50 split between dh and I though, depending on who is working late!

~ who was involved in this task and how they got on
DS (nearly 13) wasn't ever so keen but he did watch, dd7 and myself were the main protaganists and we did this one: birdseye.com.au/recipes/birds-eye-fish-burgers

~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes?

dd carefully cut up the rolls lettuce and tomatoe sand helped me turn the fish cakes. We didn't use tatare sauce or dill, but instead used mayonaisse and bit of fresh parsley!


~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?
It was great! We had oven chips too, and all of us thoroughly enjoed it.

~ any other comments?
As others have said, there is a bigger Birdseye range than we though, but I wanted something reasonably simple to start with. Dd did enjoy herslef and felt very proud of helping!

[MonsterBookOfTysons]

Marking place. Will come back when not on phone.

[MonsterBookOfTysons]

Marking place. Will come back when not on phone.

[shaztwins1]

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family

Its usually me as hubs works away.

~ who was involved in this task and how they got on

All three kids had a go tonight, they got on really well and had minimal help 9getting food out of the oven)

~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes? Do include links if you can.

I let the kids have free reign with the voucher they bought birds eye chicken fingers , birds eye peas and sweetcorn, Birds eye waffles and jacket potatoes.

~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?

Hubs wasnt home unfortunatly so just me and the monsters. the twins thought their creation was fantastic, ds1 (10) was a bit more realistic less complimentary but helped them all the same . They made a chicken finger dinosaur using the waffles ontop of fingers we had a jacket potato "mountain" with a peas/sweetcorn river !!!! it was actually quite nice lol .The chicken fingers were a novelty as i wouldnt usually buy these.The kids have named this special dinosaur tea and have asked can they make it again.

~ any other comments?
It was a fun project, watching the kids work together was nice and no fighting either so bonus all round. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and made something i wouldnt usually let them buy so they thought that was great too and of course mummy had the night off well apart from all the washing up

thanks for picking us birds eye you made the kids day they now want me to buy chicken fingers more often now though

[ataraxia]

Tea time treat - chip butty with lots of ketchup!

[JenniferHelen]

Teatime treat - greek yoghurt with honey for pud; completely delish, decadent and moreish. Ok, off to get some now.

[MonsterBookOfTysons]

Thank you for picking us, dc had fun cooking with dh :)

~ who normally cooks the family meal in your family?

I cook 4 times a week, dh 3 times. He is a chef so enjoys cooking when at home.

~ who was involved in this task and how they got on?

The 2 dc ds, 4 and dd, 2 took charge assisted by dh.

~ what they prepared and how - if they jazzed up the Birds Eye products - did they try out any recipes? Do include links if you can.

The dc Made Southern fried chicken wraps, with salad and mayonnaise.
They put the pre cut tomato, pepper, lettuce, red onion onto the wrap, put the mayo on and dh cut the chicken up which was distributed onto the wraps by the dc. They tried folding the wraps and then dh did it when they were not looking :o

~ what your verdict was on the meal? Did your children like it? Did your partner?

I was pleasantly surprised, I don't tend to buy frozen processed chicken as it is easy enough to make fresh, but in a wrap it tasted nice. Dh will eat anything, and the dc liked it, as they enjoyed eating there 'creation'.

~ any other comments?

The dc and dh I believe had fun, it was nice to see the dc having quality time with dh without the usual whinging.
I already love your fish fingers but do not like to ruin a fish finger sandwich by adding anything to it

[ThePskettiIncident]

Tea time treat is baked apple. Core apple and fill cored area with Demerara and sultanas. Zap in the microwave for a few minutes and serve. Can add ice cream or cream. It's lovely!

[janey223]

Going shopping with our voucher tomorrow!

[cinnamongreyhound]

Marking my place. Very excited to be chosen!! I love the egg with waffle soldiers so hoping to have those some time too.

I shopped for bits yesterday and dh will be cooking with my 2 ds's (5 and 2) tonight or tomorrow. I cook 6 nights a week and dh once when I go to my running group, which is always chicken curry with a jar sauce.

[Blatherskite]

Our teatime treat is Fajitas.

I lay all the bits out on the table - chicken/peppers/mushrooms/onion mix, tortilla wraps, salad, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, salsa and a plate each - and let the children (3 and 5) help themselves. They love choosing their own fillings and rolling up their wraps and eat a lot more than they would if I presented them with everything pre-done.

3 year old DD asks for this whenever I ask them to choose what's for dinner.

[TotallyEggFlipped]

Not a tester, but a favourite treat in our house is either fish fingers or breaded fish (ideally haddock), as sandwiches or sometimes with oven chips/potato waffles and sweetcorn. Everyone loves to eat it, minimal washing up and really simple to cook.

[ouryve]

Not a tester. The thing which goes down the best a teatime, universally, is a home made rhubarb & ginger crumble. DS2 won't touch veg. He will eat an enormous portion of rhubarb, though and it's strictly veg, rather than fruit, isn't it? :o

[Indith]

Not a tester.

We share the cooking. If dh is around for dinner he tends to cook, if not the I do it. We menu plan around who is doing what so stir fry or something will be for days we are all around at the same time, stews/slow cooker stuff on days we all eat at different times.

There are lots of treats for us, the dcs are really enthusiastic about food. They adore lasagne, pasta bakes etc that get crispy bits on top and always fight over the crispiest bit! They love toad in the hole and dd absolutely adores "chicken pasta soup" and demands it for lunch and dinner almost every day (not that she gets it every day) Ds1 in particular really likes it onthe rare occasions we cook a proper pudding, he likes crumbles and pies or anything else fruity.

[blouseenthusiast]

horse

[Blu]

DP and I share the cooking as we also share the after-work / after-school childcare. So, it depends who is in. Cooking shared at weekends. 11 year old DS enjoys cooking but has a limited range as yet. Let's just say he will make scrambled eggs on Sunday for my breakfast and that will exhaust his repertoire. Unless he does EggyBread as a variation.

Treats:
A Beano nosh-up. A big pile of mash with the sausages sticking out, as in the Beano and Dandy. DS's friends love this.
or
Paella - Jamie oliver recipe, with whatever we don't happen to have missing
or
Spare ribs
or
pork satay kebabs with stir fry and noodles or rice.