Do Your Kids Eat Too Much Crap?

I am no nutritionist, but what I do know is the following three things:
1 If you make a small or large effort to cook something fresh for your children as often as you can, and if your kids eat some fruit and vegetables every day, then you're probably doing all right. I have heard that even repeating the same few items is OK, so if your kid only likes brocolli, and not beans or peas, well you can rest assured that you can still put a tick in the "green vegetable" box. Obviously a variety of fruit and veg is better, and use the colours of food to guide you, and feed them green things, orange things, yellow things, red things - you get the picture.
2 Another thing is I never made sweets a treat in my house. Sometimes they are there and sometimes not, and I try so hard not to reward good behaviour with a sweet, as the association of "I am good" with sweets can become ingrained and last until adulthood. Do you reward yourself for "being good and going to the gym" with a treat? Do you?
3 The last thing is that no child has never been known to starve itself, so if your child doesn't want to finish what is on their plate, it's OK. We are so conditioned to finishing what is on the plate that early on in life, we lose our ability to stop eating when our brain tells us we are full, and instead we stop eating when all the food is gone. Perhaps that's one reason there is a growing epidemic in obesity? Relinquish your control here and you'll end that "just three more bites" argument that makes many a meal end in tears.

Today's recipe is another stress free dinner party in a snap:

Mediterranean Lamb Slop

This recipe has such a strange start, but stay with me.

Take a tin of anchovy fillets and spread them out across a deep baking dish, oil and all. If there is not enough oil to coat the pan then add a bit of olive oil. Place 4 lamb steaks on top of the anchovies and season them with salt and pepper. Now add a variety of vegetables, cut into 1 inch chunks to fill the dish. I use courgettes, aubergines, red peppers, carrots, squash and mushrooms but any combination should work. Sprinkle on some pine nuts, fresh thyme (stalks and all) and a sprinkling of cinammon, salt and pepper all over. Add a couple of tins of whole tomatoes with their juice (never buy chopped toms in a tin as the seeds are often sliced and they release a very bitter taste into the tomatoes). Also add 1/3 bottle red wine and scatter on some pitted black olives if you like. Cover the whole thing with tin foil and at this point you can fridge it for later, or cook straight away at 190C for about an hour. If you undercook it you'll have slightly crisper veg, and if it's overdone you'll have a stew texture. Either is great so don't stress. I serve this with rice or cous cous, and if you're feeling fancy, add a tin of drained chick peas to the cous cous.