What are your fastest meals, ladies? I've been thinking about this, particularly with regard to lunchtimes, as we don't tend to cook much during the day.

Some bread and cheese served with chopped carrots or cucumber or celery (or all three) tend to be the quickest thing we can manage, and in fact often get flung into a tub to be eaten al fresco. I used to be very scathing about BabyBels before I had a child but now we seem to get through rather a lot of them... in fact, I've even been known to buy those little packs of fruit (be careful with the whole grapes) or veggies from Boots when we are out and about.

Also, Babybear loves tuna mayonnaise in pitta breads, and her love affair with the carrot/cumin/cheese mixture stuffed into half pittas and toasted remains undimmed. I do wish she liked hummous a bit, though, as I think it might be Very Helpful Indeed.Her father and I are trying to go a wee bit lower on the GI so we are very virtuous and have these toppings in leaves of Little Gem lettuce or down the spine of a celery stick. It's actually nice, I promise.

What else? Salad we're still not so good with, much as she always tries to eat lettuce I think that the ruminant ability to grind down leafy plant material is still absent, along with her molars, at 20 months old.

Oh, those magical little Steam Fresh bags from Birds Eye are great for a quick burst of veggies and with some cheese and pesto and maybe even a handful of leftover pasta constitute a meal in my book.

And frozen peas, god knows what I'd do without frozen peas. Last night she was having some difficulty with an (admittedly rather stringy) bit of mangetout but a wee bowl of peas straight from the freezer were greeted with delight.

I know I said  it's not about the cooking at lunchtime but I'm still counting omelette and french toast as a fast food as well if that's okay? I mean it's just three minutes in the frying pan, isn't it? Anything else?

PS. Sweetcorn... I can't believe I forgot sweetcorn... we've eaten nothing else for the past fortnight. Chop the cob up into four pieces, put a spash of water into a pyrex dish, lid on and microwave for about three to four mins. Rinse and leave to cool for about five mins (the centre stays preternaturally hot) and hand over to small child. Or chop off the corns if they can't wait for it to cool and are keen to exercise their pincer grip.