If you are looking for fresh ideas for tasty, healthy food to cook when time is tight, you’ve come to the right place. Our latest Family Foodies challenge has attracted a brilliant array of fab fast food recipes for feeding your hectic, hungry family and I have to say I’m really looking forward to working (and eating) my way through this little lot over the coming weeks.

So let’s crack on and take a look through those enticing entries…

Pasta and Gnocchi from Julie’s Farmhouse Kitchen

Julie gets things rolling with a tempting trio of Italian-inspired dishes from her Farmhouse Kitchen. She made a hearty bowlful of Gnocchi with Chorizo, Spinach and Tomato Sauce, a quick and easy Creamy Pesto Pancetta, Peas and Mushrooms with Spirali Pasta, and Spaghetti with Mushroom, Spinach & Pancetta Sauce. I made this last dish, the spaghetti, for supper the other week and I can confirm it really is very good.

Pan Fried Salmon & Syrian Potato Salad from Farmersgirl Kitchen

This beautiful dish of simply cooked salmon served with a fresh and zingy potato salad from Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen has springtime written all over it, and what’s more it is so quick to rustle up too. It looks so inviting, doesn’t it?

Fast & Spicy from Home Cook Food

Linsy from Home Cook Food brought an exciting assortment of dishes to our Fab Fast Food buffet. There’s a beautifully spiced Methi Vegetable Malai, a protein-packed Kala Chana Aur Methi Curry (black chickpeas with fenugreek leaves), fragrant Mint and Coriander Leaves Paratha (flatbread), a robustly flavoured Bruschetta Pasta and last, but not least, this very tasty Eggplant Rice. I’m so inspired by Linsy’s use of spices in these dishes and I look forward to trying them out on my brood.

Stir-Fry on a Budget from Happiness is Homemade

Sylvia’s photographs on her blog Happiness is Homemade are always utterly gorgeous, and these pictures of her simple take on a stir-fry live up to her usual stunning standard. Don’t you just want to dive straight into this image of whole wheat spaghetti with vegetables? You just know it’s going to taste every bit as good as it looks.

Beef and Broccoli Pasta from Elizabeth’s Kitchen

Another blog where I always wish I could climb into the screen to sample the food is Elizabeth’s Kitchen. Elizabeth can invite me around any night of the week to eat pasta as attractive as this! Quick, healthy and delicious – just perfect.

Intriguing Inspiration from Spicy, Quirky and Serendipitous

Sudha from Spicy, Quirky and Serendipitous likes to surprise and delight her blog readers with intriguing and inspiring recipes and her four entries for the Fab Fast Food challenge are perfect examples of her cooking style. There are Spicy Chickpeas, Gluten Free Pancakes, Quirky Quinoa Patties and Naked Egg Inspired Pasta. The big question for me is which one to try first…

Coco-Banana Freeze Bites from The Gluten Free Alchemist

These gluten-free coco-banana bites were the brilliant result of an “over-ripe banana fest” in the kitchen of Kate aka The Gluten Free Alchemist. These little morsels of fruity, frozen deliciousness are ever so healthy, particularly if you opt for carob, although to be honest I think I’ll quite happily stick with chocolate. Not only are they made in minutes but they keep in the freezer for ages, perfect for a handy snack when life gets manic.

Fast & Healthy from Eat Your Veg

My Family Foodies partner-in-crime, Lou from Eat Your Veg is up next and she really is a pro when it comes to healthy fast food. Just take a look at this little lot – there’s a super speedy Chicken & Veggie Chow Mein, a Healthier Tuna Mayo and these simply wonderful Bread Tarts, which I so wish I’d thought of myself and intend to try out on my kids very, very soon.

A Delicious Duo from Family-Friends-Food

Helen from Family-Friends-Food knows a thing or two about creating child-friendly food, and these two offerings to our Fab Fast Food table demonstrate how just easy it can be to rustle up delicious food in a matter of minutes. Her Zesty Tuna Pasta has a wonderfully Mediterranean feel to it and is great eaten either warm or cold, while I reckon these French Toast Pizza Rolls are simply ingenious.

Fast and Wholesome from Bangers & Mash

Next are three dishes from yours truly, each of which are super quick and super easy. Oh and super tasty too. Firstly, there’s my Baked Rice with Spinach, Cannellini Beans and Eggs using basic store cupboard ingredients. Then there’s a Chicken Soup with Rice, perfect for feeding little (and big) people when they’re poorly. And finally, how about Baked Sea Bass with Ginger, Garlic & Chilli and Miso Rice – an incredible combination of fresh, zesty flavours and all cooked in a foil parcel, keeping washing up to a minimum. Result.

Chicken Chow Mein from Lancashire Food

Linzi from Lancashire Food brings us her gorgeous chicken chow mein, on the table within just 30 minutes. It’s always a hit with her own family. Linzi’s recipe features Chinese five spice, one of my favourite spice blends, and is perfect for using up whatever veggies you happen to have in.

Speedy Hot Dog Pasta from JibberJabberUK

Another quick and easy recipe making the most of store cupboard ingredients is this satisfying hot dog pasta from Ness at JibberJabberUK. My children adore hot dog sausages so I know they’d be first in line for this dish, plus I like Ness’ top tip about throwing in some finely chopped broccoli stalk too – a great way to reduce your food waste.

Beef Noodle Soup from Searching for Spice

Another way to reduce food waste of course is to make the most of  your leftovers, which is what this tasty noodle soup from Corina at Searching for Spice calls for – leftover beef brisket to be exact. Packed with vegetables and flavoured with chillies, garlic, lime and ginger, this is definitely my kind of soup.

Zesty Salmon Goujons from Feeding Boys

These salmon goujons from Katie at Feeding Boys look just so tempting, I really can’t imagine any child refusing these. Katie promises they only take 10 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake and in her words “you’ll be rewarded with luxurious chunky goujons instead of the skinny minnie versions that come out of a packet when you’re knackered on a Thursday evening.” That’s it. I’m sold!

Potato Quinoa Tikki from My Receipes

I must admit, I had to Google the work ‘tikki’. I discovered from Wikipedia (where would I be without Wikipedia?) that it means “a small cutlet or croquette” and hails from North India. Normally made from potato (aloo tikki), Vidhya from My Receipes has come up with her own take which also uses quinoa and frozen peas. Flavoured with a whole host of spices, these tikki sound absolutely delicious.

Bok Choy and Edamame Miso Stir Fry from The Taste Space

Nasifriet from The Taste Space is midway through a 30 different vegetables in 30 days challenge. She needed to come up with some not-so-common vegetables and so headed straight for her local Asian grocer and came home with baby bok choy, which she turned into this wonderfully healthy and attractive stir fry with shiitake mushrooms, snow peas, edamame and miso. It sounds incredible to me – divinely simply temple food that you know is going to do you so much good.

Banana & Mincemeat Buns from Chocolate Log Blog

Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog promises these scrummy banana and mincemeat buns can be rustled up in under half an hour, so long as your butter is soft and your ingredients handy. I’m ready for that challenge! We always seem to have ripe bananas in our house, so this recipe is definitely one for me to bookmark.

Fresh Herb and Tapenade Flatbreads from How to Cook Good Food

As Laura from How to Cook Good Food says, you can never have too many flatbread recipes up your sleeve. As well as offering us her herb and tapenade flatbreads, she also shares a fantastic list of her favourite flatbread recipes from other blogs. So if you’re in need of flatbread inspiration, you know where to head! Laura’s version looks fantastic – it looks delightfully light and crispy and I love the use of fresh herbs and dukkah, a fabulous Middle Eastern spice mix.

And the winner is…

Thanks to everyone for sharing their fabulous fast food ideas in this month’s Family Foodies challenge. Each and every one was a real winner in its own right, but as ever only one of you can take home the prize of Jo Pratt’s inspirational Madhouse Cookbook.

I’m pleased to announce the winner of the Fab Fast Food challenge is Elizabeth from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary for her very tasty beef and broccoli pasta. Well done Elizabeth! Your prize will be in the post to you very soon.

Louisa at Eat Your Veg will be revealing April’s theme for Family Foodies very soon, so do keep an eye out for that – I promise, you’re going to love it! I can’t wait to see what you come up with…