Hopeless course, main meal or pudding suggested (3-7)
I believe the answer is:
non-starter
'hopeless' is the definition.
(something hopeless is a non-starter)
'course main meal or pudding suggested' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'course' could be 'starter' (course of a meal) and 'starter' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'non' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
(Other definitions for non-starter that I've seen before include "Something with no chance of success" , "Someone who is never going to succeed" .)