Am I actually forever cooking?

[forevercooking]

I was chatting to my friend whilst I was cooking dinner and I laughed I felt like I was forever cooking.
She said 'That's because you are' I then wondered how much other people are cooking and if not what are they eating 😂

So kindly tell me please Mumsnet, how many nights a week do you eat a home cooking meal?

Nah we only cook maybe once during the week. We batch cook on a Sunday and freeze half of it and then the freezer has loads of homemade curry’s, bolognaise, pasta sauces, etc - we just take something out night before

wed do fajitas or a stir fry or something from scratch.

but honestly between work, nursery pick up, bath bed by the time my daughter is in bed neither of can face cooking.

we never have frozen oven food - it’s from the freezer but it’s home cooked food.

Cooking all the freaking time

I don't even like eating any more

crackofdoom

^

Bad day?!

💐🍷🍷🍷

I do breakfast for the (teen) kids if they seem like they need mollycoddling, that's about 2x a week (frothy coffee, eggs, porridge mushrooms on toast)
Packed lunch 5x a week
Easy dinner (frozen veg, microwave rice, oven stuff, frozen leftovers 3 or 4 x a week)
Proper cooked dinner 1 or 2x a week
Takeaway/eat out 1 or 2 nights.
Proper CBA with cooking these days.

Cheers mack

(Don't tempt me with the wine....fasting...😬. I'll save it for tomorrow, when DC go to XP's to eat takeaway and/ or frozen pizza for 3 days in a row, and I will enjoy it with a meal crammed with spices and vegetables that I will finish every bite of! 😆)

@Dogsgottabone @KindergartenKop I could behave written these, lockdown catering became a kind of glue and scaffold for the day and can confirm, absolutely hated it.

Every night and 2 lunches we eat home cooked. No takeaways here. But everyone over the age of 10 cooks one night. And I cook a couple of meals that do several nights. So bolognaise that becomes wraps.

6 nights a week (takeaway on a Friday)

But I'm not forever cooking as DH cooks 3 of those meals.

Every night, but usually on a work night it's either quick and easy or something that's been in the slow cooker all day or batch cooked and frozen, so I don't feel like we're always cooking.

I don't think many of my friends scratch cook so maybe it just seems a lot of cooking to them. 😂

I make dinner early. I work part time I am home for a school run. Then we come in and I start dinner as my children prefer to eat earlier (4&5) otherwise they get too tired, also are always starving after school.

I don't use jars either. And get ready rolled pizzas bases and make my own pizzas

Every single night. Always.

I do include freezer meals in that because if I have had to think about it, buy the food, put the oven on, dish it up and clear away, that counts.

^ This!!! Even chicken nuggets, chips and beans requires at least one baking tray, maybe two, plus a pan or microwave jug for the beans.

I cook two dinners most nights. One for the teenagers and one for DH & me as he gets home later and they get hungry. Sometimes it is the same thing. Sometimes not.

I don't mind the actual cooking it's the coming up with ideas every.single.day. that does my head in.

Why what do your friends do?

I usually cook enough for two nights and one for the freezer. So about 3-4 times a week or less if I use one of the freezer meals.

I think lots of freezer food. Or ready meals

Is that not more sensible than standing making something from scratch every night? Saves time and saves fuel to make double the portions.

Oh I always cook extra - anything from double to quadruple of any meal (or main element of a meal) that freezes well. That way I’ve always got options for those days where I can’t be bothered to do much.

6 nights a week if not 7 we eat a home cooked meal. Usually dd cooks one night, I cook 3 nights and DH cooks 2 or 3 nights a week.

In our house 2 meals and one for the freezer this would mean cooking for 18!

We raise our own meat so the freezers (x4) tends to be very full of joints and whole birds though so we do a lot of quick roasts.

Tonight they had pasta at after school club and then pancakes when home from Cubs at 8pm.

I've had pancakes and bran flakes for dinner. Cannot be arsed with anything more

To answer the question I think yes we are forever cooking. And forever washing & cleaning. None of it is ever "done" , you're just in a continuous cycle.

It annoys me that however delicious and nutritious todays meals are, they still need more tomorrow 🤣

We cook at home most nights except for the odd takeaway but DS (13) has got right into cooking and chooses to cook at least 50% of the meals now. I feel very lucky as I don’t really like cooking. DH never cooks unless we have company when he’s suddenly all over it 🙄.

I cook from scratch every night, but wouldn’t make mid-week pizza dough or pasta. To try and help reduce the amount of time I spend in the kitchen I use the pressure cooker as often as possible. Wow, no more time wasted peeling butternut squash! Also I’ve just discovered self-saucing microwave cakes, mix it all up and bung it in for 7 mins. I’m in culinary heaven. And for what it’s worth, once the pressure cooker’s on I can get to work on tidying the kitchen so it saves me a job I would otherwise do much later. Yep, it makes me feel smug compared to how it was!

thinking about what to eat, buying ingredients, making it, cleaning up a lot of time. 2 hours a day on average I suppose?