Are people really making homemade meals every night for their family?

[Lilacbluewaters]

soon to be family of 6 and I don’t know if it’s just because I’m pregnant at the moment but I had this sudden overwhelming feeling that I have to cook homemade meals every night for like another 15 years 😂
I’ve been pretty bad recently with eating out too much, the extra layer of washing up after is exhausting. We don’t have a dishwasher and can’t get one because we rent.
anyway, do you cook from scratch every night nearly? I can never think of quick easy meals.

Yes. 99% of the time.
Whoever cooks does not wash up.

Every night except once or twice a month when we have takeaway. Like cooking and only three of us

Yes, l do OP. I make mostly traditional Pakistani food. A lot of the curries have a similar base so easier. Also make quick meals like pasta, wraps, fish.

Yes, but I always make double. It’s either frozen or used in two days, with something else home cooked in between.

Mostly, although DD does sometimes request Turkey Dinosaurs! Quick things tend to be pasta, chicken wraps, stir fry, spag bol

I wouldn't if I had four kids and no dishwasher! 😱

Yes I do. Variety of meals. Usually 3 or 4 of us. Tonight homemade meatballs in tomato sauce. With rice. Yesterday chicken parmigiana (DH creation), day before lamb steak on bbq with salad.

Almost every night. Try bakes are my favourites. Meat and veg, herbs and spices on, in the oven, done.

Or a nice quick chicken stir fry with noodles, or a steak with jacket potato. Also a simple big bowl of pesto pasta. Jackets with any toppings. Omelettes.

However, I will not make my own mash. The frozen coop stuff is made of potatoes, milk and butter. Fuck it. Life’s too short to mash potatoes.

If I am too tired then sometimes you just need to do beans on toast.

Yes. Doesn’t always require much mess though, or actual cooking tbh. Tonight we had homemade hummus, chopped salad and bread. We have a dishwasher but even without one it’s just the plates, mini chopper, chopping knife and salad bowl. Pasta night it’s a saucepan, plates, cutlery. Keep it simple! We very rarely eat out, we just had a week of doing it much more than usual as we were away and the cost was breathtaking. I’d rather never eat out, ditch a cupboard and beg the landlord for a dishwasher.

i cook homemade meals every night but sometimes they are lazier than others.So for example one night chicken,mash veg,next night baked potato's and the following night from scratch bolenase

so i throw in the occasional lazy meal between harder ones like

baked potato's
pasta and sauce sachets i add frozen veg/bacon
oven food night
egg cheese toast with beans (crack a egg on bread in a oven tray surround yolk with cheese 10mins)
omelette with toast or rice sachet

It’s just me and DD at home but I work full time so I try to batch cook on the weekend and then freeze for throughout the week, alternating with quick dinners like tuna pasta and sweetcorn, soup or even just cheesy beans on toast on occasion.

Are you not spending a bomb on eating out all the time?

One pot , or one tray, meals help when you’re busy.

I do but my DH does the dishes. Around once a week I’ll make something like lasagna that can last a couple of days. During the working/ school week we usually get one takeaway (the night that I’m most tired and can’t face cooking). If I know I’m having a particularly busy day at work I’ll cook something the night before that can just be reheated.

I do but it is boring I admit. I have a rotating meal n plan: Monday curry, Tuesday pasta, Wednesday stir fry, Thursday Mexican, Friday fish. The dishes change but the theme is the same. I batch cook pasta sauce, curry sauce and chilli though.

I do but I batch cook and utilise my slow cooker a lot - the dish in it comes out and goes on the hob as well so I can do what I need to do in one pot. Then I just freeze and reheat through the week as I need to which is quick and easy. Sometimes I'll fall out of the run of myself and we'll lean more on convenience foods but generally I try to do this as I feel much better for it in the long run.

We cook from scratch most nights. Maybe once a month we have a takeaway or a meal out. Occasionally we might have a pizza in the oven or something similar.

Helps that my 3 kids are teenagers so we all take turns cooking so 5 of us to spread the load.

Used to, but extremely basic. I looked for the simplest possible options that ds would eat. I still gave myself a year off cooking at all when he went to university and if I could I would go back to that, it was blissful, the most complicated thing I made all year was scrambled eggs. Unfortunately now living with dp and we cook for each other. I do now sometimes just say I’m not going to eat tonight.

Also whoever cooks doesn't do dishes is a good rule to have.

Four kids and no dishwasher is tough going and I imagine does feel quite relentless and makes cooking harder work.. I'd be pushing your landlord to see if they can install one - it would be life changing.

Frozen chopped veg is what you need though. I buy frozen base mix and frozen garlic from Sainsburys and it's the base of lots of meals - i can have a bolognase cooking in 3 mins - i know because I timed myself. Same goes for chicken in tomato type sauce. Boil some pasta and thats 2 healthy filling meals in less than 10 mins prep.

Does pasta pesto count?

4 of us and yes we cook nearly every night. I used to cook nearly every night, but the DCs have been helping out and each one cooked once a week for the family from about age 13. At the moment my 19 year old DD cooks at least twice a week and we often cook together other nights, which we both enjoy. DS has been working long shifts finishing late this summer so we’ve not been asking him to cook much at all. We eat very simple meals regularly so it’s not that difficult to do, pasta and tomato sauce, omelettes or frittatas, egg fried rice, sausage and mash, toasties, jacket potatoes, soups, beans on toast. And washing up can be shared out too.

I batch cook and freeze so mine are just assembled in a few minutes.

I couldn’t live without a dishwasher though.

DC are grown now but I did. However, I made sure that most of the evening meals were very easy. E.g.
Have a roast on Sunday
Then on Monday make chicken risotto or beef stir fry or lamb wraps and salad with the left over meat.
Tuesday - pasta with pesto and salad, jazzed up with olives, chopped sun dried tomatoes, chilli flakes, grated cheese etc but still less than 10 mins prep.
Wednesday - tray bake - baby potatoes, chopped mediterranean veg and roast salmon or chicken pieces or chunks of chorizo or sausages all in one big roasting tin. Or gnocchi mozarella and tomato bake with olives and fresh herbs.
Thursday - one pan stove top dinner e.g. risotto with chorizo, peppers and chickpeas or frittata with salad or kedgeree.
Friday maybe a slow cooker casserole prepped in the morning and put on timer to be ready when everyone comes home. Or something really easy like oven chips with oven baked breaded cod or fish fingers or eggs or frying steak, peas, sweetcorn and steamed broccoli.
Saturday - something like spaghetti bolognese or macaroni and cauliflower cheese if I can be bothered to spend time. If spaghetti bolognese I'd usually make at least double quantities of sauce as it can be frozen and then used as the base for chilli or lasagne or a slightly tomatoey cottage pie.

But if I was knackered, especially when DC were younger and very fussy about food, there was a lot of tinned spaghetti with grated cheese and microwaved veg pouches because I knew they'd eat it and then DH and I could have something grown up at night like pasta with a nice ready made artichoke or aubergine sauce, or just bread and cheese and salad.