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 but only due to cost, I hate cooking and we don't have a dishwasher. I do a lot of one pot meals. Weekend treat meals are things like wraps or pitta breads with cold fillings so I get a break from cooking. I disagree that whoever cooks doesn't wash up. I do almost all the cooking and washing up but on the occasion DH cooks, he's an amazing cook but he uses every pan in the kitchen whereas I cook with washing up in mind all the way through. Look at recipes for more interesting salads, loaded jacket potatoes and poke bowls. And there's healthy things you can just pop in the oven on a foil wrapped tray, I do a lot of different veg and meat and roasted ike that plus potatoes in various ways. Minimal prep and cleaning. My teens can cook now which is brilliant, I sometimes get an evening off, definitely start training them up once they get to about 11.

Yes. I do things like bolognese, chicken tray bake (just some chicken legs or thighs chicken in an oven tray with baby potatoes, and chopped up (big) carrots, peppers, and onions. Add a quartered lemon, a halved bulb of garlic, and some herbs of your choice and bake for about 45 minutes), chicken fajitas or beef tacos, curry, and lentil soup and bread are some of my go toos. That said, I had a fish finger wrap and curly fries last night because DS picked dinner.

Op if everyone cooked from scratch every night there wouldn’t be two rows in every supermarket dedicated to jars of sauce and at least two rows of ready meals.

i cook every night from “semi scratch”. I don’t have time for making sauces from scratch every night so I will make curry using eg fresh chicken and fresh vegetables but then a decent jar of sauce. Same with bolognese I use fresh mince vegetables and a jar of sauce. Lots of the jarred sauces now only have natural ingredients so they are fine in my book (we try to avoid UPFs)

we don’t buy ready meals though.

Yes we have always cooked fresh food and no jars etc
I wouldn’t risk the salt content as have a heart condition but was the same even before I knew this . It doesn’t take long I just cook huge portions and freeze for busier days. So much cheaper.

Less so now because we are out for swimming training every night and I work full time but when they were little yes. It was quite boring and monotonous though.
Mon - soup and rolls or Jacket potatoes (Roast the veg in the oven for 35 mins then blitz with stock and add cheese / creme fraiche / herbs etc depending on which soup)
Tuesday- spag bol or other pasta
Weds - fish pie (used frozen fish pie mix. Jamie Oliver fish pie recipie...ish. serve with greens.
Thurs - slow cooker concoction (beef stew, sausage casserole etc) throw it in in the morning and set timer so it's ready for dinner
Fri - curry night
Sat - Home made pizza
Sun - Roast....ideally at grandparents house

It was the only way I could cope. I should make a new plan which works with our crazy timetable now.

Yes 95% of the time though I’m not afraid of using cheats where appropriate eg canned tomatoes and pulses, blended spices, frozen vegetables etc. combining partially prepared then frozen food with fresh vegetables is another shortcut. I try to avoid ready meals and upf but I’m not fanatical. I only had 2 kids so not as many mounts then but I also now have 2 step dc and 3/4 of them have partners now, when they all visit it’s 9 adults!

Yes I cook every day (family of 4) except Friday when we have a quick meal eg ready made pizza or chicken nuggets. I often do the prep at 6am so it’s quicker to get the meal ready after work.

I don’t make desserts, we either skip or have yoghurt and fruit or sometimes ice cream.

Without a dishwasher I would find this harder but if you have 6 kids at least two of them should be old enough to help lay and clear the table, scrape plates and dry up (start with the non breakables like cutlery then graduate to cups and plates and saucepans). Those were my jobs growing up without a dishwasher.

Yes we do - as long as we have veggies, proteins, healthy fats and carb we’re happy so don’t always have to cook a massive meal.
for eg last night we had a salad with chickpeas in it for protein, avo for healthy fats and a bit of a french stick
but also eat a lot of East Asian style noodles, spaghetti, salad wraps, baked pot and salad, airfryer wedges and sausages and veggies….

We have takeaway more frequently now because DP seems to have the tastebuds of a teenager but when it was just me and DD we’d have takeaway once a month as a treat and everything else was cooked at home.

A good thing to always have ready is soup. It’s easy, filling and will immediately get the children eating vegetables.

I’m not good with this but my friend does a weekly menu on Saturdays, gets the groceries needed and sticks to it. It saves her a lot of faffing around and wondering what to cook for that day.

Buy the mumsnet chicken!

it will last you the whole week!

I do but I work part time. I have a rough meal plan-
monday - soup or salad
Tuesday- jacket potato/ omlette/veg fritters
Wednesday- pasta/stew/roast veg
Thursday- rice/bulgar/Pearl barley/quinoa

thankfully dh does the other 3 days. So rather than trying to think up different meals it’s more a case of adding a sauce to a base. So today I’m going to make a vegetable pasta bake, tomorrow it’s a veg curry with brown rice. .(i tend to do veggie meals )
sometimes il do double portions and freeze some. I also sometimes chop a load of veg on a Monday for the four days.
Theres only 3 of us though. Ds wont always eat the same as us so I’ll do him chicken breast and jacket potato or egg, beans and toast. Dh batch cooks lasagne and spag bol so I sometimes give him a portion of them.

Yes we do,we have 5 children (one newborn) some days are just basic simple meals like jacket potatoes and fish with salad,always a roast on a Sunday with a nice baked cake,my 3 girls are always in the kitchen with me (11,9,6) we take turns on the dishes.
I did do a week of freezer food recently (39weeks pregnant) and my 9 year old asked when I was going to cook her something!

A bit of both. We cook, often batch cook a big wok of chilli or curry. I buy convenience food a lot. Like a steak and kidney pie and then have new potatoes and 3 steamed veg.

The only pressure to eat 100% natural is the pressure you're putting yourself under. Why?

Don’t worry op, we don’t cook fresh every night. Sometimes it is crap from the freezer.

We have 2 kids under 5, we are exhausted because our youngest never sleeps. We both work.

And there’s always someone who doesn’t like something (eg 1 person doesn’t like egg, another doesn’t like mince) so sometimes i don’t want to cook different meals.

We eat home cooked but I do a lot of batch cooking and freezing so as not to have to cook every night. In our rental we moved the washing machine to the garage and added a dishwasher in the kitchen. Would that be possible?

sometimes I do a really quick tea when I cba but don’t have any freezer batch cooking stuff - packet of stir fry veg, noodles, prawns, sauce - 10 mins and ready and only one pan to wash up. Same with filled pasta with pesto and cream cheese, served with veg or salad, can stir through pre cooked meat if you want.

No. But only because batch cook.

So I serve them just don’t cook them daily.

I set aside time to make things and freeze.

So make a few large lasagnes in one go rather than cook it weekly as an example.

Get a slow cooker and make large casseroles etc and freeze.

Tray bakes - as mentioned above- are quick and easy. I often bulk buy meat, slice and freeze and then you can just put a portion from the freezer into the tray, add veg and spices and chuck in the oven.

Although cooking for 6 is slightly different to 3/4 so I feel your pain.

Are the older kids old enough to take responsibility for a meal each weekly?

Yes we do mostly occasionally we’ll have supermarket pizzas or chips and nuggets but mostly we cook from scratch. A mix of simple things like stir fry and spaghetti bol and on days there’s more time then things like shepherds pie and lasagna. We don’t use jar sauces, they don’t taste as good as home made and wouldn’t want to feed them to my DCs often.

Yes, I cook, DH does the washing up/sorts out the dishwasher.

I love cooking, even coming home from work I find it relaxing. I don't mind the odd short cuts, life is too short to make my own pesto or curry paste all the time (I save that for weekends or if I use a more complex recipe).

But - I only cook one meal, I never did a children's tea and adult dinner, that wouldn't have worked time wise with me working until 5pm plus commute and I also grew up with family meals so never saw the point in them.

Oh also just to add that we tend to do anything we can shove in the microwave or air fryer in hot weather. My kitchen is the hot side of the house and I refuse to oven cook or boil stuff in a room that is already 26c.

Probably 5 nights out of 6 I’ll cook but they require varying degrees of effort. I’m in a good routine of making a big slow cooker spag Bol/meatballs on Mondays when I wfh which will feed 4 of us Monday and Wednesday night. We buy pittas, hummous, salad and they go with air fryer chicken breasts one night and provide some lunches too. We usually have salmon and jackets another night, all quite low effort but tasty and healthy. I find once I’m out of the routine, as I definitely am now due to summer hols 🤣 I fall off the wagon x

I do, yes. Not only that but I home cook separate meals as both kids are on different diets! I was raised on unprocessed food and definitely internalised the message that it’s disastrous health-wise, which my mother has always firmly believed. Also - I love cooking. That helps!

Yes have done for 30 years but only 3 of us now. don’t know any different Can be as quick as pasta with a tomato sauce or something more time consuming. I like quick but tasty. Tray bakes are good and one pot meals. My view is that making the family meal is one of the most important jobs I have/ had. Oh and DH has always cleaned up. He sometimes cooks at the weekend and so clean up.

Pretty much a, Yes, here. Take away/eating out is too expensive and ready/frozen meals are expensive and not that healthy.

We don’t live our lives with rules about having to cook every day or whatever. Sometimes we cook really nice things, sometimes it’s something pre preapared from the freezer, sometimes it’s fish fingers and chips. We enjoy eating out and getting a take away. 2 adults 2 children all healthy attitudes to food and exercise. We all have hobbies, see friends, do sport. I don’t attach any guilt to food, nor do we feel ‘lazy’ if we have beans on toast for tea. @LilacbluewatersSome of the posters here may be cooking super healthy meals every night but might not ever do any exercise or maybe they don’t spend time with their kids or maybe they do and are perfect. Who cares, just do the best you can for your family (which also means prior using your own needs)

Yes. I have a few quick meals I do and sometimes I double up so it’s food for another night too.