How do you sort family dinner on working days?

[InsolentAnnie]

I work pt, DH works ft. Really struggle on the days neither of us get home til 6 (DCs in childcare after school). We need to eat straight away, ideally, or it’s too late for the little one who is only 6, but we never manage to eat before 7 because it takes time to make things! We like cooking, do most stuff from scratch, but even basic things take 45 mins unless it’s something like tuna and sweetcorn pasta, which we can’t have all the time! What do other people do?!

Batch cooking so you’re not going the entire meal from scratch. I also utilise my slow cooker and pressure cooker.

Probably not as from scratch as you’d like, but I did chicken thighs, savoury rice and salad coleslaw in 20 minutes last night.

Chicken in the pressure cooker for 10 minutes with a maggi sauce sachet and some water, rice into the microwave for 10 minutes (it was a dried version, not heat and eat) while the machines are doing their thing, make a salad and set the table.

Batch cook or do easy food.
We have pizza/ chicken dippers/chicken keivs once a week which are usually on the day we are home less than an hour before back out to another activity.
I batch cook things like spag bol/chilli/lasanaga/curry for other busy nights.
I keep the more time consuming meals for weekends.

I do a mix of things:

I have a slow cooker so sometimes I’ll pop something in that - roast chicken (with veg in the cooker too); bolognaise (cooking fresh pasta when I get home - 2 mins); veggie chilli (served with wraps) etc

We quite often eat a cold dinner on those nights - snacky bits, salad, wraps etc. But the kids do have a hot meal in school.

Sometimes we’ll eat the same thing 2 nights in a row with the second being my late work night, or I’ll get a frozen homemade meal out the freezer - things like soups, lasagna etc.

Sometimes we’ll have frozen pizza. I buy crosta & mollica so at least it’s not UPF. This is the kids preferred solution!

Get things as ready as I can in the morning. So chicken on to marinade, pans and oil and other ingredients out.

Cook really quick meals. So stir fries, burritos, jacket potato in the microwave, frittatas.

On the weekends do something like a roast then have left over cold meat and salad on Monday. Do a double batch of curry or bolognaise and have the second lot during the week.

Slow cooker
Oven timer
Batch cook
Tray bakes
Airfryer

I haven’t needed to juggle this for a few years, but when I did I did a lot of batch cooking, particularly of things that could go with pasta/rice/cous cous. Out of the freezer in the morning and heated in the evening in the amount of time it took to cook the carb.

Following as we also have the same issue with kids clubs finishing 5.30-6 but youngest is a toddler so need to eat ASAP!

Slow cooker is your best friend here in my opinion- we cook from scratch & can just pop everything in the slow cooker before we leave for work, get home and that lovely home cooked meal is perfect and ready to eat.

I don't bother with anything that takes more than ten mins on a school pickup night. Hangry 5yo. Standards out the window.

Frozen jacket spuds, nuked with cheese and beans
Fresh pasta and sauce
Cheese toasties
Pizza in the air fryer

That sort of thing. Chopped up cucumber for health.

I struggle with this too. The issue with slow cookers is being out of the house for 12 hours!

in the winter I put the slow cooker on a timer so it comes on at 10am and goes off at 6 as the kitchen is cold but i wouldn’t risk this with raw meat in summer.

we all leave the house by 7.15am

Go easy.
Scrambled egg pitta and veg fingers is on the menu tonight as we are in a rush.

Spend some time on a Sunday to cook up a big batch of mince as a base ie,with onion, carrot and celery, garlic if liked, some with tomatoes, /tomato puree some in gravy then portion and freeze,buy some plastic storage tubs and labels, then you can add it to pre baked baked potato, pasta, chips, sweet potato mash etc. Bag of salad done, or microwave some pre prepared veg.
If you don't like mince, do something else, chicken based perhaps? The key is to do it and prepare it / store it when you have time so you aren't coming in from work and starting from scratch chopping veg etc.
Do the pasta, and potatoes beforehand as well, sweet potato mash is lovely, and you can keep the pasta in the fridge cooked,they both microwave beautifully.

We batch cook, but also have a rice cooker with a timer.

What do you mean?

We put things in pur slow cooker for 12 hours (on low) if we're out of the house all day. Do you mean you don't like the meat being sat in the slow cooker before it's heated up enough to start cooking it?

I’m in awe of those of you who manage to get stuff in the slow cooker before leaving for work! It takes 70-90 minutes to get us all out of the house in the mornings (older DC is fine and sorts themselves out and off to the bus, younger one (6) requires both of us to sort them as is going through a very difficult time - ie being a complete pain in the bum every morning). I’d have to get up at 6 to do it all, which I know a lot of people do but some evenings I don’t get in from work until 11pm so that feels impossible!!

You need ‘dump bags’ and to buy pre-sliced veg. I do the shopping then the ingredients for my next slow cooker meal go straight into a large ziplock bag, so as I’m unpacking I just put meat, tin of tomatoes, seasoning, sliced mushrooms, sliced onions, sliced peppers…….whatever veg you want, in to the bag. That then goes into the fridge or freezer if I want to make several at once, in the morning you just upend the bag into the slow cooker and turn it on. It takes seconds.

I think you need to compromise and accept that in the days you get home at 6, you either won’t eat together (although you can still sit with your children whilst they eat) or else you won’t be eating something you’ve cooked from scratch.

@InfoSecInTheCity thats also a great way to do things, there's a lady on you tube who does these en masse, can't remember her name, she has some fantastic ideas, brilliant way to get a meal organised for the slow cooker. She does all the meals as well, breakfast and lunches too, all prepped and organised im sure a quick search with key words would find her.

https://amzn.eu/d/erZXpa5 I had the same issue and my mum bought me this 30-minute cook book.

If you’re keen to try the slow cooker I would start with:

Whole chicken, half a cup of water, enough new potatoes for you all, enough mini carrots for you all. Put water, potatoes and carrots in the bottom (no chopping) and stand the chicken on top. Takes less than 1 minute.

Veggie chilli: from a frozen bag put a big handful of onion, two big handfuls of mixed peppers, two big handfuls of sweetcorn, two drained and rinsed tins of kidney beans, two tins of tomatoes. Takes less than 2 minutes.

Batch cook/prep on your days off and weekends. I compress my hours and have Mondays off. One week I cook 3 or 4 meals ready in the fridge; one week we have batch cooking from the freezer. ISH. Stews are good - fling ingredients in a slow cooker, or in the oven on a timer.
Fresh pasta, pesto, salad or eg: green beans takes a few minutes.
Jacket spuds in oven/airfryer on a timer.
Quiches/pies to warm up; prep veg in the morning.

Also look at the “Roasting Tin” series of cook books by Rukmeni Iyer.

Most ovens have a timer function - learning to use it is a useful skill.

Dump bags for the slow cooker or jars of sauce with chicken in the slow cooker and fresh pasta / micro rice.

I used to load the slow cooker pot the night before and put in the fridge. In the morning just took it out, put in the cooker and turned it on. 10 hours later… dish it up.

I would compromise on your cooking from scratch one night a week. Surely that's entirely normal (and actually a healthy attitude to food) and have pizza with raw carrot,cucumber, toms, salad etc/breaded fish, chips and peas/beans on toast/in a jacket.

If you can't compromise on from scratch cooking, batch cook at the weekend/on your days off and freeze portions. Then lift out what you need before you go to work and it will be defrosted when you get in. 10 mins to heat up in microwave/hob and to cook pasta/rice to go with. If you double up the portions of what you cook on the days you are home this is even easier.

Slow cooker