To be so stressed and exhausted by pandemic meal planning

[Featherstep]

Ok so I know we're lucky to have enough food and are all healthy.

But it's week 4 of lockdown and I am just so fed up of planning, sourcing, cooking 2 meals a day for 4 people, all with different preferences! Everyone's around all day, 4 year old DS is really fussy, and 7 month old baby is newly weaned and ravenous.

With shopping options so limited I want to make sure everything is used up in the best possible way... I did meal plan a bit pre-Covid but not to this extent and frequently went for top up shops (say for curry paste if we wanted curry.)

It just feels like a large portion of my brain is spent thinking about what to cook, making food and clearing it up (from under baby's highchair, especially). And doing creative things to make the leftovers last/ turn them into baby's next meal.

DH tells me to relax and not go crazy. He just doesn't get how tiring the mental load is. I am by far the better and more resourceful cook so I do take up almost all the cooking duties- I know this is my problem. But anyone else out there want to just share the frustration?? I just want to go eat a McDonald's by myself and not have to do a mental spreadsheet of how best to use up everything in the veg box!!

I would share out the load more, but as we are reliant on the occasional veg box delivery, our store cupboard and friends dropping in bits, food here needs to be used wisely to stretch it out. I'm the one who knows what's coming into the house and when. It's just not efficient for the task to be shared.

For those who are getting regular deliveries, or are able to go shopping themselves, you are probably looking at things from an entirely different perspective.

Did I miss why your DH isn't cooking?

The stress must be unbearable

@Phineyj I was just coming on to say the same thing!

I understand completely OP, usually DH and DC have lunches out at work/school/nursery - all hot meals. They expected the same at home my youngest won't eat cold food at all, no sandwiches. The other won't eat soup. Lunches are the bane of my life at the moment.

I do all the meal planning and shopping. I ask for DH's input - give him the plan, the list, ask if he wants anything else... get the shopping and two days later he is all sad faced over there being no avocado or whatever else he has since decided is essential. Aaaaaargh.

I feel your pain.......

Get down to M&S and get yourself a week of ready prepared meals and treats.

And don't even get me started on how many times a day the dishwasher is on ....

Yes. I’m debating whether to just buy mince and feed them spag Bol 4 times a week and mince n tatties and baked potatoes the rest of the time! Rotating brocolli carrots and peas!

I totally sympathise. It's 4 years ago now and I had a fussy 2yo (now a slightly less fussy 6yo) and a weaning baby and had just gone back to work. And it was relentless without even the pressure of lockdown with everyone being at home and limited top up shopping.

I finally lost my shit and gave up cooking for about 4 months. We ate sandwiches, wraps, omelettes and pancakes on rotation. It was boring/frustrating but didn't make me cry.

Eventually we introduced "meatball Wednesday" and then "stir fri-day" (which can incorporate a variety of veg!). Which even helped fussy DS (who relishes predictability) and built up to a fixed meal schedule with some freedom. But it was a long process, it didn't happen overnight.

You have my sympathy though. I had a fussy one, a weaning one, and a DH who couldn't care less what he eats and preparing/putting any thought into meals just felt utterly thankless.

I quite like getting the dishwasher on more often as now I just put EVERYTHING in, makes it worthwhile. No more pots to wash and the job supports are gleaming too! Lol

I find the whole planning/shopping/cooking so bloody tedious.

I have just had a quick look on some of the sites mentioned here, Gousto, Hello Fresh etc. This might be the temp route I go down.

Anyone have recommendations?

We had a grocery delivery on 7th of April and it has to last until 20th so there isn't much choice. I plan a meal each night and everyone eats the same. Sons are 19 and 21 and have been brilliant about not endlessly snacking. We are having to be careful with money too so yes it is a bit stressful but I have always had a bit of an eat it or do without attitude and we aren't going to go hungry.

Everything is so amplified during lockdown, honestly, when my 3 were smaller that's how I felt for years! Even now they are fully grown, the worry is having enough on to feed the 4 of us currently at home, but I am able to hand cooking duties over at least a couple of nights a week.
I think you are doing a marvellous job in trying circumstances, well done !

@fascinated - yes, I've many times been tempted to try this. Just do the same thing, for at least as you say 3-4 days on the trot. Even better get a huge pot and do the lot in one go, so effectively cook once every 4 days! Even better once a week ☺️ When I used to make mince dishes I would fry the mince and onion, then seperate from that point for the different dishes.

In our house we have food allergies, food aversion, healthy diet veg lovers and the complete opposite. I thought I was sick of meal prep before all this.

@Kinkybutkind, haha, I tried to tell my OH once (when he wanted a pizza, and we didn't have any or no takeaway) that cheese on toast is more or less the same thing!

Lunchtime is sandwiches, salad and wotsits for my two. DH sorts himself out. Sometimes dd8 has a salad instead of a sandwich. We are on a rotation of tuna, cheese, sliced ham and sliced chicken. Sometimes it's a wrap instead of bread.

Dinners are complicated. I dont eat meat. DH doesnt eat vegetables. Dds like plain food.
I tend to cook a roast on a Sunday. I use frozen veg. With the left over chicken, I make a curry for the next day. For my kids, their 'curry' is fricasse. Common element is rice, veggies and naan bread.
Once a month I batch cook bolognaise and portion it up in the freezer. I add extra veg by blitzing it in the nutribullet first. I add extra tomatoes so it makes it go further.
Jacket potatoes and salad is a weekly staple.
Homemade pizza (I use a base mix that you add water to). Dds make their own, dh and I have calzone. Usually served with frozen potato product and salad.
Panini night is popular. I keep the panini bread in the freezer.
Full English Brinner - the kids love breakfast for dinner. I use frozen hashbrowns.
Sausage, mash and veggies.
Quorn nuggets and oven chips.

@MrsKoala

That’s insane!

@MrsKoala
You need to get your kids into eating all at the same time.

What do they do at school? They just have to wait until it's their lunch time, surely???

Part of the fun of a veg box is working out how to use veg you don't normally use.

I used the swede to mash into rissoles. The children loved it, although I did refuse to tell them before they ate it what was in it.
And the butternut squash was going to be soup but we had far too much leak and potato soup after we used the leaks up as that, so I put them in thin slices on top of casserole, a bit like potato in Lancashire hotpot. The dc all went "yuck" but tried it and came back for more.

Why don't you make DH responsible for lunch? It will give you one less meal to think about.

And I don't understand why people pander to creating multiple different meals each mealtime.

FWIW, here we are managing to ge t a food delivery every 2 weeks approximately, I haven't been in a shop for 4 weeks, so those 80 items have to do us.

• Breakfast is cereal or toast and a piece of fruit.
• Lunch - DH makes everyone a sandwich/wrap with tomatoes/cucumber/carrots and a packet of crisps
• we have a biscuit or hot cross bun mid morning or mid afternoon
• I cook an evening meal that will feed us twice and it sits in the fridge or feeezer for a day or 2 so we don't have it twice on the trot. These meals include bolognase, sausage casserole, chicken casserole, shepherds pie, tacos, pasta bake, Rissotto, sir fry.
• twice a week we have a frozen pizza or sausage and mash/chips which can just be bunged in oven.

We have lots of broccoli and peas in the freezer plus carrots, mushrooms and peppers in the fridge. We have apples,meats, grapes, tangerines, plus strawberries for a couple of days after shopping.

My shopping involved fruit, veg, bread, cake, snacks, mince, chicken, sausages, cheese, ham, chorizo, prawns each week.

Washing up/loading dishwasher is done once a day, with dishes stacked until evening.

I think people let things become too complicated. Go for simple and straightforward.

Cereal or toast and a hardboiled egg, and yoghurt & fruit

Soup and a pitta sandwich- egg, cheese, tuna or salad, roasted tomatoes, coleslaw.

Something with salad, coleslaw (I make a big bowl and it lasts two days)
or veg. eg macaroni cheese, quorn sausages and oven chips, pizza, lasagne, omlettes, cheese and onion pie, quiche. Easy things to make or buy. Once twice a week I make something more special. Most days I roast lots of veg and make a couple of salads/ coleslaw and use them in pitta sandwiches next day at lunch.

DS1 and DD have the same as us- DD has become remarkably less fussy- and DS2 is weaning and scoffing anything we give him.

You can meal plan, just have a couple of options in case you can't get ingredients. You can get most things now despite the doom mongers.

Yes it is insane. That’s not including the banana cake/carrot muffins/flapjacks I make for snacks. And the shopping I am doing for neighbours and parents etc. I seem to be thinking or doing something about food constantly- even now I’m posting about it! I’m actually procrastinating because I don’t want to go to Sainsbury’s for my parents.

At school it isn’t so much of an issue because they all get up at 8. But now they sleep later. Also the boys don’t usually have much breakfast before school as they don’t like it first thing and ds1 has trained himself to go long stretches without food unless it’s what he likes where he’s comfortable. So tends to just eat a massive meal at 4.30 and then more at 9pm before bed.

Only cook once per day.

Be firmer about not offering bespoke meals to every individual. Be firmer about DH being involved more, regardless of what he did before.

Those conversations about 'these are unusual times and we all need to adjust what we do...' are needed and possible in areas of household chores, childcare, food, etc etc. Too many women believe that their DH cannot do certain takes or shouldn't be asked to be involved. Too many men aren't proactive and stick with the status quo.

These times are unusual and so household changes need to come. Even families with SEN of food allergies need to be looking at ways to simplify and make some changes now. Broader thinking to find ways to make it work and to simplify is needed.

This issue is being helped in my house because the dc are older (9,11,14). They all sort their own breakfast out. Then at some point around 12.45, I get everything out of the fridge that they can have for lunch (any leftovers, eggs, cheese, ham, sausage rolls, salsa etc, there’s also tins of soup, beans, spaghetti etc) I announce its lunch time and everyone comes through and sorts what they fancy. I put away whatever is left while my lunch is microwaving.

What is getting me is the amount of crockery we are getting through. I’ve made a rule that lunch dishes have to be hand washed, so we aren’t putting the dishwasher on twice a day. So when you finish lunch you have to wash your own plate and I volunteer someone to wash the chopping board/other kitchen stuff.

I don’t think there is an easy way to approach food through this though. You either have to deal with the fall out because your fussy eater won’t eat what you want them too or you have to cook two different meals. It is so hard to find something that all 5 of us like, I’m often cooking variations for someone and either way round is hard work.

Try www.theresourcefulcook.co.uk

The have meal plans and you can print out a shopping list for it all as well! Unfortunately, they don't seem to have updated it for a few years, but the recipes are good and varied.
It's really helped me when I'm not sure what to do for dinners or can't be bothered to think about it too much!