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!!

Why can't DS have a cheese sandwich for lunch every day?

It's really not a massive ordeal. If he doesn't eat what you give him he doesn't eat it. If you know he prefers a certain food then just make sure that makes up part of the meal.

OK so why don't you make your meals later in the evening, you and DH eat after kids have gone to bed and make enough so there's leftover portions for either lunches or kids teatime, they can eat at 4-4.30, you don't have to eat so early then.

This thread is making me feel vindicated (sorry) because I have many times moaned about having 5 of us to feed 3 meals a day under normal circumstances!! (so lockdown is just adding DH to the lunch list).

Breakfast -normally porridge done in the microwave with honey & frozen berries.
Or yogurt with fruit/granola.
Currently they have bagels several times a week too.

Lunch here is always something that could be taken as a picnic because we’re (usually) often out.
Currently I have solved lunch by making bread every day (not as insane as it sounds - 5 mins to mix flour yeast & water the day before then knock back/rise/bake the next day) - & I stick on the table with meat/cheese/hummus from fridge and cut up veg.
If not bread they get the same with oatcakes or wraps & can use the panini press if they want a toastie.

Dinner - I only cook one meal but I cook the items separately so meat plus veg plus carbs plus often beans & they take whichever part they eat. I have two who don’t allow food to touch 🙄 & one who will genuinely not eat if he doesn’t like it/is upset.

If I make pancakes for brunch they don’t get fed until dinner but might get popcorn in the afternoon, if we have a big/very late lunch then very occasionally I make fruit crumble & custard for dinner (nothing else) and I am a hero 😁

Definitely do BLW for the baby - my smaller ones did sibling led weaning! Your 4 yr old might enjoy showing baby how to eat.
You do have my sympathy with the weaning it makes a relentless mess at the best of times - can you all sit on a picnic rug in the garden sometimes so there is less floor to wipe?

I forgot to say about avoiding the extra cooking for a child. DS has dinner much earlier than us, so he usually has food that's quick like cheesy beans with potato waffle, or leftover from our dinners warmed and put in a wrap, or I might do part of our meal early like the roast veg that can be reheated safely and chuck ham and cheese on his plate with it. His snacks are bought stuff like a soreen bar, or cheddars with cheese and tomato, or fruit, or defrosted slices of pancake (we make it a lot, savoury and sweet, and I always try to freeze a few slices). It means we might have slow-cooked pork with roast veg one night where he'll have had roast veg with ham and cheese, then he has reheated pork with salad in a wrap the next day and we have a stir fry where we save veg noodle for him the next night, meanwhile a lovely pot or two in the freezer of pork and roast veg is ready for easy meals another day.

@peaceanddove
Priceless!

@LakieLady
Sorry I had to laugh when you said you should have planned your kitchen round this! Also, after having got a new fridge freezer last year, which even before this, the freezer had turned out to be a bit too small, I was kicking myself. On another thread a while back, some people said to create more space they took the drawers out, and kept food types in bags instead.

@Featherstep I've had mindful chef before and definitely recommend it. The flavour combinations and quality are amazing. I often feed the kids first but then find I can't be arsed to feed myself...

Agree with those who have said just to do a picnic/sandwich lunch and only "plan" hot supper. Also, I recently discovered through not having my act together now that life has no structure that if you serve meals a bit later than DC are used to, you can give them cherry tomatoes and carrot/cucumber sticks at their usual mealtime "to keep them going" and they'll be hungry enough to eat them all. Then they've had their veg and the actual meal can be mostly beige/freezer food.

I've been cooking at lunch then it's been wine and a crisp sandwich for dinner

Good idea honeysuckle. I have often thought about this, but can't get used to it, not even on a Sunday now, but we eat early, have been known to eat as early as 4! Also, OH works, but for alot of people this could work well for the time being.

On a related note. I just had a Philadelphia cheese (full fat, never reduced) bagel with crushed salt n vinegar crips sprinkled on top. Honestly, it was divine. A great lunch.

It helps to just decide you no longer care about what foods are supposed to "go" together. If you have leftover Thai curry from yesterday and some ham sandwiches left over from lunch and half a box of fish fingers from the freezer, that's what everyone's having! Add fruit and bread and crackers and stuff from the store cupboard to fill in any gaps.

Agreed, it is knackering.

I've recently had to institute a cooking schedule so I know who is cooking when to spread the load and avoid an unintentional stand off where we don't end up eating until too late because everyone was busy.

Now I do dinners, and DH does lunches, except for 2 days when we trade. I'm cooking double portions for at least two of the dinners so I can serve leftovers, and at least once a week is a freezer special i.e pizza or fish fingers. Lunch is often tinned or homemade (in advance) soup and a sandwich.

Feeling better about it now.

Ha peaceandove, But mrkoala doesn’t like me touch his cock either so that approach wouldn’t work really. We are sort of semi separated and deciding what to do at the moment. When I stopped providing hot lunches for H last year my life got better but he ran up 4K on a credit card on food. So I’ve now had to reclaim the food provider position otherwise he would do the same again. I manage the house finances and unless I make all the food we’d be in debt.

As far as he’s concerned his job is to provide the money and my job is to do the food. Lockdown hasn’t altered his job but it has altered mine but thems the breaks. Apparently.

My God MrsKoala you need to ditch your princess man- child husband the second the lockdown ends. He doesn't want a wife he wants a housekeeper and skivvy.

Oh dear Mrs koala. My OH, has this attitude, he provides the money so I'm chief cook and bottle washer. Plus I'm supposed to enjoy it, AND after all I've got nothing else to do apparently! (applied before lockdown). Hopefully stbx!

Now this is strange because normally I'm utterly shite at meal planning and feed everyone pasta and pesto way more than is healthy but suddenly I'm all over it in lockdown.

Get my weekly veg box, do a Sunday roast, a couple of soups and a big veg risotto and that's that done.

Trip to the local mini supermarket 2-3 times a week and we're sorted. Baking all sweet things from scratch. Never had time for that when I had to commute every day.

Breakfast is cereal, eggs and toast. Lunch a sandwich or soup. Everyone fends for themselves and then I do dinner. Other than the endless battle of clearing up crumbs, we're all good.

I'm the same! DH are both commuters normally and now it's like The Good Life here. Temporarily.

@Whatsername177

Dinners are complicated. I dont eat meat. DH doesnt eat vegetables.

Not even one type?

Sorry, I was a little flippant. DH doesn't like vegetables. He will eat them if I disguise them in things. Sunday dinner veg are smothered in cheese sauce/gravy/mint sauce and swallowed down grumpy. He is actually worse than the children

Grumpily^

I lie awake at night planning meals. As I only shop once a week I lie awake going around Aldi thinking through everything I will need to last 2 adults and 2 fussy teens 3 meals a day. Oh and I am a F/T Keyworker as is my husband. Exhausting....

Yanbu At all! It’s such a fecking ball ache trying to plan all the meals. So dull. And yes I know we’re fortunate but it doesn’t make it less dull or less of a ball ache!

Make simple things. Omlettes, baked potatoes, pizza. Sandwiches are fine for lunch.

Maybe have set days for your DH to cook and stick a meal planner on the fridge every Sunday night. It shouldn't all be on you because it's stressing you out.