Fed up of cooking and meal planning - HELP

[YukoandHiro]

I have a 3yo and a 3 week old. The thing I'm finding hardest about the adjustment to two kids plus the lockdown situation we're all in is constantly thinking about and making food. I'm so fed up and out of ideas.

DH works shifts so we tend to eat later once DD3 is in bed.

What quick and easy lunches and dinners do you make for your toddlers? Anything that saves time/thought but is simple and healthy very, very welcome

Just to add. I don't know about Gousto but for Hello Fresh - it's a huge amount of washing up and many of the meals are actually very time consuming. They do have some 10 min meals but you often have to pay more.

I'm always trying to find the time to plan a bit better (would definitely help to take the stress out of it) but never seem to get round to it

I sit down once a week and do a meal plan and the online shop - generally I have a delivery once a week, so I look in the fridge at what needs using up, and do the plan the evening just before the order cut-off time. So at the moment I have a delivery every Tuesday night reserved with a bottle of champagne - I sit down on a Monday and plan a week's worth of meals (including some takeaways, and now there are lots of cool meal kits from restaurants you can order...), and edit the order before the 10pm deadline. Then I write the whole week's meals on the fridge and I don't have to be creative the rest of the week!!

I do Gousto every other week. It definitely relieves the mental load and has given me loads of good ideas to use in the future.

Just to add, I find that the problem is not the planning, it was the decision making every single day that was exhausting. What's for dinner. What's for lunch. What's for dinner. What do I have in that needs using. What will the kids deign to eat. I find it so much easier to sit down, plan the whole week (usually two meat, two fish, three veggie for dinners) and then all the decisions are made in one fell swoop and I know we have all the bits in for the week.

Slow cooker is just amazing. I buy a tray of diced beef, some ready prepped veg (you can get normal veg if you're not as lazy as me haha) and literally just throw it in with 2 beef stock pots and some water. Takes less than 5 mins in the morning, and it's ready for the evening - plus normally a portion or two spare as well to freeze which is great!

Pasta is always a winner, so, so fast. Chilli, sweet & sour chicken, omelettes .. and don't worry about having to be inventive all the time. As long as everyone's fed, that's the main thing!

Scrambled eggs, ‘buffet’ (crudités, cut up wraps, bits of ham, mozzarella balls, etc.) peanut butter sandwiches and a chopped up apple, spaghetti and peas/sweetcorn with a spoonful of passata or pesto, eggs fried with boiled rice and spring onions, bananas on toast.

Slow cooker is a game changer for curries and chilli and we like to do a whole gammon in ours with a bit of cider then grab chip shop chips and mushy peas on the way home . Jacket potatoes can be done in there as well, not the best jackets you'll ever eat but no faf at all.
Hello Fresh meals have been great for us as well, lots of different options and no food waste and it's been cheaper because we're not buying lots of extra bits on the food shop.

Does anyone have an app that they use for meal planning and shopping lists? I write it all out on a notepad but can't help feeling there is probably a more high tech way when I have an iPhone! Ideally something that DH/kids can add onto shopping list when they finish something...

Really good point @Xiaoxiong - it is the decision making that's the biggest drag.

@doadeer

Just to add. I don't know about Gousto but for Hello Fresh - it's a huge amount of washing up and many of the meals are actually very time consuming. They do have some 10 min meals but you often have to pay more.

We changed from hello fresh to gousto for that exact reason, too much washing up! Gousto is better, but you do have to pick carefully. 10 min meals are not more.

Toddler meals - eggs?? Scrambled, soft boiled, hard boiled etc. Also - Chopped up things on a plate takes 5 mins to prep and takes a while to eat - apples, cucumber, cheese, breadsticks, hummus etc.

For adults: strongly strongly recommend Dinner A Love Story blog. Loads and loads of ideas, practical on meal planning etc. The books are good too.

Yes it's more to reduce the mental load than anything else! I prefer to make all the decisions once a week in a batch, and then done - no more decisions to make in the week when I'm exhausted, running around, head full of decisions to be made on basically everything else (work/kids/house/life admin). My mum can't understand it, she freaks out that my fridge is stuffed with ingredients at the beginning of the week - she thinks the fridge should basically be empty except for olives, cheese and booze and then I should waft to the shops every day and see what's on sale, pick up a yellow sticker bargain, have what we fancy, etc. She never worked full time though so forgets what it's like to keep a family of 4 fed for 3 meals a day.

There are loads of threads on here where people post their weekly meal plans. I find them so helpful for inspiration, also the Eat Your Books website which helps me "google" my cookbooks for particular ingredients when I'm trying to use stuff up.

Our meal plans are often in sequence as well, to allow for stock to be made from bones of a roast which then makes soup, or for leftover meat to be used. Lunch is almost always leftovers from the night before, or bread/cheese/salad/fruit.

This week's plan:

• Roast Greek chicken with tomato, feta and orzo + green salad
• Vegetable soup with tiny pasta and pistou (made with stock from chicken the night before - any chicken meat from the carcass will go in as well)
• Cheat cheese & herb souffle + green salad
• Jacket potato with hot smoked salmon and sour cream + beetroot & cucumber salad
• Ikea meatballs, oven chips and peas
• Crumbed fish fillets, broccoli, sweet potato wedges
• Burger meal kit from Beyond Burgers

A cheaper alternative to Hello Fresh or Gousto would be to look at the recipes on the supermarket websites, press the 'buy ingredients' button for them to be added to your online shopping.

You can adjust brands and delete anything you already have. Plus of course add whatever else you need to the order.

I saw a recommendation on here for Simply Cook so signed up. They send the spices and a recipe and you provide 5 or 6 common ingredients like chicken, rice and veg.

I’ve found it has revitalised my interest in food because I was so bored of thinking about cooking.
All of the meals I’ve had so far have been delicious.

I’ve hot a free box code if you want to try it:

simplycook.com/invite/MD8N6M?via=app

Agree about menu. If you have the time look through some restaurant menus. Decide which of the meals you like. Write them into a menu. I used to do a.3.week one. I dont actually hate cooking. I hate wondering what to cook. It makes shopping a breeze and means you always have the ingredients to hand that you need. In theory anyway but due to upheaval of COVID I havent stuck to this my menu for months

Lunch - sectioned plate with sandwich, raw carrot or cucumber, raw fruit - grapes or plum or pear, plain yoghurt.

High tea - for example - bolognese, fish fingers, sausages, with some kind of grain or pasta and cooked veg.

I really like the green roasting tray book as well, you do have to plan for the ingredients a little but the shoving it and leaving it approach is very me. Puff pastry tarts are a standby (most of it has no dairy unless you get a fancy one).

Don't be afraid to have easy stuff a few nights- gnocchi with sauce, baked potatoes. Favourite meal of both kids is tuna pasta here. There will be more time for cooking again (I love cooking) but it is hard to keep it going. I've also never done 'proper dinner' for kids at nursery- they are fed brilliantly all day, including a substantial tea, so just a snack when they get home.

Also think French- you don't have to do a 'recipe' - shove some salmon or meat in the oven, cook some broccoli and add a carb

If you are on instagram I find todaywecooked a good source as well (it's veggie). I do homemade pizza a lot too, you can also buy the pizza dough frozen.

I didn't find the recipe boxes any less effort tbh but we have well stocked cupboards with spices etc so I don't often have to do a 'special ingredients' shop.