Fed up of cooking twice a day!

[Scienceisnotopinion]

Need some tips/ideas. All of us, Dh and kids, are home for lunch and dinner. Will often make soups that last for dinner too, but they eat a LOT and often there will not be enough left and will still have to cook some side dish or something.
Anyone more organised then me that can help? I try to have a balanced week, meat fish veggy dishes. Thanks!

The OP keeps ignoring the ‘why can’t your husband cook’ posts

www.slimmingeats.com/blog/hawaiian-style-couscous

I make this a lot too

I read your update about your children not having school lunches so you have my sympathy, op.

I echo what others have said; freeze pasta sauces, lasagne, chili, cottage and shepherd's pie; jacket potatoes are lovely and filling.

This makes me wonder how you and the family would manage if you went out to work.

It would have helped Op if you’d given details about who you are feeding and where in the world you are, when starting out.

Clearly the standard British lunch isn’t what you want to feed your kids and somehow your situation is different to that if the majority in here, yet you’ve asked on British MN for suggestions. Most people on here have kids going to school and are happy with cold lunches.

I’d get beyond the idea that growing boys cannot grow healthily unless they have 2 cooked meals a day, or that their diet cannot contain sandwiches etc. Your emphasis seems to be on them being boys too.

Are you somewhere where it’s usual or taking an attitude that somehow boys need something different to girls, or it a a woman’s job to cook twice a day for the male members of the family? If so, you’re not asking the right people by being on MN, because most people here will be if the view that beyond a certain age, kids can make their own lunches and sandwiches some if the time are perfectly good enough.

If you want a culturally very different kind of answer, it would be best to find another forum to ask on, rather than expecting the answers MN give to not be Britain based, in terms of cultural and food norms.

How about fruit and cheese, @Scienceisnotopinion? Or a mixture of celery, cherry tomatoes, cheese and cold meat.

You could do oven roast veg for dinner, and mix the left over roasted veg with cous cous to make a salad, with feta or goats cheese.

Roast tomatoes, garlic and red peppers, and mix through cooked pasta - not necessarily something you can cook in advance, but it would be quick and easy to cook. Same goes for fried rice - cook extra rice the day before, then make fried rice with spring onions and add left over chicken or pork, or cooked prawns.

We cook a baked rice dish which is good the next day, microwaved/reheated.

Cube chorizo and chicken (I use boneless thighs, but it works as well with breast), and fry in a bit of olive oil. Add smoked paprika, finely sliced onion and chopped red or yellow peppers, and sauté a bit. Add rice - 100g per serving, 500g of passata and a tin of cherry tomatoes (or fresh ones, if you’ve got some that are a bit too soft to eat raw), and chicken stock - about 75ml for each 100g of rice, I think - but I eyeball it, and add more during cooking if it gets dry. Scrunch up and dampen a piece of grease proof paper, wring it out and flatten on the top of the rice etc, put on a lid, and cook in a medium oven for about 40-45 minutes, instil the rice is cooked.

This is all starting to sound quite French. So, roast chicken with salsify for lunch, and charcuterie etc for dinner (Could never live there unless my children were going to get a spot in the cafeteria)

For lunches we get in Houmous, falafels, mini wraps/wholemeal pittas, olives, cheese, cherry tomatoes, cucumber etc. We’re veggie though so you could add some cured meats to that or a rotisserie chicken. Pull out of fridge, on table and everyone helps themselves and back in at the end. Then cook at dinner time?

Do you have any room for another freezer like shed, garage, outhouse etc? This would help massively with cooking larger portions and freezing.

Slow cooker as well.

The thing I’m most taken aback by that is children young enough to need lunch made have to come home for lunch, with no option to stay in school for lunch. What happens if parents are out at work?

I also thought it sounded very French, but they have school lunches in France! Lovely three or four course lunches.

Do you literally cook 21 times a week? So breakfast, lunch and dinner (or tea as us commoners call it!!). Good grief what an awful waste of a life.

So no cereal, toast etc or is that too processed for you? No meals out or take aways? Or are your only treats an occasional sandwich on your picnic.

Just to give you some ideas my meal plan for this week is as follows…

Sunday-roast chicken which DH will finish for lunch tomorrow and the boys will have in wraps for school
Monday is pasta Ragu
Tuesday is Pizza and Salad (that’s obviously out for you as dough, cheese and tomato are too processed)
Wednesday is Scampi and home made chips after football training
Thursday is Jacket Spuds and Beans or Beans on Toast after football training
Friday is McDonald’s after yet another football training as I’ve lost the will to cook anything by 9pm
Saturday will probably be enchiladas, rice and Tortillas with salad.

Boys eat cereal and toast for breakfast with fruit then lunch is either wraps, pasta or Sandwiches on rotation. I cannot think of anything more depressing than trying to work out what to cook that much.

@Scienceisnotopinion
There's a batch cooking book by Elly Pear called "Let's Eat!". It's all vegetarian/vegan. She takes a staple recipe like Dahl and then recreates it 3 times over in different meals. It's quite affective. All the info of portion size, freezing time etc is in the recipe. Sounds perfect for your conundrum ☺️

I do quesadillas - refried beans (can be batch cooked in pressure cooker) spread on tortilla with cheese and if you fancy, salsa, guacamole, coriander, peppers etc. Another tortilla on top, do each side in frying pan, cut up like a pizza. Filling, cheap, tasty and easy! I buy salsa but it's not hard to make

Buy a bigger freezer. The best way to get organised is to get on board with the freezer. It makes life so much easier.

Also get on board with the microwave. You say pasta doesn't reheat well but it REALLY does. It is is one of the foods that has the best outcome in a microwave as the microwave just vibrates water molecules within the food to reheat it.

Sometimes you may need to add a tiny little bit more fluid to the sauce - say touch of red wine for tomato/red sauces or a tablespoon of milk for a cabonara but pasta is a great reheater.

How are you reheating pasta @Scienceisnotopinionif you don't think it reheats well?

Let DH and kids fend for themselves at lunch and you cook in the evening

Have not read the whole thread, OP but know where you are coming from re. non-processed stuff and not too much bread, as in sandwiches all the time. When you have meal with rice, cook double the quantity and refrigerate half. It can be heated with anything else you are having, say heat some mixed beans (from can) through with flavourings such as tomato paste or pesto, herbs or worcester sauce or balsamic vinegar.
Make a large quantity of bolognese type sauce with minced beef, tomatoes, veg, etc. Have for one meal with pasta, and for another meal add kidney beans and chilli and have with rice. (Grains and pulses such as lentils or beans together in a meal make first class protein, as good as meat). Can cook large quantity of lentils into a dahl (super quick with red lentils) and quickly heat it and rice another day. If you like mackerel, it is good baked in the oven with water and pickling spices, and can be eaten cold for another meal with salad. For lunches at home, leafy salads can be really quick - have with cold meat or smoked salmon if you can run to it. Another good standby is canned sardines, very healthy - cold with salad or heated and mashed with other flavours or veg to make a pasta sauce.
I got into all these as I don't like spending long cooking.

You said you were fed up of cooking twice a day - people suggested no cook options

People then suggested batch cooking - no freezer space

I'm not sure even you know what you're asking for!

@NoviceNewMN

Buy a bigger freezer. The best way to get organised is to get on board with the freezer. It makes life so much easier.

Also get on board with the microwave. You say pasta doesn't reheat well but it REALLY does. It is is one of the foods that has the best outcome in a microwave as the microwave just vibrates water molecules within the food to reheat it.

Sometimes you may need to add a tiny little bit more fluid to the sauce - say touch of red wine for tomato/red sauces or a tablespoon of milk for a cabonara but pasta is a great reheater.

How are you reheating pasta @Scienceisnotopinionif you don't think it reheats well?

I dont have a microwave as not much counter space, so i use the oven, and pasta often comes up too dry when reheated. Ill try adding some liquid thanks

I would keep lunch meat free so things like
Pasta with tomato based veg sauce
Mixed been stew
Ratatouille
Macaroni cheese
Curried rice noodles with stir fry veg
Saag aloo
Mix up with jacket potato lunches and soup days

@Amillionnc

The OP keeps ignoring the ‘why can’t your husband cook’ posts

The OP already said that husband comes home at lunch and dinner time, but he cooks on days off

I know you said you don't have much freezer room, but is there space for a chest freezer in a shed or garage? Also what about making bases in advance eg a good tomato sauce, based mince fried up with seasoning etc, which you can defrost and then add to. I also use the oven when it's on for something else to bake veg either to freeze or for the next couple of days.

And also some ready to bake baguettes are useful - they are stored in the cupboard and can bulk out meals and salads.

@EnidFrighten

I do quesadillas - refried beans (can be batch cooked in pressure cooker) spread on tortilla with cheese and if you fancy, salsa, guacamole, coriander, peppers etc. Another tortilla on top, do each side in frying pan, cut up like a pizza. Filling, cheap, tasty and easy! I buy salsa but it's not hard to make

Thanks! Used to make quesadillas but forgot about it lately

I think you’re quite limited by the range of things you prefer not to eat, such as processed foods. That will inevitably mean you need to cook more if you’re making everything from scratch.

You say you haven’t got a slow cooker, but I would strongly recommend you consider buying a really big one. Yes, a financial outlay but you could always cook double quantity, then either freeze the rest or have the same dinner two nights in a row, or even have the leftovers for the next day lunch with either pitta bread or jacket potato or even salad.

[quote Ell17]@Scienceisnotopinion
There's a batch cooking book by Elly Pear called "Let's Eat!". It's all vegetarian/vegan. She takes a staple recipe like Dahl and then recreates it 3 times over in different meals. It's quite affective. All the info of portion size, freezing time etc is in the recipe. Sounds perfect for your conundrum ☺️[/quote]
Ill look it up thank you