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!

If you have space for a breadmaking machine you could set it to have the bread ready for lunch. So delicious no one would feel like they're eating an ordinary sandwich and would be easy for you if they were to have an open sandwich that they assemble themselves.

Cook a double portion of rice and veg at dinner time to accompany your fish/meat, reheat the following lunchtime with chickpeas and the leftover veg chopped through it.

Scone based pizza - make 2 or 3 large trays for dinner and have cold with salad at lunchtime.

Oatcakes and cheese with a generous salad for lunch. Minimal prep. Oatcakes are quite filling and nutritious. (And tasty) Yoghurt for pud to fill up more if required.

Make your own sauerkraut/kimchi and eat whenever as an accompaniment.

Roast chicken for dinner, leftover meat cold with coleslaw - takes 2 ticks to make your own.

Roast meat for dinner with veg and boiled potatoes. Make potato salad with the leftover potatoes to accompany leftover cold meat.

Hot salmon for dinner, cold leftover salmon for lunch.

Frozen peas cooked at lunchtime with cold meat or fish if you want something kind of hot.

Our household is similar to yours OP, we try to avoid processed foods and don't eat sandwiches either. I will say, I have only two adults to cater for (no children) and it still takes a LOT of fridge and freezer space (I do however work full time so time saving is also important). If you can expand your capacity there in any way, it's worth it (I have always had a small chest freezer instead of a dishwasher or in our dining room as it makes SUCH a difference to us). We are not British born and bred and have also lived outside the UK for many years so I completely understand the lack of love for spaghetti hoops/beans on toast!

Definitely cook larger portions and portion ahead of serving to keep leftovers. Some of the things I cook regularly for lunch/dinners include...

Lunches: soups (carrot/butternut squash/pumpkin with coconut and thai herbs/spices.... minestrone.... tomato and basil/ginger/mint.... harissa chickpea... lemony lentil... pea/zucchini/spinach.... etc.) I make soup a couple of times a week and we eat it for lunch for 2/3 days in a row so almost every day.
I also make a big batch of hummus every week, and along with cheese and fried or boiled eggs this provides an addition to soup at lunch with crudités/naan/bread.

Dinners: Moussaka/Imam bayaldi (I add grated carrots and zucchini when I make my tomato sauce and make a huge pot which I then freeze in batches)
Courgetti/whole-wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce and mozzarella/meatballs.... Spicy bean chilli - this keeps really well
Roasted Mediterranean veg with feta/halloumi
Grilled chicken tikka with salad (I make around a kilo at a time, freeze half when marinated and still have a double portion so I can use leftovers in a salad/soup etc)
Burgers and coleslaw (coleslaw keeps well as leftovers too)
Caponata
Teriyaki salmon with baby corn, sugar snaps, peppers, carrots, broccoli and whole-wheat noodles (not a good one for leftovers but amazingly quick and easy)
Curries - I will often make 3/4 in bulk at the weekend so we can have it repeatedly but still have variety at each meal. Things in 'gravy' like chicken/fish curry, daal, saag paneer, channa chole, baobab bhartha freeze much better.

It can be a headache but meal planning has made my life much easier. Good luck OP!

Not sure why people are giving you the business. How many kids do you have? In your shoes I think I would do as others have suggested and get a large chest freezer for meal prep, also a slow cooker.
I would make two large pots of soup on Sunday and get a couple loaves of crusty bread, plus sandwich supplies. People can choose to heat a bowl of soup and/or make a sandwich of a weekday. You just cook dinner, and not every night! Have one takeaway day per week, one leftover dinner to clean out the fridge, and lots of slow cooker meals you throw in the morning and just prepare pasta, rice etc. in the evening. And meanwhile build up your freezer stash or pasta sauces, soups, meatballs, cooked meats, and (our favorite) burritos.

The way to reduce your cooking by 50% is just to make double of everything and freeze the other half.

Do you meal plan?

We do a meal plan each week and roster on everyone to make at least one meal to share out the workload and inject more variety.

There are lots of books/blogs/fb groups/online resources about batch cooking.

Having a big freezer is helpful if you don't want to eat the same meal two days running.

Do you like omelettes? They are super quick and easy.

The easiest dinner I make is a tin of mixed beans in chilli sauce or just kidney beans. Throw them in a pan with some frozen chopped peppers, frozen sweetcorn and some chipotle paste put on tortillas and fold, put in a baking dish and sprinkle on some cheese and bake.

homemade baguette pizza. Spread tomato puree on part baked baguettes cut in half length ways. Sprinkle of dried mixed herbs or oregano and top with cheese, peppers, sweetcorn, ham or anything you like then bake.

Cheese on toast with sliced tomatoes

Poached egg on toast

Jacket potato

@Scienceisnotopinion

I am not asking for quicker alternatives, just for organisational ideas to avoid cooking at every mealtime if you read the thread

If you want to avoid getting to a mealtime and wondering what there is to eat, the answer is that you just need to plan better.

Get a diary/ weekly planner and plan out what you'll cook on which days. Then you can plan which days you'll have time to cook and which days you want to be able to grab something quick that you prepared the previous day, etc. Obviously you need to know how much your family eat so you can get portion sizes right. That's just a case of paying attention and also using average serving sizes e.g. if you know it's 70g pasta per person then you can cook the right amount.

We do this and although it's a lot of work initially it saves so much headspace throughout the week, deciding what to buy and what to eat, because it's all just there ready. It is a worthwhile investment of time and effort.

@Scienceisnotopinion

Because other family members arrive home bang on meal time and dont have much time before going back to their commitments, but they do help and cook on their days off for example

Why do they all come home for lunch? Can't they sort something out where they work, or take it with them?

What have you done with your 2 DDs OP?

'Praps they don't go to school? Don't know where you are after all.

I couldn't bear it, does sound like the 70s

I'm all for cold foods you can lay out and let them help themselves

All kids get sent home for lunch time? What a pain in the arse! Someone has to be home providing a meal ... Where are you OP?

Seriously, get a microwave. It'll make your life much easier.

Forgot im on mumsnet. nope, it was your manners you forgot op, not the specific forum.

@Waspsarearseholes

Goodness me, you are rude, OP. Sort your own bloody dinners out if everyone on here is so unhelpful.

Haha, I thought this too!

I do quite enjoy a thread with a huffy op though

I haven't read all the thread, but I think you're just looking for things to batch cook? So, here's my list of things that I regularly batch cook for 4 people (i.e. make at least 8 portions at a time):
Chicken curry
Daal
Soup (any old soup, all can be frozen)
Thai red curry
Cassoulet
Sausage, lentil and harissa stew
Chicken, chorizo, spinach and chickpea stew
Beef and veg stew
Chilli
Pork & Bean stew

Pasta sauces:
Cheese sauce with brocolli (for a sort of macaroni cheese)
Ragu
Tomato and Basil
Putanesca

Cold options:
Quiche
Fritatta/Spanish omlette

You do end up with quite a lot of stewy/tomatoy type of meals, but if you do want to batch cook, it the easiest type of thing to do. You could use your pressure cooker for most of them.

Such a rude Op.

Op started an AIBU….but then took offence when people suggested some of her thoughts and particularly replies were.

So the thread started, with some info, but nothing to suggest Op was abroad or standard food practices/meals of UK wouldnt be acceptable. Lots of people gave up their time to make helpful and sensible suggestions. Op belittled some of them and was rude about them (processed food or sandwiches not good enough for them, salad not filling enough etc etc) and then when people picked her up on the rude responses, we get further rudeness about the replies and people who have posted.

MN isn’t a service provided by paid-for employees doing your beck and call. It is people who are helpfully replying to an info request and most of the responses are totally valid and helpful.

Op, try to appreciate that your responses to some of the food suggestions which work for others, are just poorly phrased…..you state or imply that what they are feeding their families isn’t good enough for you. That’s always going to grate. Can you see that.
Yes, you’re right that people eat differently. We know that. But you should also accept that on a UK based forum, most people will give suggestions which relate to children or adults being out for lunch many days, and that most people don’t offer 2 cooked meals per day.

So you’re asking for advice about a way of eating that just isn’t typical here. Perhaps a more locally based forum would understand better where you’re coming from and what you want to offer, because it seems culturally very different to the norm here. And this is an attempt to be helpful to you, so you can get the most out of MN and not piss people off. I could have just switched off from the thread after some of your replies to me, but here I am, trying to help you. Whether you can recognise that or not, I’m not sure really.

Loads of good suggestions on this thread, including ways and things to batch cook and also ways to ensure the batches you cook serve the number of meals you want out of them.

Hope you find a way to make it work and it Ll feels more manageable to you.

lunch idea that’s filling and doesn’t require reheating and is easily doubled up for another lunch

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/squash-barley-salad-balsamic-vinaigrette

Add a couple of tins of chickpeas to add protein and bulk out further. Keeps for 3 days.

No microwave is also making you life a lot harder. Risotto is ninja pressure cooker is something I make a lot - 3 times the stock to rice and cook 8 mins. I usually do leftover chicken, leek and mushrooms.

Nice big fry up, cook loads for breakfast then blitz as a smoothie for lunch, freezes well.

'would eat salads but feel its not too filling especially for growing boys. But might give it a try'

It is if you add a protein like chicken and maybe a rice/cous cous or pot salad etc

scienceisnotopinion^^

Perhaps ask for your post to be moved then.
Posters are giving you ideas but you are just a blunt, no, to some.

AIBU is not the greatest of places to be fair, when you want something specific..

@Scienceisnotopinion

Some people have different work and studying hours and patterns, some people even(gasp!!) dont leave in the Uk and have a different(double gasp!!) way of life! I know, unbelievable

Could you give some clues as to your location and the sort of things you like? It could give some focus to thoughts on what might be appropriate.

I'd suggest buying a rice cooker with a timer on it, for example, as then you could wash the rice and set it to be ready when everybody walks in through the door/is kept warm until the latest person walks in. And then, your likes could be based upon whether your family prefer/expect dahl, flavoured rices, shortgrain rices, long grain rices, whether something like miso soup would be acceptable along with several small side dishes, rather than a full roast meal, etc.

I stick to quick and easy for cooked lunches, rather than cooking up huge portions of stuff that stays solidly frozen until dinnertime. Eggs, quick soups using cold chicken from the day before and glass noodles, seafood, vegetables that don't need long cooking and raw veg. I'll do something like duck breast or lamb neck sliced and put over salad after adding some Seville Marmalade and thyme, juniper berries, cranberry sauce, redcurrant jelly, etc, into the pan to create a glaze or sauce - if it doesn't go from fridge to plate in under twenty minutes (and preferably ten), I'm not doing it at lunchtime.

For evening meals, I like using a slow cooker to prepare say, bolognese for dinner and then can add a tin of kidney or black beans in chilli sauce to the second portion still in the slow cooker to heat up for lunch or dinner the next day - which can then go with rice, frozen and reheated potatoes, wedges or on tortilla chips with some avocado, lime, coriander, pickled jalapenos and refried beans + cheese for a filling nacho meal. Or I'd do a large batch of a rich tomato and vegetable base and then change portions into various things, like pizza, pasta, ratatouille, curry, etc, by adding the different protein/starch and spices on the day.

I don't think it's as helpful to have entire meals in the freezer as much as having versatile basics and ingredients in there is.

Surely a sandwich is less boring than having soup for both lunch and dinner?

Omelettes, wraps, sandwiches, cold meats for lunch

I've realised since wfh I don't like homemade sandwiches at all. Just the expensive ones from sandwich shops! I've started having bagels instead which I usually toast and that's a bit less dull. Far too much melted cheese in my diet though!

I also want to know where OP is, sounds like she is not in the UK. If most people in the area are coming home for lunch I think a look round at what other families locally are doing might be helpful, they may even have similar kitchen facilities to you.

OP , please ignore some of the posts as many MNetters are British and seem to be fixated on British solutions that may well not sit with your particular style of cooking.
It would have helped if you told us that you live in a different country in your first post.

Eggs will always be your friend as you can egg fry rice and add chopped vegetables/leftover meat etc...
I expect that you don't have leftover meat as you have a large family.

Maybe cook two chickens at the same time . One is for your supper then the other one can be stripped of its meat to add to other lunches.
Maybe you can get couscous with added flavours/veg, or add your own . If using plain couscous be sure to add stock , not water , to make it more flavoursome.

Add a flatbread to your lunches. It's easy enough to drizzle garlic oil/chilli oil etc.. to make it more tasty, maybe sprinkle some herbs.

If I cook a big stew, casserole then l often cook pasta as well so that I can add the pasta to it once we've eaten then I can just reheat the whole thing for lunch the next day.

Frittata is usually well received, add in herbs, mushrooms, peppers, chopped up leftover potatoes, any veg that's finely chopped up.

Jacket potatoes with leftover stew, casserole is fine but you could use grated cheese , tinned tuna mixed with some mayonnaise plus some salad.

Leftover meat with salad Is good too, maybe with some tasty bread.
A cook called Jamie Oliver, in uk , has some very interesting takes on salad.

Smoked mackerel with pickles and salad is wonderful. Also fish cakes.