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 didn’t want other people’s opinions OP you should have posted in Food and Recipes rather than AIBU. When you ask if you’re being unreasonable some people will think you are.

How old are your kids?

Just cook double the amount for dinner and have the rest the next day for lunch. You’re making this so complicated.

@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, hot, freshly cooked, unprocessed food for every meal, then you will need to cook at every mealtime.

Surely that's blindingly obvious.

Not really sure what the answer can be with your restrictions, other than cook more portions of dishes earlier in the week and then heat up.

Otherwise, yes you will be cooking twice a day if you all want hot food twice a day and you don’t use any of the typical short-cuts/ easy food/sandwiches that the majority of people do.

You don't want to cook twice a day but don't like any food that doesn't involve cooking...so bit difficult for people to help you.

Jacket potatoes? Involves cooking but fillings are easy enough to change everyday with little hassle.

This is one of those threads;

O/p- i need ideas
Mn ideas
O/p no none of those will work.

Why do the kids come home for dinner? Can’t they get school lunches at least once in a while? If they only have time to come home and eat before leaving, surely it’s more of a break to stay where they are with a flask of soup or something.

Get a slow cooker. Make a stew or something so people can dip in when they’re ready. Or your big soup, leftovers in fridge for day after.

Cook extra pasta/rice/grains and make a pasta salad or traybake to shove in the oven the next day. Pies, quiches, toasted panini..: stuff that just needs reheating rather than cooking.

Lunch ideas that are not sandwiches:

Pasta salad
Rice salad
Cous cous salad
Jacket potato
Omelette (or eggs in any form)
Cheese and crackers
Sushi if you have the time

I dont mind cooking, so dont need no cook ideas. I just need ideas for batch cooking for example, so some mealtimes i can eat up/defrost stuff that i already cooked. Why people cant accept that sometimes their suggestions dont work for OP. If it was that simple i wouldnt be starting a thread would I

Sandwiches don't always have to be boring. We go through a sort of cycle for lunches:
Standard sandwich (so ham& salad in bread)
Toasted sandwiches ( cheese & ham, cheese & tuna etc)
Toasted paninis (fillings same as toasties but also Brie & bacon/ sun dried tomatoes/ chicken etc
Toasted folded wraps with range of fillings
Really nice rolls from bakery with variety of fillings
Giant Sausage rolls/pastys
Warm oven baked rolls/baguette with tinned or home made soup
Salads- with chicken or smoked salmon or smoked mackerel or hot goats cheese
Toast with smoked mackerel pâté
I might do an extra like tortilla crisps covered in salsa & grated cheese & grilled

My favourite Cheese On Toast. or eggs /mushrooms and so on ! Local cafe (maybe once a week?)

You can literally batch cook anything I don’t understand your confusion

Make your own baked beans the night before, if storebought aren’t fancee enough for you.

@Nomoreusernames1244 also bering quite rude towards people's suggestions. Some people don't have the privilege of time or money to be able to spend all day in the kitchen making every bite of food from scratch.

I’ve found the Gousto boxes help so much, you just pick which meals you fancy out of a selection of around 65 then they send you the ingredients. With regards to lunch time I’d offer just two options such as soup and roll or sandwiches.

Most things can be batch cooked and kept for another day or later that day.

Why is it more boring to have sandwiches every day (doesn't have to be the same sandwich every day) than to have the same thing for dinner that you had for lunch?

[quote Buttetflybookkeeper]@Nomoreusernames1244 also bering quite rude towards people's suggestions. Some people don't have the privilege of time or money to be able to spend all day in the kitchen making every bite of food from scratch.[/quote]
I am not talking about some people, i am asking for ideas that work for MY family. If you want to eat beans on toast every day knock yourself out. I can cook from scratch so I do! But things like pasta for example is not so nice re heated so was asking for ideas. Some people take everything personally.

@SheABitSpicyToday

You can literally batch cook anything I don’t understand your confusion

Exactly. And soup is the easiest thing of all to batch cook.

OP there are really two sorts of batch cook foods as far as I’m concerned.

1. Stuff in a sauce, that then gets served with either pasta, rice or potatoes. Stew, casserole, curry, chilli, pasta sauces of all kinds, meatballs
2. Stuff that freezes well and can be reheated and served with potatoes and salad or veg. Quiche, pies, pasties.

I don’t find that risotto or stirfry freeze all that well but they are usually ok for left overs.

Soup is not enough to feed and fill up on.You can try ciabatta,toasted sandwiches,baked potatoes,batch cooking.omlettes,stir fry,sausage rolls

If you want to eat beans on toast every day knock yourself out. I can cook from scratch so I do! But things like pasta for example is not so nice re heated so was asking for ideas. Some people take everything personally

Maybe that’s because you’ve just implied that people who eat beans on toast can’t cook?

Doesn't anyone go to work or school?

By not liking anything 'processed' or sandwiches, OP, I am afraid you have made a rod for your own back there..

You said eating sandwiches everyday was depressing and called spaghetti hoops bleurgh. That is totally different to saying I don't want to eat sandwiches or processed foods.

@Plumtree391

Doesn't anyone go to work or school?

Clearly not.

@Milkbottlelegs

If you want to eat beans on toast every day knock yourself out. I can cook from scratch so I do! But things like pasta for example is not so nice re heated so was asking for ideas. Some people take everything personally

Maybe that’s because you’ve just implied that people who eat beans on toast can’t cook?

You said some people dont have time or money to cook from scratch, i answered i can cook(as in have time) thank you very much. Sensitive much?