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!

I never cook. I may do when my teens move out but right now, it'd be a ridiculous waste of time. I serve up things like lasagne with frozen roast potatoes and peas/broccoli. Chicken goujons with carrot 'mash' (which you can buy already mashed. I buy chicken korma in a tub at the supermarket and serve with basmati rice in a bag.

I am just OVER trying to ''cook''.

I serve food and they should be grateful for that!

There are also pizzas in the freezer if what I serve up is deemed too strange (as it sometimes is)

Things like beef bolognese, beef/chicken/lentil stew, curries, roasted meats, etc. with a carb and lots of veg for dinner. Then re-heat/freeze for later the extra portions and have in some slightly different format the next day.

Bolognese on nice toast with salad instead of pasta with green veg, stew with extra veg/bread, cold meats in wraps or in salad. I often for lunch do easy things like baked halloumi or spiced chickpeas, then have with a salad, carrot and pepper sticks, pickled beetroot, nothing that needs prep, just a quick chop.

I think the issue may be that you don't meal plan and plan out portions for the week accordingly.

Toasted sandwiches are good.

Soup maker worth considering?

Not sure how old your dc are but once they went to secondary I only tended to cook in the evenings and they made their own lunches

On Saturday or Sunday:

Cook 2 roast chickens. Have one for dinner, carve up the other one to use in the week.

Then batch cook:
Lentil and bacon soup for two days' servings
Chicken and veg soup for two days servings using some of 2nd chicken
Cook up a load of pasta and rice and mix with chicken/veg/herbs/spices to make rice/pasta salads. - enough for 2 days servings each
Hard boil some eggs and small potatoes and use with chicken, salad and dressing to make Caesar salads.
Chilli for two days' servings
Chicken curry using remainder of 2nd chicken (or chicken breast if 2nd chicken has been used up)
SPAG Bol sauce for two days' servings

Then you have a week of lunch and dinners pre prepared and all you need to do is cook rice or pasta to serve, along with fresh veg, salad and fruit.

Make sure you add tinned green lentils to chilli to bulk it out.

You'll spend all weekend shopping and cooking but your weekdays will be less tedious.

This is how I have started approaching things recently. You need plenty of fridge space and freezer space to make this work - maybe buy a small extra freezer if you have money/space (even second hand?)

So you don't want anything processed / tinned?

You don't do sandwiches?

No-one has time to cook?

You don't have space for a bigger freezer to batch cook things?

You don't want recipe ideas?

I'm struggling OP.

That should be no-one else has time to cook.

Batch cooking, breads, cheeses and pâtés for lunch.

I am like you in that I want two hot meals a day (although in our case, that only applies to weekends and holidays as we eat at school or work during the week). What I do is alternate between:
1- dishes that take longer to cook (e.g. curry) when I have the time to prepare them before the meal;
2- dishes that take some time to prepare but that I can prepare in advance (e.g. lasagne, quiche, stew). (1 and 2 are sometimes interchangeable).
3- dishes that are quick to cook and involve no effort (e.g. salmon/chicken/steak/omelette and veg etc).
I do need to meal plan for this and take into consideration how busy I will be on those particular days.
If I have a 1 or 2 one meal of the day, the other one will be a 3.

I think of meals - for me, it is evening meals, because for lunch we eat soup and bread / salad / hummus and pitta and veg etc, but for you it could be evening meal + a following lunch - in 'groups' that are linked by the main cooked ingredient, rather than repeating the same meal more than once.

So I batch cook mince + onions, divide in two, one part gets beef stock, carrots & a potato topping with leeks - cottage pie. The other part is cooked with peppers and lots of tomatoes for a type of spaghetti bolognese sauce. As I add LOTS of vegetables, there is enough of that to mix with chilli beans to make chilli as a filling for baked potatoes with a mound of salad, avocado, yoghurt or sour cream etc OR to add an aubergine or some courgettes to make a lasagne filling.

Similarly chicken - roast / salad or pie depending on weather /stock for risotto. That way, the 14 meals of a week can be 3 or 4 'sets' of meals where the main cooking is done once and the rest is basic assembly.

We eat like this but we have a soupmaker, which we use most days - its so quick and easy!

My Grandma used to get or prep a selection of things for a "pick and mix" lunch. So salad items, potato salad, coleslaw, some bread, cheese, meats, hard boiled egg, some condiments etc and set it all out so that everyone could choose/assemble what they wanted. Typically it was stuff that lasted at least a few days.

Take inspiration from some of the processed food you're vetoing. It often exists because it's a dish that keeps well.

For example, prep and freeze meal base sauces once a month in bulk that can be customised with proteins and vegetables. e.g. curry base sauce, tomato base sauce, stir fry base sauce.

Homemade beans on toast is delicious, can be made in bulk or can be put on a jacket potato. You can also customise- e.g. make it plain then flavor some for an Italian theme, some for a chilli theme, some for a cassoulet theme. You can customise with toppings- e.g. cheese vs avocado, sour cream and jalepenos.

Fresh pasta or gnocci can be very convinient if you have some quick or frozen pasta sauces.

Meal planning is utterly essential. Amusingly, even my not very-capable student son does exactly the same - shopping list once a week, plans out what he will eat, uses up every scrap of one thing in a set of linked meals. As he says, it is also very cheap....

Suggest you cook the “first time” at evening meal. Then left overs are not served on the table - but held back for the next day. You can then supplement the lunch with extra bits - random stuff as needed.
Cook big batches of quinoa, lentils, couscous and keep in fridge to add to other bits like chicken, fish, sauces, leaves, steamed veg, make a massive stook and add noodles and veg and you have a ramen. Packet stock, miso and kettle water also works. Get into the mindset of constructing Vs cooking.

Make a ragu for bolognese, then you can use it for things like nachos (with added chili, kidney beans, that sort of thing), or pasta bake, or in wraps/tacos/pitta bread, etc.

Casseroles can be turned into pies, and make great fillings for deep-filled toasted sandwiches.

Baked potatoes are great with pretty much anything.

@Scienceisnotopinion

JustFrustrated in what way. Processed food is not something i see as a tool. For the rest I am here asking for ideas arent I

Technically homemade soup is processed food.

@Scienceisnotopinion

wasp hope you feel better now at making fun of people. Spaghetti hoops is something very much part of british food culture isnt it? Other countries/cultures don t eat them and manage to survive, without being sneered at

Can you not see that you are sneering at spaghetti hoops, sandwiches etc??

When you make dinner chop extra veg/meat and make extra rice then do a fried rice for lunch the next day.

Thank goodness for sandwiches imo. So convenient.

I did make a quiche today however but it will be eaten tomorrow or taken to work with a salad. Surpassed myself😁

All I am getting from this thread is that I need more toasted sandwiches in my life.

Anyway- I make instant noodles. I add prawns, broccolini, sweet corn, chilli and beaten egg. So it is actually pretty nutritious all things considered.

Why help someone as rude as this OP?

I think you’re looking for the impossible as there are lots of things you don’t like to eat. I do think you should invest in a big slow cooker though. They’re great for things like spag bol, chilli, curries casseroles etc. You get a nice meal with minimal cooking.

Otherwise jacket potatoes are very easy. But if you don’t want sandwiches and don’t want convenience foods you’re not left with many options. You’ll have to cook 🤷🏻‍♀️

@SheABitSpicyToday

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

Yeah I don't understand why OP needs telling how to make more of something.

Just make more of what you always make OP.

I’ve not read past page 1….

Batch cooking. Find a stash of recipes that can be frozen and take a couple of days a month to batch cook a dozen or so portions of each:

Burritos, quesadillas , pasta sauces, soups….

@Scienceisnotopinion

Sandwiches get very boring very quickly, we only eat sandwiches at picnics or day outs. Hotdogs and supermarket pizza or ready foods are something we only tent to eat once in a while as we tend to avoid processed food when possible.

You’re making it hard for yourself! Sandwiches now and then.. not every day? Jacket pots from freezer with tuna/beans, wraps, pitta bread with fillings…