Takeaways every night !

[Lookwhostalking25]

I am sure I will be absolutely jumped on
but I just cannot get the hang of sorting dinner out 😂😂🙈
single mum of 3 ( baby and 2 primary school kids, one of which is disabled ) widowed nearly a year now.
I can juggle about everything else but food I struggled before returning back to work but wasn’t too bad but since returning I just haven’t managed it.
today was day 14 of takeouts after going back to work 2 weeks ago 😂😂
please send me tips because I’m sure the kids will come accustomed very shortly to take our lives haha !

I put YABU before I re read and saw you’d been widowed, but also, it is really unhealthy to have take away every day.
as someone else said, hello fresh is good, but also you could do jackets, eggs, beans on toast, tomatoes and cheese pasta etc.
but also, give yourself a break, you’ve a lot on your plate.

Could try an Airfryer, and easy meals cook book, be lot less expensive
fish fingers, and beans few new potatoes, bangers and mash quick too
sorry to hear you lost your husband x

Well Im still sulking that Sainsburys changed the recipe for their Indian Style Spinach quarter pounders, they were amazing. Plus Marks used to do a veggie moussaka with lentils instead of lamb, delicious.

Plus long since gone is Ambledown Pie, a thing of beauty, full of veggies, nuts and pulses in a wholemeal pastry, just right for one person. Was made by RealEats as far as I remember.

Have you tried any of Clive's Pies? Most if them are delicious, and again, the perfect size for one. My favourite is the mushroom one.

I feel you as i have been there. However I have figured out that my problem isn't lack of time but that I am famished at the end of the day and takeaway is too tempting on my way home. Keep healthy snacks with you to help you get home 😀
Apart from that the batch cooking etc. Will help. All the best.

Also if you are trying to avoid additives the Yuka app helped a lot with buying ready meals and pre prepped stuff.

Same idea for a casserole essentially but some of the m and s soups in the plastic containers in the fridge section can be used as a casserole sauce as they tend to have less salt and sugar and more veg and other “ chunked” ingredients than jars of sauce. The chicken mushroom and rice works brilliantly with some chicken and extra fresh mushrooms thrown in.

You have to do what you have to do to stay afloat. You are amazing! If you need a hand cooking think about getting a theromix look at the vorwerk website. Easy to program dishes into it and set it going. It is a big layout but in the long run it will save you money and you will be feeding the kids fresh food.
other than that jacket potatoes, salads, bits and pieces - it’s all good.

I darent look these up as these days I cannot eat pastry. I will just have to dream.

You just do it when you are making dinner. Make three times as much. I'm in the US and tacos and burritos were go to meals. I kept precooked and seasoned ground beef (mince) in frozen family sized portions. Once you do it for a month it becomes second nature.

I admire you, you clearly have a great attitude and sense of humor despite the shit you're going through.

I'm sure someone has said this, but precooked salmon fillets and chicken bits from supermarket are great especially in summer. You could boil up a load of potatoes, shove some pre prepped veg in microwave and save loads. Eat potatoes cold next day with mayo and the chicken.

We eat a lot of raw veg and salad cos I cba to cook it! X

I think you're doing an incredible job to manage 3 kids by yourself. Well done.

Sorry for your loss.
It will take a little time to get used to working and juggling kids etc..
My friend batch cooks at the weekends for the whole week.
Could you buy things like aunt Bessie’s roast potatoes, steam veg in bags, and sausages?
or do things like ham egg and chips that don’t take long? Or pasta bakes/macaroni cheese? Things you can bung in while multi tasking..

Firstly - you’re doing amazing! Loads of good suggestions from others re ready meals etc.

a few other ideas:

• pasta evangelists. I bought this subscription for my parents after a stint in hospital. It takes way less cooking than ‘hello fresh’, and they rated the quality. A jar of sauce and pasta from supermarket would be a lot easier though.
• humous! With pitta, carrots, celery, cucumber, bread sticks, pepper, crisps, ready cooked chicken etc etc. this is a great healthy easy meal. We get through a pack in no time- 2yo daughter will sit and eat it out of tub with a spoon.
• chicken shish kebab. Ok it’s still takeout, but is a much healthier option if you have grilled shish rather than doner, and ask for all the salad. This is a go to if we really can’t be bothered to cook! We order it with a side of hummous too!
• can the primary age kids start to help at all? Maybe aim for one night a week where you involve them with the cooking. A pizza night where they put toppings in store bought pizza, or measuring out a mixed veg to go with freezer food or similar.
• for easy and healthy home cooked meals, I’ve loved ‘what mummy makes’ (cookbook). The hulk macaroni cheese takes literally 10 mins, and is only a few store cupboard ingredients. It’s always a hit, and gets devoured in our house, spinach and alll!

Not completely cooking related, but you probably need a bit of time to get your head around all sorts of things at the moment. As a single parent with a disability , And kids with special needs , and an ex who has his own problems so does not contribute to the running of the family, I can completely relate to the feeling of overwhelm and seeking any way at all to make life easier.

The things that I do which really help me are below:
having a large stash of paper plates And bowls and we very often eat off these. My children think it's perfectly normal! It doesn't obviously get rid of all the dishes that come from the cooking but it reduces it a bit. You can get them from Amazon. Very sturdy ones. They're not expensive.
You don't say how old your kids are, but I pay mine to do small jobs. Eg empty dishwasher, they have a jar each and I have a large bag of 20p and 50p so they can see their earnings mounting up. With mine it has to be visible! And age appropriate eg youngest can't do dishwasher but can feed the dog.

Also, a robot vacuum is a godsend and I feel should be issued with every first baby!! I turn him on after dinner every evening while the kids are getting ready for bed. Or you can set a timer and he comes out at night.

When I am poorly I take the laundry down to the laundromat and pay for a service wash. It's usually not as much as you think it would be and it kind of wipes out that whole onerous job for a week. Bliss! Better than any massage/nails/ standard self care things!

I do routinely do batch cooking at the weekends, but I appreciate that you might not be there yet. And listen to a podcast at the same time to make it more entertaining. When you get there, but there are some things called souper cubes from Lakeland or Amazon, which are really excellent for putting away the right sized portions of things in the freezer. The batch lady is on social media and has some really good books about how to do this extremely efficiently.

Something which was extremely helpful when I was first dealing with stuff on my own was to borrow a friend's teenager. She's only 12 and have her play with the children for a morning while I was still in the house and I paid her £3.50 which she was thrilled about! As basically she was just playing.. You could use the the time to do some planning around food rather than late at night when I'm sure your brain is frazzled. Or whatever other things you're not managing to do.

I had a thing in my head that soup was not an adequate dinner but actually it really is with some cheese and bread. We have it at least once a week if not twice, either from a frozen batch or a tin. So cheap. It'll make your takeaways more affordable!

Well done mum, things will get easier!

Wow, OP, I am in awe of you and I am so sorry for your loss. How amazing that your kids eat so well! My go to healthy ish super easy kids meal is tortellini, my two love a spicy sausage one, boil for 5 mins, microwave tub of readymade mascarpone and tomato sauce then throw in some sweetcorn. Easy stuff to keep in the fridge. Add garlic bread or dough balls etc. Also Pizza a lot, with salady bits!

Well done, sounds like you are being amazing. You’ve probably thought of this but just in case it’s of help:
M and S or Waitrose have a stir fry section. You get a choice of protein, vegetable pack, noodles and sauce packet as a meal deal. Just throw it all in a Wok and it’s ready in 10 minutes max. Only a Wok to wash up too!

An air fryer is great, better than BBQ because you can use it inside. I use mine on a mat on the hob with the extractor on. It has a grill fuction so you can do fresh meat or fish, if you cook baked potato in the microwave you can crisp it up at the same time. If you boil a lot of new potatoes one night you can cut them in half and air fry them the next night.
The air fryer is so good, they love lamb burgers which you can grill in it, or roast/grilled chicken - whole chicken cut in half and flattened, or chicken thighs, it cook quickly.
I feed my GC a few nights a week before their mum comes home, they love pasta. If you can be bothered to do a meat sauce that's fine, but otherwise a tin of good finely chopped tomatoes and grated cheese is OK. Or a jar if you keep some in the cupboard.

I have 2 slow cookers. A compact in which I make soup for a starter or a mains with a sandwich or filled roll. And a large one for curries. Chicken casseroles or cheaper joints of meat. They are super as you can put your potatoes and veg in with the meat/chicken. Just put everything in night before . Switch it on in the morning and it's ready when you get home. Plus the house smells delicious and inviting. It will encourage the children to eat too!

If all else fails - beans on toast or jacket potato or fish fingers and peas.

But you realise right, that what your children eat will define their physical, mental and emotional well-being?

And you are feeding them crap. They'll probably become fat, sluggish and develop acne and you'll be first in the queue to get them diagnosed with adhd.

Never met a child who didn't like boiled potatoes with a dollop of butter.

Nor a roast dinner - you can still get a cheap chicken or cheap chicken cuts to put in the oven with your roast potatoes, onions - and boil some vegetables. And just mix the bottom of the pan with some gravy ganules disolved in boiling water. It's a 5 min work job and an hour of the oven doing the work.

And you know how to batch cook spag bol mix right? Just 250gm of mince and add stock cubes, tinned tomatoes, peppers, cellery, onions, with finely diced carrots and seasonally inspired parnips and/or aubergines and/or courgettes and/or mushrooms. Finely diced. They don't know the finely diced what they're eating. But you do. Freeze the leftovers and serve once a week.

Really tough day? Saussage and mash. Once your energy levels are up, after not eating all the crap junk food, add some onion gravy.

Summertime? Keep your potato salad to hand. Jamie Oliver, whose recipes I generally hate as "too complicated and that is not in my cupboard", has a simple cheap recipe that is good.

Just remember the meat and 2 veg rule. Cook a pork chop, sausage, pork belly, chicken piece and serve it with 2 vegetables - 1 x peas, sweetcorn, carrots, cabbage, beans, etc. And 1 x potatoes, rice, cous cous.

Think you're doing your children a disservice by cooking them boring meals? Nope, they'll eat when hungry. They might enjoy the occasional junk food. But their standard diet for life will be to opt for the healthy basic.

Raised three girls. They all like the occasional junk food. But now they have their own families. They've chosen simple home-cooked dinners to feed their children. All three of them in various ways (one of them loves trying recipes). But not one of them would buy an industrialised microwave dinner or fall back on a takeaway.

Sorry for your loss OP. I would start with 4 days good quality ready meals, three days something quick you cook.
Order from a supermarket to ease stress.
Have something to eat in the car - an oat snack or a banana each or any other healthy snack suitable for all to have one.
Plan to bulk cook one Saturday a month of you can.
Try and not drive past takeaways.
Good luck OP.

LOL at “maybe we should ring grandad” 😂 that’s exactly how it would go in my house too!

I’m sorry for your loss. You sound incredibly strong.

My DH is the cook too and our diets would be toast and pasta based if he wasn’t here! Lots of non-cook friends use the hello fresh etc boxes that are meant to be good!

🙄 well yes but that takes about 5 minutes.

Try Nandos bake-in-bag from the supermarket. Serve with jacket potato/wedges/sweet potato fries, and veg or beans.

My children don’t eat awfully though
they have a very well balanced diet.
They are not scoffing big Mac’s and zinger burgers 7 days a week