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 !

sit down today at some point and write out what you are going to have for tea over the week.

I think there’s a lot to be said for M&S, buy a roasted chicken, some salad and have with chips or waffles.

buy frozen jacket potatoes.

prawn stir fry, buy the packets of sauce. and packets of veg

bake salmon from frozen and have with packets of micro rice and veg.

batch cooking is boring and I never feel like eating the thing afterwards.

but freezing an extra portion if you’ve made spag Bol is easy and useful

highly recommend Jamie Oliver recipes, easy and step by step.

Sorry for your loss OP. Your kids are still young, and that makes it all even more difficult to try care them alone. Try talk to the older ones about how you feel about mealtimes, and why it’s hard, and maybe come up with some ideas together for easy, healthy things they like.

Our go-to easy kids meals usually involve a boiled egg, some toast, a piece of cheese and some chopped up carrots, cucumber and apple on their plates. Healthy enough, and very easy. I never managed to find the time for batch cooking, but for easy meals like pasta, I sometimes make enough for two nights.

Supermarket ready meals are much cheaper than takeout as your easy options if you’re wanting to save some money on the nights you just can’t manage to cook.

It’ll get easier, especially as your baby gets older. Do you have any help? Widowed mums get so much less help offered than widowed dads. You might need to ask for it.

I batch cook from the slow cooker most of the time.
The 'bored of lunch' range of books have tonnes of ideas for things you'd never usually make in the slow cooker.
Means you need five mins in the morning to throw it in, then just box it up and freeze in the evening.

They also have an air fryer book that gives great ten minute style air fryer meals too.

Be gentle with yourself - being widowed rocks your foundations, and you’ve got 3 young kids to care for as well. 💐

I was widowed a year ago, and I’m only just managing to cope with more than a jacket potato and salad once a day!

It will gradually improve, and meantime , make the most of ready meals and simple stuff.

Better than junk food takeaways.

Condolences.💐

The range of takeaways you've been getting sounds great, so don't be pressured into a sudden switch to ready meals and beige food. Everyone on this thread seems to think that's increasing the quality of your diet but I don't see it.

Just replace one meal a week with an option you like from this thread. Then maybe another when you want to.

Oh my god, 3 kids, one with high needs, on your own- they'd be living off chips and nothing else in my house! You're doing brilliantly.

Slow cooker is definitely worth buying. We make curry and bolognese all the time. I always keep frozen chopped onions, chilli flakes, tinned chickpeas, kidney beans, chopped tomatoes, and various herbs and spices in the house so that I can make a curry, chilli or bolognese any time. Put it in the slow cooker at lunchtime and it's ready for dinner.

I'd rotate those meals with other simple dinners: frozen baked potatoes with various toppings, Heinz tomato soup with sandwiches, tuna/pesto pasta, cheese and beans on toast, fish fingers/chicken nuggets with veg, omelettes, French toast etc.

I basically do this and I've only got one toddler! Go easy on yourself x

I can't say I blame you at all with everything going on!

I find the mist exhausting thing about cooking everyday (which I think gets relentless for most people after years if it) is actually deciding what to cook! I wrote a meal planner for 4 weeks (but you could just start with one!) with a mix of slow cooker meals, quick meals and oven meals for weekend. And then I wrote a matching shopping list for each week. KEY thing for me was to decide what meal for what day on Sunday night - depending on schedules - and then check it every evening and prep stuff for the next day. This seems to be the only way I can get it to work.

If I were you I'd have an easy meal two or three times a week though for a break. But frozen pizza, or Cook meals, or a M&S ready meal is probably better than a takeaway.

Bless you, OP. I've been there. Widowed when my older two were 4 and 2. I also found food one of the hardest things to cope with. Spent far too much of my late DP's life insurance on takeaway... but I did what I had to do to get through it. The main thing is, you are feeding your kids and yourself!

It's a lovely time of year- can you do picnics (or indoor picnics when it rains). Salad, nice bread, and a few nice bits ready-prepared like quiche, sausage rolls?

All the best. It does get easier with time, but it may well take a lot more time than most people expect.

So very sorry for all you have been through, you sound amazing despite all of it ❤️

For little kids beans on toast, cheese on toast, cheese quasadilia (sp!), pesto pasta, tuna mayo pasta, fishfingers/nuggets and chips, sandwich and some cucumber sticks.

Make a big platter of picky bits and put it in the middle of the table. Just literally open tubs of dips, ready chopped crudités, bread and butter or pita bread, bag of nachos. Pizzas and garlic bread.

It doesn't matter as long as they are fed.

For you I'd get myself some nice M and S ready meals, some nice crisps/olives/ready made salads etc. Nuture yourself as well as everyone else.

Ocado is probably a good idea right now. M and S do a really good range of ready meals, kids meals, nice tapas-y bits and bobs. Do a big order and stock up. They do a pizza meal deal that is fab for kids, 3 for £9 on ready meals, a pasta/sauce/bread deal.

And don't be shy about booking a day/afternoon off work and sticking to your childcare arrangements and either chill for the day, or do some batch cooking. But I'd just use and abuse M and S for now.

As a fellow widow, surely you are able to understand that we all process grief differently? I was widowed a few years ago and had a widow support network and we all struggled with different aspects.

There's also the emotional aspect around this. Having to cook and prepare meals when somebody is missing at the table.

And in OP's case, having to take over her late partner's role as the chef of the house, so to speak.

@Lookwhostalking25 sorry for your loss.

I'm a single parent and have completely lost my cooking mojo. I've just discovered Stocked and absolutely love it. They do frozen blocks of home cooked type meals that you heat in the microwave in a matter of minutes. We have them with pasta, rice, potatoes for a big meal or in a wrap, etc. for lighter meals. Bloody love them. Tasty, decent ingredients, and so so easy.

A year isn't very long after such a big loss and grief is so draining. Going back to work as well and learning to juggle all that on your own is a bit curve, so go easy on yourself. Obviously takeaway every night isn't ideal in the long term, though you know that. Make any changes as simple as possible. Things like bolognaise sauce freezes well and just needs reheating/pasta cooked. You can cook meals in larger quantities so they last two days, halving cooking time. Meal kits are an option. A slow cooker can be helpful. Even bagged salads and pre-cut vegetables can make things easier. Good luck OP. I'm sure you'll work it out and I'm sorry for your loss.

Don’t attempt HelloFresh until the above starts feeling too easy.

I think this is very good advice.

You have to be super organised to remember to order your food choices by a certain date or skip a week, otherwise the meals will be chosen for you. Then when you do start HelloFresh, only choose the 20 min recipes, which are normally just opening a bunch of packets and stirring etc.

I’m sorry for your loss 💐 I can’t imagine how hard it must be, I’d avoid Hello Fresh etc, as others have said it’s a lot of faff and time chopping and clearing up afterwards.

I work four long days so I pick the kids up and get home an hour before bedtime, I use a lot of those M&S meals that are ready prepared in the foil tray, it feels a bit fancier than a ready meal but there’s not much prep or mess.

Or if you’ve got a Morrisons cafe near you they sometimes do kids eat free, some of their meals are quite nice and at least you’d all be sitting around a table eating together. There’s one opposite my daughter’s school so that’s my go to if I can’t be bothered to cook.

Hi OP, my tip would be bags of frozen veg! Tesco do massive bags of green beans, broccoli, cauliflower etc. and they are a lifesaver. Ok, not as tasty as fresh, but just as nutritious and so much less faff as no prep, just need to chuck in a pan of boiling water.

Just to echo what a few others have said, I would steer clear of Hello Fresh initially. The food was really good, but it was quite a faff and I found it did take quite a long time.

I am sorry for your loss. It sounds like you are doing really well.

For batch cooking, can I suggest Mary Berry's ragu. Some chopping, but really no other real skills needed. It goes in the oven for 2 hours!!! Can be portioned and frozen and served with fresh pasta, so it takes about 15 minutes to get to the table.

On a Sunday, if you roast a chicken, get sides in ready made if needed and then strip the carcass and make curry with it - again, a quick meal. I use Patak's jar with coconut milk and then drop the chicken in to simmer and you could add some frozen peas or fresh spinach to wilt down. Microwave rice if needed.

You can also get packs of risotto where you just add water and then some chicken can go in there with it with salad on the side.
https://www.risogallo.co.uk/products/my-perfetto/ (deli ones even nicer, but supermarket probably easier)

You can make salmon parcels and cook them in the oven or they sell them ready cooked in the shops. New potatoes in a microwave pouch and pan fried asparagus or steamed broccoli?

Good luck in trying to spin so many plates.

Cook is great. I recommend.

Supermarkets do family size ready meals. Like pasta bakes etc. If you had some in freezer /fridge then it's a quick bung in the oven when you don't have time to cook properly.

Also frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, fish fingers etc. Airfryers are great for chips/nuggets etc.

Sausages, chips and beans is quite quick.

Hope things get easier soon. Sorry for your loss

Get on Cherrypick app! I love it, takes the thinking out of meal planning and it’s cut my food bill.

You must be overwhelmed.
why not start slow.
five meals and weekend of take outs!
helko fresh helped me
Also as above
rhings kids can assemble - salad, homous, good bread, grapes tomaotes
pasta tomato sauce home made easy and batch
tray bakes! Really simple ones like feta green beans and tomatoes .
macaroni cheese
minimum preparation. Just set a timer if you're exhausted and distractable
loads of fruit in a fruit bowl
toasty maker! Toasted cheese sandwixhes
bakes potatoes or sweet potatoes
bbc good food excellent for people like me who can't cook!
good luck!

Wow OP, you are doing amazingly just by putting one foot in front of the other.

I’d do lots of the suggestions up thread, those bags of fresh pasta cook in two minutes, a bit of salad (tomatoes and cucumber was all my primary school kid would eat) and a ready made sauce warmed up is five mins cook time.

I’d do an online food shop, plan food for three or four days to start with, then if you resort to takeaways a couple of nights you won’t be wasting too much.

I’d also plan something nice for myself to eat that wasn’t kid food every other night, are you in a Cook delivery area? They do really decent ready meals for the freezer. You can put one in the oven for 40 mins while you get the kids to bed and then eat something grown up and try to relax for half an hour.

Does baby go to nursery? Wondering if you could maybe take an afternoon off work while the kids are at school and spend it batch booking?
I know jarred sauces aren't ideal but i batch cook a curry and a sweet and sour chicken for my daughter for the night she doesn't eat with us, i chuck in loads of frozen peas and sweetcorn so it's good on the veg side. It's portioned in to individual pots, when needed blast in the microwave. If pressed for time I'll pair it with microwave chips, if i have time I'll cook her some rice.

I don’t HelloFresh either, either I cook or I buy something properly prepped, oven ready.

You sound strong and independent OP, but is there anyone you could ask to help a bit?

If not could you find somewhere you could buy a proper meal, for instance a male single parent I know buys three prepped meals from a cafe a week, proper home cooked food, he just doesn’t cook it.

This looks good if you're short of time https://stockedfood.com/?tw_source=google&tw_adid=690396971173&tw_campaign=19602133409&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwi_exBhA8EiwA_kU1Mm8K00HbEvv2HjsuAIHPDawWberdraOxSi0hCOthK47C5P__eu97WxoCglwQAvD_BwE

It's hard enough with 2 children and a husband. Kudos to you OP.

Try
Jacket spuds one night
Things on toast one night
Fresh pasta eg: tortellini & pesto one night
Roast chicken and a load of veg roasted with it . Roast extra chicken for wraps/stir fry later in the week
Supermarket pizza
Can you manage to peel some potatoes the night/morning before to make sausage and mash for tea later?
Grilled fish/fingers/microwave rice/frozen veg?