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 !

Do the older two have school dinners? When my two did, they had super quick meals in the evening. Things like beans on toast with grated cheese, or mum's surprise pasta - basically any veg that needed using up or what was left from the Sunday roast. The kids loved it!
I agree re getting a slow cooker. Bung it all in and leave it.
It sounds as if you're doing an amazing job.

Agree, super quick and you can add some garlic bread too

Another warning against Hello Fresh/Gousto. Unless you choose carefully, they take quite a lot of involved cooking, which you don't have the time/headspace for.

The list above is probably the most achievable thing to try. If you could use a few of these to put together a shopping list that you can then order for delivery once a week would that work?

Exactly this. Don't be be too hard on yourself 💐

Never mind going straight from can't get past a takeaway/delivery because of tiredness, business and generally having to do everything to batchcooking stuff for a month in one evening, go for the easy - chicken dippers & chips, filled pasta, tub of sauce and salad, microwaved veg and marinaded chicken thighs, microwave rice/veg and all the thing that require 20 mins in an oven plus a microwave and opening bags of leaves.

It's just too much of a switch to do everything from scratch/instantly.

Once that's OK, then maybe start doing things like chilli or curry when you've got a bit more time.

I also like the steam fresh frozen bags of rice/veg that can be served with (air) fried protein of choice - chicken, halloumi, sausages, salmon etc.

You still have to cut things up etc? Just at a different time of day!

Air fryers are great because you can cook freezer food in them, jacket potato’s etc, and things take much less time. I also love a slow cooker so I can shove everything in in the morning and go. Some people bag up portions for the slow cooker (like bolognaise ingredients) and freeze them before hand, which you could do at the weekend, so you literally just throw in the bag contents and go, then when you get back you’ve just got to heat some pasta.

The best way to batch cook is to start your stock up by having a couple of hours to make the initial meals - so dedicate a batch cooking time e.g an evening when the kids are in bed and make a few different things- a shepherd's pie, a pasta bolognaise, something in the slow cooker etc etc. See if you can get 3 or 4 different things done and portion into tupperware for the freezer (make sure you label unless you like playing freezer roulette)

Once you have done this then everytime you cook something freezable make a double portion to add to freezer stock. Aim to cook say 3x a week and portion up the left overs. Maybe once a month do another batch cooking session to replenish the freezer stocks.

By doing this you can have healthy home cooked food without needing to cook every night. We eat out of the freezer 3 nights a week due to kids having clubs and this is what worked for us.

Those stir fry meal kits for two that most supermarkets do might be enough for your family - might need to add an extra chicken breast, prawns from the freezer or couple of boiled eggs or scramble a couple of eggs to make it an 'egg fried' version.

Hats off to you by the way. If you can do 2 longer cooked things on sat/sun and make a bigger batch, you have mon/tues sorted. So a Bolognese and sausages/mash and veg. Then beans on toast on wed/ jacket and filling on Thursday (second using frozen ones if you need)/pizza night on Friday.

Air fryers are great for beige food, recrossing things, boiled eggs (yes really), sausages, bacon, heating up croissants so a good aid for quicker stuff.

So sorry for your loss. You’ve a lot to deal with, please be kind to yourself.
We enjoyed hello fresh and then once we did it for a while, just copied the recipes. By we, I mean me and DD10 who is now a good little chef.
what about roasting a chicken and having the leftovers with some pesto and pasta and a maybe some peas and sweetcorn. I use a slow cooker too. Shove everything in before work and dinner is ready when I get home. Game changer

@User79853257976

You still have to cut things up etc? Just at a different time of day!

Barely.

Simple curry: diced raw chicken breast, coconut cream, curry powder, tablespoon of lazy garlic, squeeze of ginger from a tube, frozen chopped onions, chickpeas, chilli flakes. Stir in garam masala and spoonful of mango chutney 10 minutes before serving.

Bolognese: mince, lazy garlic, chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, finely chopped carrot, oregano, salt and pepper, frozen chopped onions, beef stock cube. Fling some peas in for ten minutes at the end if you fancy.

Chilli: mince, lazy garlic, chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, frozen chopped onions, kidney beans, cumin. Serve with chopped avocado, lime, sour cream and grated cheese.

With all of these you simply put the ingredients into the slow cooker at lunchtime and give them a good mix. Ready to eat at dinner with pasta, rice, wraps or baked potatoes.

@Ihopeithinkiknow

I'm so sorry to hear you lost your son and your partner. 💕💕💕💕

Here are a few more easy ideas

Jackets with tuna and sweetcorn

Spaghetti and meatballs - you can cook the meatballs in the oven so all you need to do is stand for 10mins and cook some Spaghetti and grate some cheese. Serve with a bag of salad.

Traybakes - pack of sausages, cut some new potatoes in half, handful of cherry tomatoes and some brocoli, drizzle with oil and cook for 30 mins. Can do similar with chicken drumsticks and other vet, corn on the cobs work well.

Pittas Falafel (ready made) and salad or chicken dippers if the kids don't like Falafel.

Soup and sausage sarnies.

Another idea if you the logistics find prepping and cooking and getting food on the table quickly enough in the evenings is to cook or prep the night before for the next day. So say you are having a nice easy meal like soup this evening, once it's done and you are clearing up whip up a quick spag bol sauce or curry. You can buy pre cut frozen onion, garlic, ginger and curry paste, cook that down for a few mins, add some chicken and maybe frozen butternut squash cubes for some veg and a can of coconut milk. Ready cooked rice pouches speed things up.

You can also cook a chicken the night before, just bung it in the oven when you get home for whatever the cooking time is, let it cook and put in the fridge, cold roast chicken and salad and even some fries the next day.

Try to have a routine that works with all your clubs/ commitments. For example when we have double swimming lessons it's always fresh pasta and a sauce because it needs to be quick and easy. On a night where I can get home a bit earlier I do something in the oven etc.

Is there a relative you could pay to batch cook for you? Thats what I would do and wish I could do.

Check your messages @Lookwhostalking25 ❤

When I've struggled I've used these.

www.cookfood.net

Better than a lot of ready meals and takeouts and may start a routine of preparing food at home

Sorry for your loss 💐 Why not try some of the roasting tin recipe books by Rukmini Iyer? I have 3 of the books because they’re so simple. I also like the fact many of the recipes include veg. Less washing up too! They’re often on offer on Amazon or you could borrow them from your library.

Apart from that, keep things simple. There’s nothing wrong with doing a salmon fillet, broccoli and new potatoes, or a chicken breast, salad and a bread roll. The more you do it, the easier it will get.

Finally, do you think you’re hungry when you leave work so you get a takeaway? If so, try an afternoon snack (maybe for the children too). This will ward off the starving feeling and allow you time to cook a simple meal. Plan out your meals and use a supermarket delivery service to save time.

Don’t be hard on yourself OP you’re in a really tough situation. I second Hello Fresh they’re brilliant but there still is a bit of prep needed. What about these 5 minute meals- you know even just beans on toast or pasta with pesto or cream cheese stirred through? Fish fingers n oven chips/beans? These things may not be fine dining but they’re a hell of a lot healthier & cheaper than the take outs!

So sorry for your loss. The range of takeaways you're managing to get sound amazing and nutritious! Agree with others that moving to ready meals and freezer meals would be the next step when you're ready to take it.

After that have a look at the Taming Twins website and her book What's for Dinner, it's advertised as all the meals take under 30 minutes which is true for the most part but I'm a very slow chopper so any with more than two veg in that require dicing take me more like 45 minutes. It also has a meal planner at the front which has I think 8 weeks worth of meal plans and shopping lists so it takes the mental load out of the equation a little bit.

I am sorry for your loss.

Me and my husband hate cooking. We use the airfryer as it is quicker than the oven for things like meatballs etc. My husband also makes large batches of food so we can freeze it, it doesn't take any extra time and we get 3 meals out of it. It makes meals after School and work easier as all we need to do is heat it up and cook rice/pasta and chop some veg.

You can buy prebaked baked potatoes frozen (I know you can just put a raw potato in to cook, but the prebaked only take 5 minutes in the microwave each)

Batch cook bolognese/chilli

Buy rice in 2kg bags

Omelette are great and quick

Buy those larger quiches and keep in the fridge.

Build your own tacos? Kids can make their own

Batch cook soup and freeze

You can get supermarket own pizzas as little as 75p. Mine demolish those on days when I haven't got time

Supermarket brand chicken nuggets are cheaper than bird's-eye etc. And chips. Fry them and it's like McDonald's!

Chicken/beef burgers/ fish fingers

Well done OP! You are amazing! As long as you can afford it and you are happy then don't worry about the takeaways until you feel able to cook more.

Seriously you're doing brilliantly,just be kind to yourself.
I think if you want easy meals then pasta,beans on toast,noodles, burger, nuggets,oven chips are all fine.
Don't put yourself under any pressure to try and be Gordon Ramsay,you'll get there slowly but you will get there.

It's DH and I in our house so we're not up against it, but I batch cook on a Sunday afternoon, put everything in the freezer and then take a portion out to defrost in the morning before work. We serve whatever it is with microwave rice, or pre made (fresh) mash or straight to wok noodles.
It would be a chore if you didn't enjoy it, but I love standing cooking for a few hours in our sunny kitchen with a podcast on.