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 !

Firstly sorry for your loss.

You are doing well to be getting up in the morning and functioning at all 😘.

i would plan just a couple/three days at a time as trying to plan a whole week could be daunting.

Easy meals are the way forward.
Really simple things like omelette and a prepped salad.
Bought pie, with mash and some veggies steamed above the potatoes.
Ready meals padded out with more veg (frozen if necessary).
Bagged stir fry with noodles.

Jamie Oliver has a really basic book about learning to cook, I remember one of my kids reading it when they were at uni.

I've recently been told about Lions Prep- it sounds like proper homemade type meals that you just heat up I think? Sounds well worth a look

Those boxes of filled pasta with a bit of frozen veg are great when I can’t be arsed to cook probably. Ready in 3/4 minutes.

Plan simple meals to cook in the evening - concentrate on fresh meat and vegetables as processed carbs don't matter so much. So chicken thighs/pork loin steaks or chops in the oven with noodles/packet rice and then vegetables - boil some broccolli or cauliflower and chuck in some frozen peas or a tin of sweetcorn.

Take aways tend to be really high in salt, sugar and fat, at the moment you're obviously just in survival mode but if you can find an alternative it will be better for all of you.

Can the mince ones be done before work or will it not work very well?

You're maybe gonna need a trip to the bank to get some change....

Every day that you don't order takeout, take the cash amount you would have spent and put it in a jar. The hard, physical cash, every day.
You'll soon see it adding up and want to continue.

You have a lot on your plate and it's ok to give yourself some grace to cope however you need to. Start small and phase it out as you adapt. The routine will get easier.

First, I would commit to making something on the weekend that can last that night and a couple of week nights - a big lasagna or pasta bake, or a massive batch of chilli or bolognaise. Bolognaise is easily the best option here as you can then adapt it into a chilli by chucking in a tin of supermarket "kidney beans in chilli sauce" (to have with rice, potato or in wraps as fajitas)/for one of the layers in a lasagne/shove some mash over and call it a shepherds pie - with a bit of different either spice or herbs/stock you can pretend it's a completely different meal with minimal additional effort!

After have mastered that, this would ideally be covering at least 2 and possibly 3 nights. Try then to add an "oven meal" for at least two additional nights (nuggets, kievs, fish or veggie fingers, sausages, a pre-made pie or quiche - with oven chips or potato waffles is fine initially etc...). Something which is literally whang it in the oven for 30 mins and microwave some veg to have with it. You can then add additional nights and phase out the takeaways to being a treat.

Plan what the meals are in advance. I write them across the top of the weekly shopping list. If necessary, get the shopping delivered to your home - the couple of quid the delivery will cost is a drop in the ocean compared to the saving for losing the takeaways and is probably easier than embarking on the supermarket afterschool with 4 kids in tow, although of course comes with the risk that they won't send everything/will substitute.

For context, this week on the working days we have had:

• Veggie fingers in a wrap with salad and mango chutney
• jacket potatoes with tuna
• a slow cooker veggie and bean casserole which was literally 3 carrots, a big potato, an onion and a spring green cut up and thrown in the slow cooker with a stock cube, a tin of kidney beans, a tin of plum tomatoes and a tin of baked beans and a bit of water. That's made about 6 adult servings worth. The rest of that we are having tonight and possibly tomorrow if there's anything left with cheesy mash over the top as a "cottage pie" with some broccoli on the side.
• a "cook in the oven" chicken katsu for a Friday treat

None of those have taken more than 5 minutes of prep time.

I wouldn't use Hello Fresh or Gousto etc for a big family straight from takeaways personally.

It will get easier once you get the new routine with you working into a grove. It's understandable to be overwhelmed right now.

I am actually quite a good cook, but I find the mental load overwhelming sometimes of thinking what to cook etc. I now get a gousto box once a month and it means I don’t have to think at all. I did hello fresh about 15 years ago and stopped because it wasn’t worth it to me but life has changed now and I think these meal box things can provide some relief. You must be just keeping your head above water with 3 children on your own, and grieving. I’m so sorry.

I have a code for gousto that will give you 65% off your first 3 boxes. Someone sent me one a year ago and I still get it now once a month

https://gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=SHIRI43775230&utm_source=iosapp

Baked beans, toast and a boiled egg is a perfectly good meal.

Fresh pasta or gnocchi is super fast too and most kids would eat that.

Plus I would think about asking friends and family for help. I would be very happy to bring a mate meals if they were finding it all a bit tough. Keeping trucking

I echo this.

You've done amazing and if this helps get you through, so be it

I'm sorry for your loss OP.

I second a slow cooker, you can cook chilli, spag bol, stews, casserole, whole chickens/joints and lots more in them.

Also an air fryer is a good choice. Get a dual one and you can put meat in one side and then potatoes in the other. Microwave veg?

Buying a twin drawer air fryer changed my life in terms of quick and easy healthy food!

In 15 mins with zero or minimal prep over a week you could do:

Mon: sausages and frozen sweet potato fries on air fryer. Nuke some peas or sweetcorn whilst it cooks.

Tues: salmon fillets in airfryer. Nuke some microwave rice and chop up some cucumber and serve with cherry tomatoes and maybe a blob of mayonnaise

Wed: sprinkle some chicken breasts with celery salt and cook in air fryer with frozen potato wedges. Serve with store bought coleslaw. My kids say the celery salt makes the chicken taste like KFC 😂

Thurs: mix some minced beef with spring onions chopped with a pair of scissors, salt and pepper. Form into burger shapes and cook in air fryer. Serve in bread rolls

Fri: duck breasts sprinkled with 5 spice powder. Serve with pre made Chinese pancakes, store bought hoisin sauce and chop to the rest of the cucumber and spring onions for easy homemade peking duck

Then on Saturday I’d get your biggest pot (I use a stock pot) and make an enormous chilli/spag Bol/stew/curry. Make at least 3 times as much as your family can eat and freeze the extra portions for a night off from cooking.

On Sunday, get yourself a large cut of meat and cook in air fryer. Needs no prep other than seasoning with salt and pepper. In the other drawer do some frozen roast potatoes and you can cook some fresh veg on the stove top. Use the left over meat during the week for a night off cooking served with bread and salads from the supermarket.

Clean up is easy as the air fryer drawers will go in your dishwasher with your plates and there is nothing else to wash. Or if no dishwasher, fill your sink with hot soapy water and soak the drawers after you dish up whilst you eat your meal and they will be clean by the time you are finished.

When doing school or nursery pick up, have an easy snack on the car to tide everyone over so you aren’t tempted to stop off for a takeaway.

Once you get out of the habit of a takeaway every night, you can start to experiment with marinades and slightly more complicated meals but to start with I’d aim for minimal prep, quick to table and quick to clean up options as you have more than enough going on already.

Look up the batch lady for meal ideas you can plan at the weekend and freeze. You will save a lot of money.

Sorry for your loss
Not sure if it's been mentioned already but supermarkets sell frozen of pre-chopped vegetables such as onions. I hate chopping these and they always take me the most amount of time so I'd be going for these. Garlic purée in small squeezy tubes, diced carrots etc. All fiddly things that can take a while to do but are a life saver when short on time.

@Lookwhostalking25
I’ve not read the whole thread so apologies if this has been suggested!
With the amount you’re spending on take aways, get someone in, say once a fortnight, to batch cook for you!! There are plenty of people out there who in half a day can come into your house, come up with a freezer full of home made spag, chilli, etc…. You just provide the ingredients….

Actually, you could even get them to order the food in too!

Sorry for your loss, and you are being a superwoman, I use hello fresh, but it's only me and DH. I don't think it's quick but it's handy, but not for a family/kids IMHO. Quick basics like spag bol. Chili rice. Baked spuds, It takes 2 mins to pop salmon in the oven cooked in 20 mins, frozen baked spuds 4 mins in micro wave, frozen veg. Quick fresh healthy. Look up The batch lady she shows how to prep and bag up uncooked meals for freezer. Take them out night before to defrost. Then pop in slow cooker. You could use what 💸 you save for a treat you deserve it. Sorry for essay, but I hope you can sort this one thing out and it eases the load.

Oven food...

Big supermarket pizza....bag of ready washed salad

Chicken goujons, oven chips, boil some frozen peas

Pesto pasta...boil pasta add a jar of shop bought pesto

Pre cooked chicken drumsticks, stick on plate, add a sachet of microwave rice

Fish finger sandwich, add some chopped up cucumber to stick on the side

Jacket potato done in microwave, add some pre grated cheese

Beans on toast

Sausage rolls from chiller section, serve with shop bought potato salad

No jump on here from me, I am so sorry for your loss.
I want to congratulate you on getting through each day, it must be really hard.

I don't have too much advice, but if you have a slow cooker, that will make life easier, chuck it all in when you wake in the morning and set the timer for when you want dinner in the evening.

Other than that, idahaoan mash is a lifesaver if I'm short on energy, or time and want a "decent" meal, I'll chuck sausages in the airfryer and beans in the microwave and 15 minutes later dinners on the table.

Have a couple of the family sized ready meals each week from your local supermarket.

Get pre diced chicken, pre prepared veggies, anything that makes life that little bit easier.

Once you've got ahold of a basic meal on the table each night then you can build on it, but you've got to accept your own limitations right now.

Wishing you all the best.

This!

But also some brilliant, no-thinking-required suggestions on here.

Just well done for functioning tbh.
Loads of good ideas
I'm not the cook in the family but will Echo the quick baked potato, filled pasta with a sauce .Weirdly I make great soups which is super easy loafs of recipes online but I just chuck the sad veg all in with stockcubes and sometimes lentils pasta rice etc .
Kids loved it for lunch at weekends
Hello fresh gusto etc does take the planning out of a few days worth of meals add in a couple of easy meals and that's the week sorted was my thinking about it all.
Wishing you all the best

Is there a Cook shop near you? Think you can also order online. They do good meals that you can bung in the oven.

https://www.cookfood.net/

As others have said, you’re doing amazingly well considering what you’ve been through.

You sound like you’re doing amazingly well OP.

I agree with everyone saying keep it as simple, quick and easy as possible. With the warmer weather you don’t need as much hot stuff. If the kids will eat things like pitta bread filled with hummus, bought falafel balls, lettuce, tomato, cucumber etc followed by yoghurt and fruit for afters, that’s pretty easy.

I buy a pack of chicken thighs , put them on a foil baking tray. Add olive oil, garlic, whatever herbs you like or just a little salt and pepper and bake till done and browned. Serve with baked potato, bought mash, peas etc.

veggie or beef burgers with potato wedges, salad or veg. Get pre prepared if easier.

good quality readymade soup served with a muffin with melted cheese and some salad.

scrambled egg on toast, baked apples with ice cream, (core apple, fill with bit of honey and raisins if anyone likes them and bake till soft and skin wrinkly.

sausages, pre-prepared mash and veg. Banana and custard. Strawberries and cream/ice cream

Bought Mac and cheese with veggies or salad

Fish fingers, chips and beans

all to be interspersed with takeaways if it’s just too much.

You can’t do everything and shouldn’t expect yourself to, especially now. 💐

I work full time with three young children and was really struggling with meals every day, although the way we got by was to just have the same sort of thing every day (spag bol, sausage and mash etc etc).

We’ve started using a free app called Cherrypick and it’s really helped me to plan, shop and cook meals. You basically browse and pick enough meals for the week, then they add all the ingredients you need to a shopping list (which you can do either in store anywhere or they can organise online at Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury’s I think at the moment). Once you’ve done the shop, you put the meals into a weekly planner and prepare them each day. Our weekly shop for a family of five is between £100-£140 and we only do an in store shop at Aldi and get the extra stuff from Tesco. Shopping is quicker because we’ve got a specific list.

The main drawback is the meals are a bit convoluted, but they are tasty and the kids haven’t turned their noses up at any of them so far (which I was quite surprised at because they’re quite different to what we’d usually have). I often simplify them a bit or adapt them to suit our tastes and my eldest DD(8) has started helping me with the prepping and cooking (although this may not last!).

Maybe something like this might help you guys too?

You are a superhero @Lookwhostalking25 and I’m so sorry for your loss. Absolutely zero judgement from me, you have to do what you need to do to survive. You have just returned back to work - so give yourself a break and get as many takeaways as you can afford for the first few months while you adjust.

And then once you are more settled into your new routine you can slowly switch it up a bit. Some nights takeout, some nights quick and easy meals - scrambled egg, beans on toast, jacket potato, soup and sandwich, pasta with pesto, pre-prepared food from the supermarket.

During tough times as long as your kids are loved and taken care of, then you are acing being a mum. Nutrition can drop down the priority list for a little while until you have more time and energy.

....also, if you have a good network of people around you, rely on them.
If you were my friend I would happily make a meal for you and your kids a few times a week.