To make frozen pizza every night?

[Cinocino]

Yes, I think that’s an obvious yet. But between cooking healthy meals and snacks for toddler and freshly weaning baby I’m spent at the end of the day and running out of ideas and energy for adult dinners.
Dinners have to be separate during the week as kids eat about 4:30/5pm but DH doesn’t get in from work until 7:30.

What are your go to 1 step more than shoving a pizza in but incredibly low effort dinners?
Im struggling to have the time to plan out meals, do them on the food shop and then cook the meals in the evening at the minute due to sheer exhaustion of waking up a lot at night and the mental exhaustion of a whingey baby and toddler.

I’ll probably start this and not be able to read it for ages due to said high maintenance baby 🤦‍♀️

I'm in Ireland but are there similar things to this where you are just open the tray and put it in the oven. 2 of those a week, 1 frozen pizza, 2 'all in 1 pot meals' and something else

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/en-IE/promotions/90211270

https://shop.supervalu.ie/sm/delivery/rsid/5550/categories/meat-poultry/prepared-by-our-butcher-id-O200730?f=Breadcrumb%3Agrocery%2Fmeat+%26+poultry%2Fprepared+by+our+butcher&page=1&skip=0

Totally been there! I found the following useful

• fresh pasta tortellini with sauce and spinach
• do you have an air fryer? We have one with two drawers so I can pop things like chicken, halloumi or salmon with veg in one drawer for kids and one drawer for adult dinner. I put both in at the same time so it’s just press a button
• Quiche and veg or salad
• pasta bake - veg, sauce, cheese and pasta and easy to re heat for adult dinner
• I like to buy a pre cooked chicken at the super market. Can use it to make some easy wraps for lunch or dinner

I feel your pain! Currently weaning a 6 month old and DP 'can't cook'. Was sick of standing at the oven every night once baby was down so now I just cook for me. My go-to is a jar of tomato and chili pasta sauce mixed with a can of red kidney beans alongside a sachet of microwaved rice. It does 2 meals as well so just mix the sauce and beans together and put half back in the sauce jar to go in fridge and then half the sachet of rice. Life's too short to be stressing about cooking, you're already dealing with so much as it is! The time will come to cook again but now is not it!!

Just keeping it real with a show of empathy - I bloody hate the responsibility, time commitment and mental load of all the food related stuff!! Stay strong 💪

We eat the same food as our toddler. She eats at 4.30 and we have ours at 6.30/7pm once she's asleep. We both work full time so cooking takes a lot of pre planning, we will do a lot of batch cooking at weekends and make good use of the freezer but I do also cook most evenings once she's in bed and use the time to prepare packed lunches for the next day.

I do spring pasta in five minutes: fresh tagliatelle, into the same pan drop in strips of courgette made using the veg peeler and some frozen peas, cook for 3/5 mins (pasta cooking time), drain and stir in cream cheese, lemon juice and pepper to taste! Done and only one pan to clean up. Pretty sure it's a Xanthe Clay recipe originally, but not sure I could put my hand on it.

Another Xanthe hit in our house - pea and mint soup - bit of frozen onion fried a couple of minutes in butter, add in stock, frozen peas, boil for 5 mins and then take off heat, add in cream cheese and a bit of fresh mint and blender it all up with the hand blender. Basically less than 7 mins even if you drag your feet and it's lovely!

I'm a bit of a "tinned curry" specialist too - frozen onions for a couple of minutes then add a few spices or curry paste, then tinned chickpeas or lentils, tinned tomatoes and a tin of coconut milk, leave to simmer for 10 mins - obviously not proper curry and not so much depth of flavour, but it's pretty tasty and zero prep time.

Otherwise, eggs and bacon, baked potatoes, frozen stir-fry mix with noodles, fresh stuffed pasta with pesto.

I don't think I eat much food that takes more than 15 mins start to finish, and that's just because I'm lazy - I have every sympathy for you OP!

Good shout!

Also omelette, frozen chips and salad is another speedy meal…

We are having jacket potatoes tonight, very easy!

You’ve got some good ideas here. You mentioned your little ones are too tired to eat too late and I can relate to that as my twins are the same and sometimes have a meltdown and refuse to eat at all if I’m too late serving dinner.
One thing that helps me is if I have time during the day I’ll do their main meal for lunch and then their evening meal will be sandwiches or cheese & crackers with fruit and salad + yoghurt etc. I find they eat more overall on those days too.
Obviously depends on your routine and if you have time for this! But for us, late afternoon/evening is the trickiest time of day in terms of meltdowns/clinginess so it’s easier for me to prepare a big meal in peace at lunchtime rather than later in the day. (Bonus is I can usually get all the pans etc cleared away before I’m too tired as well)
You could even do everyone’s meal at lunchtime but plate up yours and your husband’s to be reheated when he comes home.

Some no effort dump in the oven meals

Gnocchi are great in a tray bake (you don't need to cook them). This is a good recipe and you could cut the courgettes whilst sitting at the table with the dc and encourage them to "steal" some to get a sneaky extra veg in. To make it even quicker just use some pre-grated cheese on top rather than the fancy ricotta.

For a totally zero effort - a tin of ratatouille and a tin of artichokes and a packet of gnocchi in a roasting tin - sprinkle of pre- grated cheese and in the oven for 20 minutes.

TInned beans and microwave rice are good for zero effort meals too.

Eg blanch tenderstem broccoli, drain, return to pan with half a bag of spinach, tin of cannelli beans, 2 teaspoons pesto and 3 tablespoons natural yogurt. Heat gently whilst grating in the zest of a lemon. 5 minutes and 3 of your 5 a day.

Or tin of beans in chilli or tomato sauce, tin of sweetcorn, heat with a decent squirt of tomato puree. Mean while bung a packet of rice in the microwave. Serve with a dollop of natural yogurt and some rated cheese.

If you re giving the children pasta cook extra and leave to cool. After bed time chuck in a tin of tuna, a tin of sweetcorn, some cherry tomatoes and cucumber chunks and stir in some mayo to combine. Nice served on a few little gem lettuce leaves.

We've always eaten together at 6, baby and 2 year old, we've never eaten later than them, I appreciate all families are different though..

Quick stuff here:

Chop shallots/peppers/other veg - mix with a spray of oil and some fajita seasoning (or whatever you like) - into the air fryer for 12 mins - serve on a tortilla rolled up with some sour cream, or make that into a melty cheesey thing with some more creative folding, grated cheese and further heating.

This can also go alongside quorn thing/chicken breast/piece of fish that will cook in a similar time frame (we have the two drawer airfryer that does two things at once, synchronises and so on).

Massive Salad and... something. Same dealy, cook your protein thing in whatever low effort way you want. Prep salad. Serve.

Batch cooking - i cannot face a whole day, so we don't do it like that.

Instead if we set off to make a shepherds pie, chilli, whatever... we just cook double the amount and freeze the spare 'half'. It takes no longer to cook a chili or shepherds pie or make bolognese for 4 vs 2, and gives me 2 stashed meals in the freezer.
Done a couple of times a week, you rapidly build up a bit of a hoarde of easy meals. Make sure you have storage tubs (I have ones with clip lock lids but its a glass dish) that can go from freezer to microwave to oven/airfryer so you do not have to remember to defrost!

jacket potatoes. (i prefer totally oven/but 10 mins microwave n five to crispy skin in oven will do.
literlly prick wi fork wrap n cook=rapid prep time.
pick your filling.
or if get time prep erlier in daay throw chops/chicken breasts whtever -shrooms/onion/pepprs in foil forlast half hour .(however long)

stir fry. ? boil pan water (boil bg rice= ten mins...or fine noodles whatever )
chop /dice meat/ fry pan\wok..if esier buy the premix chopped veg- if fussy(i am) invent your own favourited veg mix..throw in spices or sauce.
faheetas-again pretty much stir fy-cooks quick-easy enough.

if time e\rlier in day to do soupps/stews/bolognese/curry wotever is just varying ttties/rice/psta/salad/bread no?

Surely your children are eating the same things as you? So just cook yours later or reheat.

Oh I remember those days! That’s if I put the pizza in the oven and didn’t burn it sometimes it was a packet of biscuits when baby had gone to bed. It’s gets easier once they are weaning and you can make something solid for you both to eat

Why would you assume this? I don't know anyone who eats the same meals as their baby and 2 year-old.

Plus, the OP has already made it clear this isn't the case.

I have the same age kids! I usually try and cook something while the baby is having his third nap on me in the carrier. Nearly always pasta or rice with something. The baby mainly eats whatever we eat with his hands…it’s messy but he really enjoys it! When you have some veg like broccoli that needs eating, blend it all up and stick it in an ice cube tray. Sometimes I make them a separate pasta sauce or pasta bake to us and in theirs I pop a couple of the ice cubes in!

I definitely don’t bath them every night as well, I’d leave that out on the nights when you are cooking something with a little more effort!

Slow cooker would help. Stew, soup, bolognese,curry, chilli. Throw all the ingredients in in the morning and let it do its thing.Cook enough to freeze a couple of portions too.

Roast in the Bag chickens from Amazon are brilliant. Even the roasting pan stays relatively clean. Bung me in the oven. It’s ready after one and a half hours. So much you can do with a hot roast chicken:

• serve with chips ( add veg/ salad if you have time)
• add some to tomato sauce ( Mutti is great) then stir through pasta
• even chicken sandwiches at a pinch

Do you have a slow cooker? I make sticky chicken, kung po beef, pulled pork etc. whack it all in in the morning when you make your first cuppa, get some microwave rice or buns for pulled pork and a bag of salad and done. Google some slow cooker recipes that you’d both enjoy. One crock pot to wash up then too. I have a toddler who only wants to eat chips, and even he’s had a good go at most things

I remember those days. Coming downstairs after toddler/baby in bed..7.30pm and faced with cooking dinner.
I was knackered. Starving. Hangry. DH not quite home....

We ate a lot of takeaways in those days.

But yes, as PP have said, there are ways around it.

Slow cooking. It doesn't have to be gloopy stew. To be eaten by you/DH and then easily reheated for toddler and or mushed for baby

• Beef brisket, some stock, halved carrot and onion....pot roast. Serve with mash/veg. Buy two joints and cook them together - freeze the left overs.
• Pulled pork. Serve with buns/coleslaw one night...then pretend it is peking duck the next and serve with hoisin/spring onions/cucumber the next.
• Taming Twins website has some good slow cooker recipes (and are child-friendly) - we like the chicken thighs with noodles. You slow cook the sauce/chicken and 30 minutes before the end add the noodles and some green beans.

Quick/Easy

• Start experimenting with a few suggestions here. Taming Twins halloumi burgers are awesome..take about 10 minutes.
• Agree with the roasting tin cook books suggestion. I also have the Hello Fresh cookbook and a lot of the recipes are quick and winners.
• It doesn't have to be restaurant worthy. Eggs on toast, an omelette, jacket potato. Ham, egg chips. Wrap, tomoto puree, cheese = fake pizza

Easy prep

• frozen chopped veg - onions/peppers/spinach - cut of the chopping - just grab a handful ready to cook
• mash potato (whether normal or sweet) no need to peel, just boil, mash.

Never just cook one meal

• I rarely cook just enough for one meal - but generally at least double it, so I always have a meal to shove in the freezer. Curries, dahl, pot roast, pulled pork - whatever it is I buy double, cook double and freeze one. This means a meal I don't have to cook another day.

Good luck. And a long, long time ago on MN my username was "FishfingersAreOK"....as, yep, a very similar thought process as you.....

I hate cooking so buy frozen sweet chilli salmon in pouches which steams in 3 minutes in the microwave. I buy ready prepared veggies and microwave them and combine with microwaved rice or jacket potatoes. It takes about 12 minutes and all you do is put in the microwave, put on the plate.

Get the kids into pasta. Lots of shop-made pesto and tomato sauces are pretty good.
If you have time add in some chicken and a few veg. Or make a large tomato based sauce with garlic and some veg and freeze into batches. Then just defrost and add chicken/prawns/tofu/cheese and put on pasta.

Stir fries also good as pretty quick on the hob. Just buy a few stir fry sauces and add meat, veg and noodles.

Why cook twice? Eat what the kids eat. Just warm your portion up a bit later. The kids should get used to eating ‘normal’ food so as to not become fussy.

Stir fry kits from M&S are good ( available in other supermarkets of course but the M&S kits are particularly nice )
Then you don’t even need the extra time for chopping / prepping.
Cook some dried pasta (eg penne or fusilli ) put some frozen peas in towards the end of cooking time , while that’s cooking flake some smoked trout fillets and mix plain yogurt with a little cream horse radish from a jar and black pepper .
Drain pasta + peas and mix all together.
Frozen chopped onions are great as that saves time ( and tears 😭) as well as frozen chopped garlic 🧄 ginger 🫚 and chillies 🌶️ when you want to make something with that as a base .
Bags of frozen Mediterranean veg great too to add to a quick veggie chilli .
spaghetti carbonara is another really quick and easy dinner and so simple with just eggs 🥚 Parmesan, black pepper and the pancetta comes ready chopped up too