To find preparing 3 meals a day an absolute grind

[Bobbinwinding]

Just a vent.

I am just so absolutely sick of the relentlessness of having to plan, prepare and clear up three meals, day in, day out.

One DC is vegetarian, the other has a very restrictive diet. Literally the only foods they both eat are eggs, cheese, pasta, bread, yogurt and apples. That doesn’t leave many meals that can feed them both so I’m usually making something separate for each of them.

DH is a workaholic with some hang-ups about food/weight and will impulsively decide he doesn’t want dinner after I’ve already plated it up.

I’m perimenopausal and increasingly having to watch what I eat.

I used to adore cooking, browsing recipe books snd meal planning. But the daily grind of either trying to come up with something everyone will eat or making different meals for everyone is driving me to despair.

No one appreciates it. I feel constantly guilty about whether anyone has had 5 a day or too many UPFs or sugar or whatever were being told will kill us this week.

Can anyone relate? Any tips to make it more bearable?

I agree. Totally had enough of this, ND house here too.
If I don't feed them they just don't eat, which makes everyone grumpy. And no, they won't make something themselves if they get hungry enough. Not unless you count a tub of ice cream. 😞

The poster was talking about her her 7 year old grand daughter, not husband, which was what I was alluding to. Obviously the husband is an issue, along with a lack of communication.

Could you batch cook some stuff you know each kid will like and just get that out the freezer each day?

Teach them to cook themselves asap as a matter of survival!

It's exhausting isn't it? Solidarity.

Make a list of all the dishes that each person likes then ask Deepseek to create a monthly meal plan. I did this 5 weeks ago and it has taken off quite a load of thought about what to have for dinner.

Deepseek is better than ChatGPT. I tried chatgpt but it added random dishes I didn't ask for and missed out some of the items on my list.

Cheese biscuits and apple for lunch maybe some hummus or sandwich which they make themselves.

It’s hard for me as well, although we do eat the same so I don’t have to prepare two different meals but it’s very hard having to make a healthy meal plan, then go buy the food then cook it 😆

You’re making life harder for yourself.

If you’re doing something like hot dogs as you’re previously mentioned just give everyone veggie sausages not doing some veggie and some meat.

On a Sunday before the week starts do a big batch of a pasta sauce. Cook loads of veggies and blitz up with some tinned tomato and oregano and you’ve got some of your 5 a days covered. Pre cook some pasta to go with it and then you’ve got 1 or 2 evening meals ready to be reheated already.

Do a big pot of soup to be stored in the fridge and have that one evening with buttered bread.

Cut up carrot, pepper, celery, cucumber sticks and store in a Tupperware with a sheet of damp kitchen paper on the bottom and these can be quick reachable snacks for dipping in hummus or tzatziki etc. Pre boiled and peeled hard boiled eggs are also good snacks.

The key really is making things in advance so they can be quickly eaten or reheated. I’d rather cook for a good few hours on a Sunday rather than stressing every night.

Tell ChatGPT about every family member, what works and what doesn’t, and get it to plan for you.

Actually cooking 3 meals a day? Surely you can limit to for an evening meal and you can work around the individual mealtimes. Hopefully you can make your life a bit easier finding substitutes to hot food all the time or batch cook and freeze. Xxx

breakfast: toast, fruit and yoghurt, cereal, you can put whisked egg whites in a cup with a bit of grated cheese and microwave for 30-50 secs for an egg bite, cold meats, cheeses, boiled eggs in the fridge they can peel and eat. It doesn’t need to be a full meal and they can help themselves.

easy lunches: again cold meats and cheeses, canned soups or you can make in advance a big batch and freeze in portions, sandwiches (if kids over 10 should easily be able to make themselves a sandwich), mozzarella and tomato salad, avocado on toast, toasties done in a toaster bag - make as much of this as possible or insist your kids have school lunches.

dinners: one meal for everyone with options, if your daughter wants to be veggie she needs to prep her own meals at least a couple times a week. Or compromise - she needs to eat fish or white meat so you can do a chicken stew. But pasta with pesto and veggies on the side is fairly easy. Try doing one pot and tray bake meals. Have stuff in the freezer they can pop in the oven either home made or some microwave meals. Not ideal but for the days when you are exhausted. Make sure there are also things like fruit, veg, cucumber sticks, proteins etc available. Make sure DH does at least one night of cooking a week.

You are not a private chef. Your job as a parent is to provide a healthy balanced diet for your kids not to teach them they have every whim catered to day and night. If they don’t like what you’ve made for dinner they can eat a cheese sandwich.

They are probably too young to be left to their own devices but they aren’t too young to help. Sometimes it is easier to do it yourself but arguably it’s part of parenting to teach them by getting them to help you. And at the very least it makes for less of the finding things, fetching, putting away, washing bits up part of meal preparation. And particularly for the child who has decided they don’t wish to follow the same meat eating habits of the rest of the family.

Breakfast can be easy and everyone gets their own. Simple lunch, soup/salad/sandwich. And a shared evening meal. They will need to be less fussy. Most things can be made vegetarian friendly by not adding the meat and add something like chickpeas instead

Tell them to take turns cooking also! I don't like cooking much either but it's something that needs to be done

I am with you. It’s an absolute pain in the hole. My most hated three words are “What’s for dinner”!!!
No one cooks in this house only me. Then they have the cheek to turn their noses up. I sacked off cooking this evening - air fryer beige and a bit of salad 🤣

Why does your DH get off the hook for cooking for his kids? Jeez I hate this 1950s domestic martyr mentality. The sole responsibility for catering for a family shouldn’t always have to be the woman.

Yes, I can completely relate and absolutely feel your pain. One teenager eats beige food and junk, the other has to eat specific foods for his skin health, I eat keto/healthy foods and DH won’t even touch a vegetable. Always cooking different meals or variations on those meals. The relentless three meals a day planning, preparing, washing up and putting away feels so arduous most days. You are not alone!

Tell me about it!
And people wonder why I swear.
A lot.

Well if the Pot Noodle people (Golden Wonder) had taken my advice and produced a 'breakfast edition' (no hot water just cold milk) we would all be quids in.

My lunchtime suggestion was the Pot Ploughman's. Crusty croutons, with melted cheddar cheese and a huge picked onion (on a stick).

Then, THEN if Golden Wonder has listened, we would only have to make one meal a day.

On such occasions I like to knock up Turkey Twizzler Dinosaurs with Potato Dauphinoise and a small tin of Beluga cavier. I find the meld of flavours, and textures delicious - and, of course, I add lashings of Tabasco sauce to enhance the delicate flavours that Bernard Mathews have perfected in the Twizzler Dinosaurs.

Yum, yum, as we say in Scotland.

I haven’t read the full thread so apologies if I’m repeating anyone. This is why I use Hello Fresh for dinners each evening. Amazing, varied food and I never need to do a ‘weekly food shop’ any more. I could never go back to meal planning now-I would be so bored and fed up with it!

God yes. The upside of death with be not having to think about meals.

Tips? As soon as each dc is about 12, get them cooking.

The ‘just give them what you’re making and they’ll eventually eat it’ advice was given to my mother almost 50 years ago for my (as it turns out autistic) older brother. It didn’t work then either. He made it to adulthood eating 6 or 7 safe foods.

Why should she need to do this?? This g in the one planning, shopping, and cooking, then I don’t see why I should have to put myself last and put their preferences first…

Thanks for the suggestions - alas the restrictive eater wouldn’t eat a single thing on here, not even a veggie hot dogs.

We could do more batch cooking for the rest of us. Though I am trying to eat high protein / lower carb and this doesn’t always work so well with veggie DS.

It is just a pain.

Yes this sounds rather like us though at least my DH isn’t fussy!

Someone else suggested just eating what one of the DC eats - honestly I look and feel so much better for switching up my own diet so yes it’s worthwhile but it does just add to the different needs that have to be catered for!

I also try not to feed my kids UPF, OP, but as a kid I ate so, so much more UPF than your kids would eat if they had a ham sandwich once a day every day. And so did all my friends, because in the 70s and 80s parents didn't really think about it. It's not like feeding them arsenic. I would get a selection of cereals they will eat for breakfast and let them help themselves, if that's workable (my 7 year old makes her own breakfast) and then make lunch whatever's easiest, fucking health off if necessary, and then for dinner I would offer everyone a cooked meal or cereal/beans on toast/jacket potato (or whatever quick meal might work), with any fruit or veg that is easily provided without fussiness to round it out if they'll eat it.

You're doing the work. You do it in a way that works with ingredients that are manageable and suit you.

I wouldn't even include the husband in cooking. I would direct him to the fridge and the cupboard and leave him to it.

I have been through all the battles with trying to make them less fussy. Restrictive diets associated with ASD can’t be cured by sheer force of will.