calling all meal-organised mums!!

[elliemellie]

Can anyone help?! Every week I start off by trying to do the weekly food shop to feed the family - dh, ds (8) and dd (3). And each week it goes horribly wrong as things crop up like kids clubs, dh working late etc so that I either find I'm cooking lots of different meals at different times in a rush or running out of ideas. We usually get to all eat together about four evenings but on the others the kids need feeding earlier and we eat later. Does anyone have any ideas for quickish meals which you can prepare a little bit in advance (either freezing or just do before school pick up) that can be reheated as and when various members of family get home?? Would be very grateful as would my famiy!

Off the top of my head the first things I can think of are chilli, curry, spag bol etc where you can make a batch of sauce & heat up later on as necessary.

stew, bolognese, lasagne, shepherds pie any pasta dish

sorry didn't read propperly didn't read the quickish bit.

We always do one slowcooker meal a week which can be prepped the night beore or first thing.

We also have a lot of pasta dishes and things like chilli or shepherds pie these can also be made the night before.

We use a lot of frozen veg so I don't have a lot of mouldy veg by the end of the week.

I have also found if you write out your meal plan and then rotate it every five weeks or so it seems to make things a lot easier.

If you don't already do online shopping you don't buy as much crap.

What about a slow cooker? I don't have one yet, but hear great things about them - throw everything in in the morning and it's ready to go when you want it. The Tesco one is £10 at the moment.

definately get a slow cooker then food is ready when you want it to be

Slow cookers are ace I wouldn't be without mine.

Other quick ideas.

Tuna pasta and sweetcorn.

Sausage casserole --2 tins of toms chucked over chopped up sausages and onions cook for 50 mins and serve with mash.

Baked pots.

Beans on toast.

Those folk with slow cookers. I find that having to cover the meat and veg with stock leaves me with a lot of juice which doesn't reduce like it would in the oven. What do you do about that? I don't want to put in gravy powder or such as it's very salty. I've been using the extra juice for soup but fancy a good thick stew... how do you do it?

My two don't like salt, so I make a stew by coating the meat in spelt flour, browning it in a pan, then adding it to boiling water with a tablespoon of ragu. Then I add veg, potatoes, carrots, swede and whatever else lurks in my fridge whithering.
The flour combines with everything else to make a thickish gravy.
Being organised. I have a full time job, so I have a weekly menu that I plan in advance and shop for at the weekends. I also have a calendar to die for with all the details written in for stuff happening.
DH working late is the variable, but stuff involving you and the children shouldn't really be a surprise and you can plan ahead.

Thanks Goblin. I've tried flour but will have a go with the spelt flour. Plain flour works fine when I cook it in the oven but not in the slow cooker because of the volume of liquid.

Thanks for the advice, am thinking about a slow cooker-can you put any meat in?? Anything that works/doesn't? Does it cost much to leave on all day?

It's cheaper to run a small appliance like a slow cooker on low all day than it is to heat up an oven for an hour or whatever. It's very economical. And a time-saver!

You are using too much liquid, with a slow cooker there is no need to cover the meat and veg. Use half as much liquid as you are now.

I add a handful of barley about 20 mins before erving a slow cooker stew, that will thicken t quite nicely a well.
You can buy "soup mix" which is mixture od dried pulses to add to stews as well.

The manual says it has to be covered... does yours? I've thought about not putting in as much but didn't want to risk breaking it. I will try the barley thing too.

(sorry for hijak!)

does the meat not dry out if it's not covered? (my manual says to cover as well, which is why I don't use it as muh as I want to). I might start a seperate thread actually "Slow Cookers for Numpties"

For the OP - I do a lot of "things in a tomato sauce" based meals when we need to have several different sittings, and just cook more rice/pasta for each person. Or things like tortellini which take four minutes. Omlettes as well are quite quick (can't make them myself though, so rely on DD1 making her own on the nights she eats seperately).

Ont thing that works for us is to buy a big chicken and have it as a roast one day and then we still have loads for leftovers. I chuck it in to make curries, pastas, sandwiches and it goes a long way. Other than that, I can put some biggish potatoes in the oven at a low heat when I go to pick dd up from school and by tea time they are perfect and I don't have to do anything. Pasta is a favourite, and also a huge sheperds pie which I can make into portions and freeze for later. Big pots of soup work well too, Jamie Oliver's minestrone (can't remember whih book it's in, but you can probably find the recipe online) is an excellent one to try.

No, the food doesn't dry out, for example, if i do a joint of ham in the slow cooker I add a cup of water. No more is needed.

Ignore the manual when it comes to liquid, if you were cooking in n oven some of the liquid would evaporate, in a slow cooker it doesn't which is why you use less.
The steam can't escape which i why the food doesn't dry out.

I always make too many baked potatoes so that the cold ones can be sliced and shallow fried or griddled for other meals.

Thanks for the tip itsmeolord I will try that too!