if a parents feeds their child a microwave macaroni/curry/lasagne ready meal every night...

[MummikinsOopNorth]

...because she dislikes cooking and is terrible at it, is it bad parenting?

FA - another super easy meal for you.

Boil some pasta as per packet.
Boil some brocolli for 5-6 mins ( I usually chuck it in the same pot as the pasta when the pastas half cooked - 1 less pot to wash)
In the freezer part of supermarket/iceland etc are packets of fish in sauce (usualy parsley or butter sauce).
Cook this according to packet. (I usually ignore the instructions and give it 2 mins in the microwave, give it a shoogle then another 2 mins).

Drain the pasta and brocolli, put it back in the pot, add in the fish and sauce, give it a mix round and voila!

I work full time and the slow cooker is so handy. My kids love pasta too, it is just as quick to knock up a simple cheap pasta meal as to heat up 4 frozen dinners (I would imagine).

Don't by them personally, the salt and fat content on lots of them seems to cancel out any nutritional value.

Except frozen pizza, I would make an exception there lol.

so what do the masses think about giving babys food thats in jars every night? Does that make me a bad parent??

My DC eat a ready meal at least once a week, as it's easier to do when we have cubs/karate/swimming to get to etc.

In fact ds2 won't eat so many of the things I cook from scratch, it's a relief to see him tucking in sometimes.

That's not to say I'm an awful cook (I don't think I am!) he's just really fussy and will pick out onion, etc!

I work full time and we get by OK

mummysgoingmad I don't think using jarred baby food every day makes you a bad parent either. But you might struggle with the transition to 'real' food if you only ever use jars. Can you try a mixture of jars and real meals? Batch cooking is your friend here - Annabel Karmel's books give good recipes with clear notes as to which can be frozen. Baby led weaning is another option - I think there are probably lots of threads on here about it (often shortened to BLW).

My kids essentially eat a ready meal 6 nights out of 7. But I've made and frozen them. They have a mixture of bolognese, chicken in mushroom sauce, beef stroganoff, chicken korma, chicken fahita mix, chicken or tuna in tomato/pepper/onion/mushroom/courgette sauce, beef or chicken casserole/stew or tuna in cheese sauce. I usually have a couple of cooking days per month when I'll make three of four of these dishes and freeze about 12-20 portions of each in the plastic pots you can get from the poundshop in packs of 10 (reusable and dishwashable!).

I accept that if you can't cook, this seems like a big undertaking, but if you can, it's easy. And less mess. You prep all the ingredients together and cook them all together, then you've got 40 or so meals cooked in 3 hours, when cooking daily would probably take about 40 hours. Then you can defrost and microwave or heat in a pan daily and serve with rice or pasta (I've got two vegetable haters, so each meal has lots of extra veg in it).

Yes I work and use the slow cooker. In fact, the time I'm most likely to use it is exactly WHEN I'm going to be out all day. You can even chop everything up the night before then you just have to tip it in and switch it on. Yes it takes hours of cooking but you don't have to stand there watching it!! That's the beauty of them! That and they can take cheap meat and make it tender. Even chopped up chicken breast, few veg and a jar of chicken tonight (or similar) tastes better if cooked in a slow cooker. The point is that it is ready for you whenever you want to eat it. So cooking is less of a hurdle or a chore. And if you can get some one-pot recipes, all the better. I did a lovely one the other day with lamb, mushrooms, bacon, onion, new potatoes and stock (from cube). Cooked all day, was delicious. All I needed to do at the end of the day when I was tired and wouldn't have had the energy to cook, was serve it up.

I'm very tempted to get a slow cooker reading this thread. I used to have one but barely used it and gave it away.

I'll persevere if I get another one though.

Making huge pans of soup today. I also use the poundshop pack of 10 pots and freeze that in them.

Thanks someguy, I feel less guilty now. Sort of