Nanny has offered to cook for us in the evenings - how can I make this work?

[bossykate]

We have a nanny helping out out a couple of evenings a week. She picks dd up from nursery, picks ds up from after school club, brings them home, makes supper, does baths, puts them to bed and tidies up. She is very good and we are lucky to have her.

She has recently offered to cook for dh & I on the evenings she is with us.

The children have separate meals from dh & I and both sets of evening meals are planned and shopped for in advance. There is a list of the week's meals up in the kitchen.

So far we have tried this cooking lark once - but it was clearly stressful for her to cook an unfamiliar recipe (from our list) and she offered to cook from one of her own recipes in future - but i am reluctant to deviate from my carefully constructed menu planning and shopping process - what it loses in spontaneity it gains in convenience!

Is it reasonable to ask her to cook what I have planned? Should I just let this idea go? Does anyone else have a nanny who cooks for the whole family and how does it work?

TIA

hi st, we have been on all the same threads today! not even afternoons, it is just evenings really, which is restrictive in terms of what she could do by way of advance cooking.

If it's just a couple of evenings a week, surely you can bewteen you come up with a few meals you and nanny are happy with that are quick to throw together?

I much prefer eating freshly cooked food. I'm also assuming that the meals you cook yourselves are fairly quick and hassle free.

I'm sure you can work it out if you sit down and talk to her

Bossykate, yes, I chuck everything in on the lowest setting before I go to bed. If you don't want to seal the meat, you can chuck everything in cold in the morning, but it does taste better if you seal the meat, fry the onions, sweat the carrots etc. Then you can just do some extra veg/spuds with it before serving.

Get a take away LOL

thank you for all these suggestions. sorry if i have committed the ultimate mnet sin and appeared to be more grateful for some suggestions and then seemed to ignore others... have appreciated every suggestion.

thanks all so much

I never do my slow cooker stuff in the morning nowadays (have to say though that I don't bother sealing meat etc,) just put all ingredients into removable bowl the night before, store in the fridge overnight and put it in cooker/turn it on first thing in teh am - takes 1 minute - hell dh could probably even manage it

I do think you could probably re-engineer the current menu planning process to allow for input from an alternate source. Remember that even the most efficient processes can benefit form organic growth over time.