Cooking one meal a day for two sittings - ideas please.

[RosiePosie]

I'm fed up with cooking twice a day. The children eat at about 4.30pm and then I eat with dh at about 8.00pm. I usually end up cooking two seperate meals a day, or the children end up having something very simple and not particularly nutritrious. I'm happy to do them simple teatimes sometimes - scrambled eggs, chees on toast etc, but would like them to eat more normal family type meals too. Can you suggest things I can cook that will suit the whole family, that I can dish up for the children at teatime and then reheat later for us? We do eat together as a family at weekends, btw. Children are four and nearly two.

what time do they go to bed?
what time does your dh/dp come in?

could they have a snack at 3 and hang on to eat all together?

when mine were younger i did it the other way round.
cooked something fresh for us whist they were eating yesterdays reheated and refreshed.

Stew, bolognese (just warm up the sauce, you would have to cook spaghetti twice though).

This book which I first saw recommended by someone on MN would be a very good buy for you - full of good, basic, cook-from-scratch recipes that would serve boths sittings.

Thats quite an early tea time, could they wait and eat with you?

My dd eats between 6 and 7 with me and dp if hes back. If he's on the late shift, he reheats his in the microwave around 9pm when he gets in!

No way will you catch me cooking twice of an evening

I do this with lasagne sometimes - make up the meat sauce and the cheese (or white) sauce then use half of each to make the boys' tea with and then half to do ours with later. Sometimes I use half the meat sauce for the boys and just mix it with penne pasta rather than making them an actual lasagne and that's quicker.

For winter it is easier as you can make one pot meals for oven (casseroles, stews, jacket pots etc) and leave in oven on low with maybe a little slosh of red wine to keep it moist.
Summer is a little harder but not impossible. We try to give them similar food just less spicy and do as much in advance.
Fresh grilled tuna with couscous and salad - make up bowl of couscous, add juice of a lemon, veg stock, fresh herbs if you have them, tin of drained chickpeas (if you like them) - any couscous is fine really. Put covered to one side. Make big bowl of salad for the frisge minus any dressing. Grill tuna well for the children and serve up. For adults I like to make a spicy chilli dressing with olive oil, chilli, soy, lime etc and serve with ready prepped salad and couscous.
Fresh pasta and sauce is a godsend for us - so easy to cook, healthy, filling etc. Make your favourite sauce recipe, or buy if no time, cook half fresh pasta for children, the rest later and heat up sauce, simple - takes only three mins to cook. When I make a carbonara sauce with bacon and mushrooms, I make a big batch up, serve up the girls portion and then pop the rest in an oven proof dish, top with grated cheese and put in oven on low for DH and I later.
Homemade pizza - kids help you decorate, cook theirs straight away, leave yours in fridge for later. Dh will love the fact that the children decorated it just for him.. My all time favourite is mushroom, grilled red pepper, goat cheese blobs, lengthwise cut ribbons of courgette and plenty of olive oil (drissled on just before cooking) baby spinach is nice too.

HTH