Calling BOZZA please, food question!

[oliveoil]

I have looked at your posts on the other food thread and think you are a lady I would like advice from please.

IIRC you work 3 days and your children are around 2 and 4 like mine.

Do you eat together on the days you work? How on earth do you manage that? And what do you cook? Your meals sounded great on the other thread but not if you have to make them in 10 mins (ie mashed potato etc).

I think I may have asked you this before....not sure. I get by on good old nuggets etc on my 3 days but feel a change coming on......

Thank you!

bump as I have spotted you about

x

Somebody starting a food thread with me in the title. I am not moondog, you know.

OK I think my children are slightly older than yours - DS is 5 1/2 and DD is 2.3 but not much difference. I am a great fan of cooking double and just warming up on the days I am working. Tonight we are having shepherd's pie. The meat bit is out of the freezer and the mash is left over from yesterday when I didn't work - so I deliberately made extra. I will do this with carrots and cabbage - chop the carrots quite thin so they cook quickly. I also have in the freezer two meals worth of turkey meatloaf, a chicken and veg crumble and an Ainsley recipe pasta sauce thing.

Couscous/noodles/pasta are quick to cook. And occasionally DH works at home so he can put the oven on for jacket potatoes.

I basically menu plan for the week to include at least 3 meals that can be frozen and reheated. So I made the pasta sauce on Friday, the crumble on Saturday, the meatloaf on Sunday, sausages and mash on Monday because I wanted to play safe with DS's school friend but can use the leftover mash on the shepherd's pie that I made before we went on holiday.

Ask me questions and I will answer. Basically I am organised because if I'm not it all falls to pieces and DH is fairly useless in this area.

Sorry for waffling. What days do you work? What sort of food do you usually have?

Also all the guff about puddings on the other thread - I only usually make puddings when we have visitors. Otherwise it is fruit and/or ice cream. Although I do stew fruit and freeze it in little pots. Find DD in particular will eat more fruit this way.

I work 3 days, Tues, Weds, Thurs

get in at about 4.45pm and the girls and dh get home at 5pm. They are usually hungry. Both are tired and grumpy (and usually dh too).

We bath at 6pm, and bed is usually about 6.45-7pm so I try to get them at the table for 5.15 at the latest.

We eat lots of pasta when we eat together but it gets v boring.

Dd1 a major pita, dd2 will eat anything (but dd1 did at this age and then went baaaaad).

What time do you get in and eat and bed etc?

I work the same days but we are on a later schedule. Get home about 5.50-6, eat about 6-6.15, bath at 7, bed at 7.30. I try to aim for the earlier end of all this but doesn't always work out. DD is often in a right mood as well.

I think there is quite a lot you can do in half an hour tbh if you are organised beforehand. For instance, you could do spag bol so make double sauce some other day and then warm it up and cook the pasta when you get in. And another tip is that fresh pasta takes less cooking time if you are feeling rich. And put the kettle on to boil as soon as you get in - before getting changed or going to the loo or anything and then use this water for the pasta. Or for veg if you are cooking them.

Or you could make a stew on a Monday and eat the leftovers on the Tuesday. Or I sometimes make sausage casserole and freeze half. The half we have at the weekend we eat with jacket potatoes. The half we eat in the week we eat with chunks of bread so it is just a case of getting it out of the freezer the night before and then when you get in, heating it through and chopping the bread.

I know a lot of people say you shouldn't but I reheat rice. So I make biryani, rissotto and jambalaya and reheat these - just by plating them up and sticking them in the microwave.

I don't have a microwave. I have no idea why as it would be useful I suppose, just never got round to it

Now last night I was running late and got in at just after 5 so it was a mad rush to sort stuff out, I just don't think I am able to do 'good' dinners on the 3 days I work really.

Do you do a shopping list every week and plan all your meals down to lunch and dinner etc? And if you do, gimme the list

Hmm without a microwave some things would be difficult. If you have no objections to one you can pick them up pretty cheaply.

Last night was a bit of a trial for me too. I got home at 5.50 and DD was in a right mood and - wouldn't stop crying and DH was away, so I was holding her on my hip while trying to prepare the food with my free hand.

I shop online and generally plan 3 (ish) meals with a view to making double quantities and I get the shopping delivered on a Thursday evening so it is already for my at-home days. Lunches I buy a couple of things in and make sure there is bread and cheese (DH has cheese sandwich every day when working - yawn). For lunches when I am not working we generally have things like scrambled eggs on toast, beans on toast, cheese on toast, sardines on toast (for the kids only),pasta and pesto (maybe with a veg also), omelette, jacket potato, tinned soup etc.

So this week the plan is:
Friday - chicken biryani (make double)
Saturday - make a bacon & mushroom quiche, and a leek and feta quiche and eat one with potato wedeges and babycorn/mange tout or some other veg
Sunday - Chinese takeaway with friends
Monday - beef stew and dumplings
Tuesday - leftover stew
Wednesday - something out of freezer (maybe chicken and veg crumble)
Thursday - something out of freezer (maybe turkey meatloaf)

Also what I cook on which day may get swapped around depending on how busy I am each day. I often do the prep while DD is having her nap because I tend to be out later in the day.

neither of mine have a nap now and I really miss it as that was my time to do jobs. And at weekends we want to be out and about, instead of in the house

I get them saying "stop cooking mummy, come and play" and as I only get 2 days off with them I feel mean not to

always being pulled in different directions eh?

I think I will try and do a bit more planning and see how I do

Ah you see DS is at school and DD does still have a nap. Although not usually on a Friday because there is not time to fit it in after her swimming and before collecting DS from school.

DS is very self-contained and quite happy to play in his bedroom. DD is the total opposite and insists on standing on a chair next to me while I am cooking. And, yes, sometimes this drives me to distraction.

Meeting up with friends on Sunday has fallen through but I have arranged to go to the Railway Museum with a friend and her DS tomorrow so have replanned the menu. We had quiche tonight. I cooked it while DS and his friend played upstairs and DD and her friend charged around downstairs with their "babies" so I kept having to break off to negotiate who had the pram and who had the pushchair.