Meals with absolutely minimal prep that can go in the oven on a timer

[drspouse]

Ok, so when we want to all eat together (DS, DH and I) the last 20 minutes before DH comes in are mainly full of DS throwing a tantrum or doing a wee on the floor, DD screaming for a bottle, or both. So I have given up on preparing anything that "only takes 15 minutes" because I don't have those particular 15 minutes (it's Ok if we're eating after DS goes to bed, either one of us can prepare at leisure).

I have a window when they are both napping in the afternoon, if I'm lucky, but it can be only half an hour some days, though DD isn't too bad about sitting in the bouncy chair looking at Washing Machine TV and DS still naps for a decent length of time.

But so far all I can think of to prepare in this time is chicken tray bake with veggies, or sausages/breaded fish/fish cakes and oven chips/potato wedges, with frozen veg at the last minute, to put in the oven on a timer. Or a nice ready meal (but the only ones we actually like are the Cook! ones that are v pricey). I have a bit of a brain shutoff on this topic unfortunately.

Any other thoughts? Unfortunately DS is allergic to tomatoes.

Great idea for a thread!

Piri piri pork, crusty bread or wraps, a bit of salad and Uncle Ben's rice.

Buy a pork loin and a bottle of Nandos piri piri or BBQ sauce or a sauce you fancy. Marinade for a while in about half the sauce. Pour the other half into a pan.

A bowl of ready prepared salad, or a bit of lettuce and cucumber.

Cook the loin for 45 minutes (just realised that doesn't meet the twenty minute criteria but it is still really easy).

Slice and serve with the rest of the sauce heated up, bread, salad and rice.

Burgers and rolls .

Again, not quite the twent minutes requirement but...

Stick a chicken in the slow cooker in the morning. Cook on high for five/six hours.

Serve with wraps, rice and salad. I

Or, tray of roasted vegetables.

Cottage pie, fish pie, chicken and mushroom pie (we like pie!!!)

Chop everything ready for a quick cook meal like fajitas, curry, stir fry etc?

Invest in a slow cooker and throw together stews and soups and chilli con carne in the day- it's brill!
Or chicken thighs, chorizo, sweet potato, potato or squash chunks tray bake.
The other thing I do is prep a pasta sauce and then just reheat it and cook pasta last minute.
Salmon fillets with pesto and cream cheese on them ( and a sprinkle of breadcrumbs if you have) with cubed roast potatoes ( don't bother peeling just chop up really small cubes and add olive oil and rosemary and they cook really fast in oven)

Fillet of fish each, e.g. tonight I had rainbow trout from Tescos. Wrap in foil with some lemon juice squeezed on them, then put back in the fridge until you're ready to cook. I oil the foil with spray on oil because it's so easy.

Wash and cut a few potatoes really small, skins still on. Put in fridge.

15 mins before you want to eat, stick wrapped fish in oven (my trout said on the packet 12 - 14 minutes gas 4) and small potato bits on to boil (they'll cook really fast if cut up small).

Take salad out of packet and put dressing on it. Strain and mush up the potato and add butter to make mash. Take fish out when done, and serve. Genuinely really easy and quick, maybe five mins prep then 14 mins cook time with very little else to do. Make cheese sauce from a packet if you can be bothered.

As above but with chicken breasts instead of fish, chicken I think takes about 45 mins to cook but you don't need to do anything to it during this time.

As above but with boiled whole new potatoes, they'll take longer to cook but nothing extra to do - if they overcook then just mash them.

BTW does food have to be on the table the second DP gets home? Can't one of you deal with the kids at that point so the other one has fifteen minutes to make dinner?

The twenty-thirty minutes isn't the cooking time, that's ok, it's the prep time during naps! Cook time can be a couple of hours.
I'm pretty sure i don't have time to prep any kind of fish/cottage pie during nap though unfortunately.
mami do you mean burgers done the oven? Aren't they a bit dry?
Whole chicken on a timer also sounds good. Any cold side bits I can prepare and hide during nap time (DS whines for visible food).
Anything that says "10 mins before you eat" is a non-starter I'm afraid unless it's "press the microwave button". We have about a 10 min window between DH getting home and DS needing to eat so he can have time before a very early bed, unfortunately, and DH needs to test his blood sugar, we need a spare few minutes for emergency nappy changes etc. Most days when I have both of them at home he walks in to all three of us screaming and I have to hand him one child, but neither of us can cook for 15 mins with a screamer and often they aren't in a state to both be handled by one parent (which is why I'm screaming too).

Chicken in oven on timer. Make cous cous with boiling water/herbs/chopped pepper or cucumber, put in fridge. Bag of salad. Yoghurt for pudding.

Sausages/stock/grated carrot in oven on timer. Chuck jacket potatoes in too. Cook frozen peas ahead of time and blast in microwave for 1 min to serve.

Chicken pieces, chorizo, stock, rice, peppers or whatever, in oven on timer. Bag of salad.

Sweet potato, celeriac, butternut squash in chunks with olive oil, in oven on timer. Bag of salad, cucumber, and bits of nice bread to serve. (If more time, take roasted sweet pots etc out of oven, whizz with stick blender thingy, add stock, and blast in microwave for a chunky soup. Serve with bread and cheese).

Cook pasta, make cheese sauce. Combine. Shove in oven with grated cheese on top on timer. Serve on it's own. Or with salad.

Or least effort. Get everyone to the table. Give DCs a bit of bread each to chew. Put bits from fridge on table.....cheese, salad, cucumber, ham, yoghurts. Hand out crackers and bread. Everyone has bits and bobs....you and DH cut up bits and hand to DC as and when. Big pot of tea. Nice shop cake for pudding. Like and old fashioned Sunday tea time. Bung crumpets in toaster as you go along for something warm. Add honey. Yum. And easy. Very popular tea in our house.

Or make a hot pudding in the oven...stewed fruit goes well on a timer, or apple crumble. Tin of custard or with Greek yoghurt. If children starving let them have this first....warm and filling, stops all whining. Then follow up with ham sandwich, or chicken wrap made at the table whilst they eat pudding.

I am a big fan of pudding-first dinners with small children. Once hunger is assuaged then can chat and persuade them to eat protein and veg.

Watching in hope-this is exactly the sort of dinners needed here!
How about a substantial cauliflower cheese? With bits of bacon etc. or served with sausages and jacket potatoes.

I'm at this stage with my two as well. We tend to eat together when we can, but if it's a particularly bad evening with kids we end up eating late.
My fail safe option is frozen fish, chips and salad. The little ones have fish fingers.

First thing in the morning remove a bag of cubed stewing lamb and a bag of preprepared stew veg from the freezer.
When you have your 20 mins prep later: put meat and beg into a casserole with 2tins toms, 2 tbs tom puree, a tbs dark brown sugar,. 2 tsp chinese five spice and a clove of garlic. Put casserole into oven with a large potato each.
3-4 hours later serve barbecue lamb and jacket potatoes.

We don't usually bother with pudding (see: testing blood sugar!) so that's not an issue!

Some great ideas here though.
I always forget you can cook rice in the oven, can't stand microwave rice but oven cooked basmati is lovely.
Only DS is on solids (he's 2 but doesn't need "child" food, far prefers expensive breaded fish to cheap fish fingers the annoying child). He doesn't cope well with serving dishes on the table though so we always dish up in the kitchen. I do give him quick cheese/hummus on toast if pressed for time though.

Oh yes - if you were doing a stew without tomatoes - what would you put in? The no tomato thing is recent, since last winter/stew season.

I never put tomatoes in stew. Just browned diced stewing meat, onion, carrots and parsnips, water and a Knorr stockpot, some seasoning, sometimes some red wine and a tsp of mustard, occasionally though I add a tbsp of tomato puree - would he have a problem with that?

MrNC and I tend to microwave our meals. Itend to cook on Sunday and Wednesday and that's it.

So if there's rice or pasta or potatoes, and some roasted chicken or stir fry or curry, and frozen veg, then it's easy to heat up a meal.

Slow cooker.

Yesterday I stuck beef mince in, chopped onion, chopped carrots and frozen peas and then water and a big shake of gravy granular. I peeled potatoes and put them in water on the hob, unlit. It took about 10 mins in all and I did it before the school run. 30 mins before DH came home I stuck the hob on. For dinner I drained pots, mashed lazily (kept loads of lumps, put pots on plates and spooned on mince.

I cooked double so that half could go in the freezer to be microwaved another day.

Today I have 1kg of chicken pieces in a tin of tomatoes, with loads of soy sauce and brown sugar and some garlic, in the slow cooker. Will put on rice when get home. Again made double of what we need:

Oh, saw the no tomato thing. In that case I'd do chicken with chicken stock a heap of lemon juice, oregano and garlic.

We don't have anywhere to put the slow cooker so I've put it in storage till we don't have a steriliser and Tommee Tippee bottle making machine taking up every inch of the work top. I'd like to get back into using it in the future but I just found all the recipes were stew, stew, or stew, or VERY large chunks of meat, or used really salty prepared sauce in jars. Or had tomatoes in. Or all of those...

Sorry Starlight but I have to say that mince dish doesn't sound appealing at all! But good tip to put the potatoes on the hob ready to turn on (I never peel them anyway), that's the kind of thing that just doesn't seem to occur to me. And the non-tomato chicken sounds nice, and I could do it with baby stock cubes too.

E.g. this is the kind of thing that looks like a good idea for the slow cooker (I'd probably just make one or two though!) but is almost entirely made up of prepared sauces... and I know you have to compromise to some extent on pre-prepared versus cooking from scratch, but I'd rather not have everything in salty pre-prepared sauce, especially if I'm going to be using some of it for DD in a couple of months.

But I know you can do a lot of slow cooker things in the oven, and we have a decent casserole dish to do that with, so I think I can probably try some slow cooker recipes too.

Try the mince beef thing. I was doubtful until I tasted it. Now we have it as is, or as a filling for a pie, or with other spices/herbs.

Chop up two chicken breasts. Fry to brown. Add a bit of garlic. Add a glass of white wine and cook until no longer pink. Add fresh or frozen spinach and cook a bit more eg till wilted or defrosted. Add a good splash of cream or yoghurt or creme fraiche. Salt and pepper.

Quick and surprisingly fancy. I use left over white wine or I buy a cheap bottle, divide it into 6 jars, freeze and defrost for a minute in the microwave just before I need it. Works well, and if it's still not quite defrosted I chuck it in anyway.

I might use a few of those frozen spinach parcels if I don't have fresh.

I serve this dish as a sort of pasta sauce with body, usually. The kids like it.

Baked risotto; chop your onion, grate the parmesan and measure out the rice while your dcs are napping. Then it's all ready when the time comes. Serve it with frozen peas and/or a green salad and/or green beans etc.

Potatoes dauphinois. (But a food processor makes it much easier...)