Nourishing the newly-single mum

[MoominCake]

Stbxh left me with 22 month old DD 9 weeks ago. I’d been a full-time mum but have got myself a new job starting next week which I’m very excited about. It is full-time, but new employer understanding and happy for me to get away at a reasonable time to get DD from nursery. Friends have been marvellous and I’ve lost over a stone, hurrah.

I know it’s going to be tough, and I’m going to be juggling lots of balls in the air. I want to make sure I don’t run myself into the ground not eating properly and I need to keep my energy levels up.

I’m a good planner with a spare freezer in the garage and I eat almost anything. I just need some inspiration please for meals for one because I don’t always want to be sitting down to reheated chilli con carne, if you see what I mean? I love to cook but will need to have something on the plate in around 30 minutes, once I’ve put her down to sleep. Any ideas gratefully received!

That sounds really tough so kudos for going for it.
Would you have any time to batch cook at weekends? I would suggest that's best to avoid the stress of preparing a meal every night when you get home from work, or a slow cooker would be good to have a meal to come home to.
I keep going back to a few of Jamie Oliver recipes and Annabelle K's turkey burgers. Good luck to you as as a FT single parent, I take my hat off to you

Thank you. Yes, I will definitely keep batch cooking. It’s sort of therapeutic stirring up big pots of stuff! That’s really what I’ve existed on for a while now, but I’m getting a little bit bored of the same things which are basically chilli, spag bol, stews and soups. Turkey burgers sound yum. I’ve made Nigella’s turkey meatballs before and they were delicious. I’m definitely in the ‘live to eat’ camp!

There’s quite a few cookbooks with recipes for healthy, tasty meals that you can cook in less than half an hour.

Sorry, should add, I don’t know any of the names off the top of my head, I just know that lots of them do exist helpful.

I've found fish is good, flash fry a fillet of fresh fish in seconds in a pan.

Serve with salad? Baked potato?

Good luck OP you sound like a very impressive person.

Or, cook a pan of rice, then keep it in the fridge overnight, when you get in just stirfry it with onions/peas/veggies and an egg.

One of my favourite quick meals is this.

Cook enough pasta for one.
When cooked, stir in a dollop of olive oil and the juice and grated rind of half a lemon.
The add smoked salmon
Rocket
Stir altogether and add plank pepper.

Quick, tasty and nutritious 🙂

put taglitelle on to boil. in a pan cook some onion.garlic,spring onion in oil and nob of butter.add wine.cook down a little.add stock.bubble to a good concistancy.add salmon and prawns.cook through(they are very quick)add spoon of crème fraiche to reach desired thicknes.stir tough pasta.yum.
double stuff jacket potatos.scoop out flesh.mix with cheesy leeks and bacon mixture. or put into the skin(boat)your mince then top with scooped out flesh for mini shephards pies.
pastry tray bake.buy those ready to roll jus roll sheet.lay it out,bash on some filling,veggies,salad,meat.eggs pesto chicken etc etc limitless options.cooks in 20.
little rostis
fritatas.
jas up spaghetti by making it into a pan frittata.with goats cheese broccoli tomatos and bacon.
poach meets like chicken so they keep tender.this is the easiest way ive found when cooking for one often results in dry chicken breast.
stuff chicken with herbed cream cheese.wrap in bacon.cook with a handful of cherry toms.
pork chop tray bake.

Oh and yiu can bake jacket potatoes, freeze and uhave another night. That might make things a bit easier sone nights 🙂