Dinner inspo for DC3 and DC6

[ThatBeachLyfe]

Finding it hard to get dinners ready for the kids mon - Fri when working. I’m working until 5 (mainly from home) and go to the gym in my lunch break. Have to collect them at 530 from after school club and wondering if anyone has tried Stocked which looks quite good or even the kids meals by COOK?
We eat later on around 8 once they’re asleep. Do most ppl with kids this age eat all at the same time and have kids who will eat the same as them? My rotation tends to be -

fajitas
baked potato (frozen ones) with beans and cheese
chicken satay noodles with courgette and carrot grated in
pesto pasta with homemade nuggets
and once a week it’s fishfingers and pasta

any easy wins / make aheads ?

thanks in advance

Batch cook bolognese and freeze, then just boil pasta and the sauce separately.

season chicken breast overnight and pan fry / air fry with whatever side you like - rice / mash some veggies

paella is my one pan quick dinner - fry chorizo and chicken thighs in the chorizo fat, add chopped onion, lazy garlic, and the rice then chopped pepper and add stock. When rice is cooked add frozen peas - done in about 30mins

Eat together. I wasn’t doing separate meals after eldest turned 1. We’d get home about 5:30. They’d have a snack - banana or cheese and crackers or a sandwich. I’d start dinner about 6, ready by 7. We’d eat as a family and up for bathtime about 7:30.

If you really don’t want to be cooking a full meal from scratch at 6pm, then cook the night before (whatever you and Dh would cook) and serve it for the next day. You can still all eat together, but the prep work is done.

I do some easy quick meals, like fried eggs, crumpets and fruit salad, or jackets with whatever filling and salad, or creamy pasta with veg, or udon noodles and boiled eggs. Then a few nights are meals I cook once but last several nights - bolongnese with pasta and then on jackets, or a chicken soup, or a curry. This week, it’s chicken tagine and we’ll have that 2-3 nights in various forms. Takes about an hour to cook but I just need to reheat on nights 2 and 3.

If you're working from home can you stick stuff in a slow cooker in the morning before work? Or prep something to pop in the oven before collecting kids do it's ready in your return? Personally I'd batch cook either at yhe weekend ir evening and reheat.

We always ate together, now my favourite times are when all 4 kids are home to have a meal. The conversations are brilliant. To me it's a very important part of the day- the chance to catch up, check in, hear your kids stories. Also important to demonstrate manners and try lots of different food in a safe environment.

Mine are 4 and 1 and I work two days from home and two in the office. We always eat together as well. For two reasons, I think it's so important for children to eat with their parents as researched through studies such as good nutrition through modelling, communication skills and for their own sense of security and belonging. Of course there's times we have separate meals maybe once fortnight but given we've been separated all day, it's good to have that shared bonding together at the end of it. It just seems such a disconnect to be eating every meal seperate together, surely you want your kids to see you all enjoy food together?

Also I don't really have the energy to be making two lots of seperate meals! I do meals in the slow cooker, air fryer or tray bakes.

One thing I do is once a month, make a massive tomato sauce in the slow cooker with various veg (depends what's in the fridge) and blend it up and portion it up go freeze. I then have a base sauce I can use to make quick chilli, curry, bolognese etc.

We’ve eaten together since the DC1 was weaned as family meals were normal as I grew up and I wanted that for our DC. The only exception was when DC2 was extremely fussy and little so we’d give them something like pizza on a Saturday and have a more grown up meal ourselves later, when they were in bed.

Agree with cooking the night before. You’re cooking already so it’s not much of a switch?

Are you already making things easy for yourself like if you cook enchiladas, do you double the mixture and put one lot in the freezer?

I find tray bakes very easy to prep and cook whilst you then sort other stuff out but you can prep them in the morning or even the night before.

Do you do things like curry or jacket potatoes in the slow cooker?

We ate together because I really didn’t have the energy to meal plan and cook 2x more meals than necessary!
Easy wins were:
tuna spaghetti
egg fried rice
falafel wraps
halloumi burgers
hidden veg curry

I get up early (either for a swim or indoor bike while dh snoozes or so I can meal prep. Then I eat with the kids at 6pm ; dh eats later when home from work.

Often I cook in the morning all the way to having pans out and table laid - either meal prep, or actually cook so i only have to reheat

Ideas:

make a shepherds pie ahead of time (very easy, especially as I use Tesco frozen mash which doesn’t contain UPF) and then all I have to do is heat it in the often after work.

make a batch of chilli at the weekend and freeze; all you have to do then is defrost overnight and heat + cook rice

salmon teriyaki - it’s slightly harder work but the kids like it

home made chicken soup and crusty bread (make ahead of time,typically on Sunday if we had a roast at lunch)

cauliflower cheese (make ahead usually before work) with jacket potatoes or Potato smiley faces (also UPF free)

Milk-poached Smoked basa fillet with a fried egg on toast (sounds weird but my kids love it!)

home-made curries with rice

chicken stir fry- prep in the morninn

gammon in the slow cooker (leave to cook during the day), serve with (frozen) mash and frozen peas

Stuffed peppers (I make a mix of lamb mince, orzo pasta, herbs and garlic ahead of time - do that at the weekend, it keeps for several days - you just need ten mins to roast the red peppers in the air fryer then another ten mins to pack with the lamb mince/orzo and pop back in the air fryer to heat through.

Eat together at about 6-6.30pm.

DD (6) likes:
Chicken and bacon pasta
Sausage and mash with veg
Salmon, new potatoes and veg
Pork steaks and veg
Chicken wraps with salad
Fish tacos with salad
Meatballs and spaghetti (batch cook)
Mac & Cheese
Chicken curry (batch cook)
Shepherds Pie (batch cook)
Fish pie (batch cook)
Chilli (batch cook)

I only do 30 min meals or weekend batch cook the longer stuff and if it’s a bad day we also do jacket potatoes, omelette, on toast things too.

Weekends are usually fish and chips/pizza/roast or all day breakfast.