How can I reduce the time spent on shopping/cooking - need your top tips...

[Quandry]

I have decided I simply spend too much of my time food shopping and cooking and I want to try to be more super organised about how to reduce it. Thing is, I don't want to compromise too much on food quality (e.g. don't want to start buying loads of ready meals) or spending loads more.

We're a family of four (with 2 hungry teens) and DH & I tend to share the cooking, so I don't have ultimate control .

We do online shopping with Tesco, but it tends to be a bit haphazard i.e. remember to do a shop once we're really short of everything, and then usually there aren't any delivery slots for days. If DH does the online shop he just re-orders the last order, or all our favourites and we have to cobble together whatever we can - arrgh!

Ideally I'd like an online grocery service which lets me automatically book the same slot EVERY week, then just prompts me to add extra items and checkout. Does anyone do this? Or do I have to force myself to always sit down on say, a Sunday to do my online shop?

I know everyone on MN always seems to say meal plans are the way forward, but how do you know what is going to be happening in a week or 2 weeks time? It always seems that we have something unexpected happening like DS1 will need to stay late at school and then only have a 45 mins window to grab tea before going out again - and it will not be a 45 min window which co-incides with me serving dinner!

What about this whole cooking double portions and freezing? I've sometimes done this in the past for e.g. Spag Bol, and then DH just uses all the frozen stuff when it's his turn to cook, so I don't actually gain any time from this! (Perhaps I need to hide it at the back of the freezer!).
What dishes work well for freezing? What do you freeze them in? Do you cook from frozen, or have to remember to get out first thing in the morning?

If someone with super-organised, OCD tendencies would like to share their strategies please.....

spiderbabymum- austerity housekeeping author is a MNer!

OP- how old are those teens? Surely they can take some of the load of you? Perhpas not if they're Y11/Y13, but otherwise.... they have to learn to be independent, and this is good training for them.

Oh dear - you are all SO organised, I feel ashamed!

The kids are 12 (nearly teen) and 14, but they have so many afterschool things that sometimes they don't finish homework until 7 pm or later.

They do help with dishwasher and making tea/coffee etc, but I don't think I can get them more involved midweek.

Funnily enough, after I posted this Ocado offered me a free trial of Smart Pass, so I'm going to try that. I can't see where you can book a recurring delivery slot though?

Wow, everybody is indeed so organised. Incredible. I could never achieve such level of control.

I rely on three things: 1) emptying the dishwasher first thing in the morning while coffee is brewing and starting it before heading off to bed, 2) being able to put meals together out of whatever is in the fridge, and 3) making quick and simple stuff. And of course doing my best to make DH cook 2-3 times a week.

Simple dishes is my main advantage:

• Stir fry. Put the rice in the electric steamer and then stir fry whatever veg/tofu is available. Takes about 20 mins.
• Chicken soup. Boil chicken carcass for an hour while doing other stuff, take it out, add a couple of diced potatoes, some pasta and herbs, salt, pepper. While the potatoes and pasta are cooking in the stock, pick the meat off the carcass and through it back into the pan. Eat with nice bread.
• Buying nice bread is a saviour. It can make otherwise not very filling (but simple) meals into decent dinners. E.g. cheese toasties and tomato soup (any kind of soup).

I freeze some stuff (e.g. meatballs). I also cook large amounts that we then eat over two days. Or sometimes even three.

I'm not very organised just actually quite lazy!

Hence the batch cooking and freezing so 5 days out of 7 I am just heating up something and putting on a pan of water for pasta or similar.

When I'm doing the Sunday roast, I am chopping up veg and peeling spuds anyways, so it makes sense to do a bit extra chopping and make a spag Bol base (chop onions, fry off mince, add bit of bacon, add tomatoes...simmer for ages), make soup (chop onions, add butter, fry off other bits of veg usually carrots and celery plus a squash, add stock, simmer for ages).

Then I've got several meals started and only have to tart them up on the day we need them. Plus cook perhaps 1 or 2 other meals that week, one of which will be dead easy (toad in the hole or sausages in cider), and one of which might be a bit more complex (fish pie) but only of I can be bothered.

And the teens can def. sort one meal out themselves...frozen fish, chips and peas or something.

quandry surely 7 is quite early for getting homework finished? I'd expect mine to do their after school activity, come home and get a simple tea on the go, eat it, and them do homework. If they were snowed under I'd clear up after tea (whoever cooks doesn't have to clear up in our house). Mine routinely do homework until about 830 or 9 at least.

I have made up a simple chart which I print off each week. The days are listed horizontally, the next row is regular activities/clubs e.g. Wednesday: DS1 - chess; DS2 - hockey; Abgirl - choir. I then have a blank row which I write in any extra one off activities e.g. world book day - costume needed, cake sale, work trips. I do this on a Saturday morning for the following week - also helps me realise that I have not organised the required costume, cakes etc while there is still time to do something about them!

Then the final blank row is where I write the meal plan for the week - doing it this way means I take account of the evening when we only have 30 mins to cook and eat before getting out the door for beavors; or need a separate parents/childs meal due to work commitments.

I have some quick to prepare meals that I use a lot - pasta and sauce; I slow cook stews, chillis and bolognaise frequently; I have an oven I can set in advance that I use a lot for jacket potatoes. A microwave rice cooker is a good time saver too. I tend to keep new recipes for the weekends and only add them in as a week night option if I've tried them and they are quick to do.

I order online straight after the meal planning and normally get a Monday evening slot if booking on a Saturday. If we are busy on the Saturday I will try to fit planning in earlier if possible, doesn't always happen though.

2 other things that work well for us:

• a running list of what's in the freezer that gets added to when the shopping arrives or any batch cooking is completed, and items crossed off as they are used - makes the meal planning v easy

• a chalkboard for anything else that needs adding to the next shopping list

I also always check my favourites when ordering to make sure I haven't forgotten something obvious like milk or bread.

We did have both me and DH doing the shopping/cooking but items were getting missed - me just getting on with this approach is working better and means less food is going to waste. DH still cooks regularly though...

With the 12 year old we need him to do homework as soon as he comes in (after a quick piece of toast or fruit or something) because later on he just doens't have the concentration. He usually has at least an hour of homework.
DS1 is quite often finishing homework later though, as he has about 1.5 hrs.

How many of you honestly have young teens cooking a meal in the middle of the week ? Is this because you are still out at work and getting back much later?
I work freelance from home, so don't really have that issue.

Yes I do, but only on one day when we all have work/school late nights. DS1 who is home first has to put on the oven, put some frozen battered fish on a tray and some frozen chips with it, then whack in the oven. After 15 minutes he has to heat up a tin of beans. (Yes not a very exciting meal, but it's something). By which time I am back, we can all eat quickly and get off to evening activities.

Total outlay of his time...about 10 minutes. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Oh OK - if it's something like that, I can see what you mean. I had visions of them coming in and whipping up a 3 course meal before their homework .

As a Waitrose reductions Expert!! I buy lots of reduced fresh ready meals!

Fresh chicken with chilli oil and lemon 99p
Fresh salmon with feta 99p
Steak with mushroom sauce £1.50

Bag salad 29p

Job done!

On swimming night boys have pasta with a Dolmio sauce £1 in Poundland! They love it and have with garlic bread.

Dh cooks at the weekend and will be more adventurous (as he is a chef)

Works for us.

My friend's child does beans on toast /scrambled egg on toast, not time-consuming.

I meal plan for the week but it's not the end of the world if plans change. I tend to have 1or2 nights in the week that are 'freezer' nights. I won't necessarily know what the meal is going to be but it will be something out of the freezer. If we are out for meal or have a take away in, just switch things about.

I have tried batch cooking for the freezer but to be honest I haven't always liked the results. Something's just don't taste the same. The only meals that I find work are mince based - bolognese, chilli, cottage pie.

I tend to cook on a Sunday, make Sundays dinner, do the prep for Monday's tea and if I'm really organised then sort Tuesday's tea as well. I don't work on a Wednesday and so have time to organise Wednesday night's tea in the day. By Thursday I'm knackerred so that's when I venture into freezer land.

Also, I always try to have a standby tea in the freezer which can be cooked from frozen - this is for the night when I truly can't be bothered and have nothing prepared. I find frozen fish and chips works well for those nights.

Meal planning and on line shopping for me. Ideally I like to do a 2 week meAl plan,work out the ingredients and timing, then buy the food all together on line. My weekly menu is on the door so we know what we're having. Buy frozen veg so I can chuck in the pan quickly. I try to bake a cake once a week as a treat. I prepare the food the night before or cook when the kids are at school. Slow cooker is my best friend!

Thanks for all of these!

Ruprekt - I presume those are instore Waitrose deals? Sadly I am nowhere near a Waitrose, so it would cost me more to get there!

Well, most supermarkets will had a reduced section, or special offers.

I find the key is having some sort of chart or board - I keep a big week-to-view diary on the kitchen table - where its easy to see at a glance what's pencilled in for each day.

To get the cool stuff, yes, it is about £5 a month. Well worth it for me, but obviously you could just follow the recipes which are available to anyone. I like having the shopping lists and the prep lists though as that saves quite a lot of time and thought.

On Tesco online shopping it does record your regular items. If you click on favourites you can click on your usual and your last shop. You can also create shopping lists. I have a shopping list for each meal, when I click on spam Bol it show me all the ingredients you need and I click on the ones I need to buy that week.

Nominate a day for different jobs. On Monday I collect shopping, tue, water plants and empty bins and I also do my next week shopping then, wed I put a dark wash on, thru dust and tidy, fri cleaning the bathroom.

Get everybody involved in a weekly meeting to decide what to eat the following week.

I have a list of favourite meals under various headings (Fish, Chicken, Potato based etc) on the side of my fridge- this was initially created to help with variety. If you are uber-anal you can also note cookbooks and pages. I use this to plan from initially as it really helps with variety, but also reminds me of meals to use up various foods.

I also have a rough list of things in my freezer, as it is a chest one and a bit of a faff to check inside. I check my fridge first for use up items, and then keep the freezer list beside me as I meal plan and shop online. When I use something it gets crossed out, and every so often I have to do a stock take but the 5 mins that takes saves time later on.

Like another poster I try and double up on prep time, so if I am cooking anyway I either do another meal, or at least chop and prep the food ready to 'throw' in for when we need it. I'm getting better at using the slow cooker- have done pulled pork and tomato sauces etc. I also prep in the morning as I have a bit more time then.

If we run out, or low on things I make a note to include for the next online shop. My useful things to keep in the freezer are- frozen rice (even if just for emergencies), 4-5 varieties of veg, bread, a pint milk. My children are younger than yours, but 1 drawer is dedicated to quick teas- fish fingers, pack sausages, gammon steaks, chicken pies which I can either get out in the morning to defrost or cook from frozen.

I meal plan, but often keep the days flexible for when we have stuff except for use by dates/needing a quick meal etc.

I signed up for the Sainsbury delivery pass a few months ago, and haven't looked back. Prior to then it was either feast or famine in our house, I'd have a huge online delivery and then realise I'd run out of something the day after. Have no shops nearby, or any on the way to work, so would have to make a special journey for a top up, and end up spending more money. This way I meal plan, but only for the next 4 or 5 days, so we are working our way through old recipe books and magazine cuttings, cooking lots of easy to cook recipes. I keep a running list, and an order on the online site every 3 or 4 days. If one of the kids decides they want to cook something, or DH fancies something particular there's generally an order coming in the next day or so I can add it too. I always stay in stock of basics, and we've eaten loads less frozen fish and chip type meals. I'm probably spending about the same, but it feels like we're eating well but it doesn't feel overly planned or hard work. I am sure there are offers around to trial the sainsburys pass, basically you can have as many deliveries a week as you want, pay no delivery fee if you've ordered minimum £40, because you've paid for a pass. Currently there is an offer on where you can buy a 6 month pass for £40. For me it's all about time and eating a good variety of healthy (ish) food, and this works. I like Aldi etc, but don't want to spend non working time buying groceries.

I have an Ocado Smart Pass. One of the best things about it is that I can usually get a slot for the next day - no more having to think several days ahead. I can decide on Friday night and get a slot for Saturday evening/teatime. I can almost always get a slot for the next day.
I sort-of meal plan but it's quite fluid based on fish, chicken, sausages, mince plus, rice, pasta (x2) jacket potatoes, wedges. I buy all of these regularly plus bacon and eggs, veggies, chorizo, cheese, etc, then mix them up.
I usually cook something extra at the weekend for an evening meal then will have a quick pasta dish one night, cook after dinner on Monday eve when I'm feeling likely and have an easy dinner - towards the end of the week when I lost my momentum. Friday is French bread, salad and chicken plus snacks.
I try to have dinner cooked in advance so it's quick when I come in tired from work but am happy to cook or prepare something for the next night once I've eaten, had a sit down and got a second wind.

I have a free trial of Ocado Smart Pass at the moment. Someone said you can automatically book the same slot every week - how do you do that? I can't seem to find that option?

I can't believe that more people haven't commented on your dh using your frozen pasta dishes to feed everyone on his cooking night!!! That would drive me nuts, not because I didn't want him to have a more relaxing evening but because he was messing with my system. Can you not allocate nights that you are cooking and commit to cooking a particular three meals each?

Say - My two - fish and chips, chicken korma and the third from the freezer

His two - pizza, lasagne and a third from the freezer.

That way you both can take an item from the freezer without it being a big deal but each week you are also cooking one meal that can be easily doubled to replenish your freezer stock.

Then say for day seven you take it in turns to do a roast and make a batch of soup for the freezer.

That way your freezer stock continues to grow. Especially if the soup you make is full of rice or pasta. Or you buy a big baguette to go with it. And serve it with a pudding.

Hope that helps!

1. Menu plan. Get each member of the family to give you one or two things they want for dinner that week. The rest of the evening meals are pasta.

1. Do your weekly shop in Aldi. I can get round in around 40 minutes, and that's doing a shop for 5 people.

1. Buy a slow cooker. It has revolutionised my life. Why did I not buy one years ago?

1. Keep a list somewhere handy and update through the week, and make sure everyone else in the family does.

I just tend to buy staples as we run out and then we make it up as we go along using up whatever is going out of date first or whatever we feel like if they all have long dates. You need to keep an eye on dates but meat can always be frozen and most veg can be used even if it's starting to go a bit rubbery.

Our staples are (I was going to start a thread about this actually, could be interesting! :))

Chicken or turkey
pork
frozen pizzas
bread
cucumber
onions
garlic
peppers
mushrooms
potatoes
pasta
rice
frozen chips
frozen veg - cauliflower and broccoli and carrot mix, and stir fry mix
tinned tomatoes
baked beans
eggs
bread
butter
milk
flour
dried herbs & spices
few packet mixes - when we're running low I'll go to the shop and see what looks nice.
jars of pasta sauce and curry sauce

I want to make more sauces myself but I'm starting to suspect I'm actually a terrible cook DH never bothers to make a sauce, he prefers to use one from a jar.

Also YY to smaller supermarkets like Aldi. I can get around, pay, walk home and unpack the shopping within 40 minutes. When we go to the bigger supermarkets at the weekend DH drives me insane looking at every little thing and dithering which is funny because that is exactly how I used to shop in bigger supermarkets and subsequently tend to avoid shopping with a partner because I drove every single one mad and always ended up having arguments.

marking place as so many good ideas