At my wits end with cooking for family

[songbird54]

DH and I have busy jobs, often finish at 6pm. I’m shattered and so over trying to scrabble around cooking dinner for us and primary school aged DCs. We tried Cook food for a while but it felt stodgy and portions weren’t always big enough.

I would love a family cook/meal prep person who could come and either batch cook or just chop vegetables so we can chuck in the oven or in a pan. I’d also love some help preparing lunch food for myself as we are at an age where we want to eat healthily and keep our weight down, but it takes so much thought and preparation. I would much rather have the time and energy back to spend with the kids.

Is this a housekeeper?? Can such a thing be found outside of London/the south east? (We are in Yorkshire) Would love to hear solutions that other people have found helpful - meal service? Home help? What category should I be looking under?

I’m looking for a person or service rather than tips on how to manage my time so I can fit it all in type thing.

Yes of course you can hire a housekeeper. They would cook and do other things for you. Try somewhere like this

Have you tried Gousto? It made a big difference to us as come home and know exactly what is for tea and don't have to think about the shopping to make healthy meals and lots of the recipes are quick and easy and the best bit is that our teenagers enjoy cooking it !

Thanks I’ll check this out - I don’t know anyone where I live who has hired a housekeeper so not sure if the demand is there locally, but I’ll do some research!

Yes I’ve tried Gousto and Hello Fresh in the past but found it was more of a brain ache cooking unfamiliar things and having to follow the instructions really carefully. It was great for expanding our repertoire of meals but I’m looking for someone to take the whole mental load of it including the prep. Love that your teens get involved! We are not quite there yet as my DC are younger but that’s worth thinking about for the future.

I have the same problem. Nights I finish at 6/6.30 after a 10/11hr shift I really can’t be bothered to mess about making meals when I get in especially when I might have to be back at work for 7.30am. I’d love to have someone do this for me.

I know that in the USA you can hire for this kind of thing through Taskrabbit and similar sites. Just not sure what the UK equivalent is? And because I’m in the north where things like Uber are really hit and miss, not sure if I’d be better off just creating a job advert and sharing it on Facebook type thing??

I found, when dd was small especially, that coming in and starting food was a killer.

But if I came in and had to reheat a sauce, boil a kettle and cook pasta/rice, and could turn around to emptying bags, hearing the days' news, dealing with homework reading etc before dinner - it was much easier.

So I would make a double batch of a sauce on a Sunday while cooking a roast dinner so in the kitchen anyway - spaghetti Bol sauce. A curry, chilli con carne etc. Or make a couple of full pies - shepherd's, smoked fish and broccoli (potato topped), chicken and mushroom (shop bought pastry topped), lasagna etc.

One half of the batch was for Monday's dinner (reheat sauce on arrival or set the pie in the oven on timer to be done shortly after we were due home). And the second half was frozen. Later in the week, I would take out a frozen dinner from a previous week for the same kind of easy prep.

The other cheat was to prep dinner the night before. So after having eaten dinner, when doing the cleaning up and washing up, I would peel and chop veg and potatoes, chop and marinate meat, ..pull a bag of marinated meat from freezer ... basically all the grunt work for tomorrow so all I needed to do was turn on pans and cook so even a stir fry was an easy dinner as it was open tuna and put into the pan in the right order. Or prep a traybake, that I could set on a timer in the morning or just throw in the oven when I got home at night.

Sometimes I would buy the veg already prepped but I didn't like to cost and the amount that got wasted in our house. But doing it after dinner when the chaos of arrival home was gone and people were fed and settling into the evening, worked better.

When I did my food shopping, I would chop my meat up and freeze it in dinner sized portions, and sometimes season it before freezing as well. And I also kept things like oven chips (potato and sweet potato varieties) frozen veg and some easy dinners in the freezer for nights when things went awry.

Sorry, I know that's what you weren't looking for - but it is what worked well for DH and I both working very FT hours and having a small dd to feed, and later when he had to do 4 years overseas and I had to manage young primary school dd on my own in the last recession (while still working more than FT hours).

I also like to prep bags of Mediterranean veggies (onion, garlic, peppers, courgettes, tomatoes, mushrooms etc) by dicing them all the same size to roast (can be done from frozen), and use leftovers with pasta and tomato sauce (and some bacon lardons or diced chicken fried off quickly). Any leftover pasta and sauce can be frozen to make a pasta bake another night.

A housekeeper would usually do quite a bit more than this - light cleaning, organising etc - but it doesn't hurt to look into it. Or check with local catering companies if they offer such services? I would think a student or trainee chef would be possible- it's just figuring out where to find such a person?

In the short term, it's worth considering other convenience options that could work for you. Eg paying more for pre- chopped veg from the supermarket was something I did a lot when I worked in the city and was home late a lot- so those bowls of pre -prepared veg or even pouches ready to microwave/steam or trays for the oven. I never liked ready meals but I did buy a lot of pre-preapred chicken/fish from M&S. It would be things like parma ham wrapped chicken breasts with a sauce ready to go straight into the oven or marinated meat that could be quickly grilled or roasted. It's all a lot more expensive but if you can afford it, a godsend.

I also used to buy things like pouches of rice and the pre-prepared veg pouches to microwave at the office which I would have with cooked chicken, hot smoked salmon or similar. Again, lunch costs rapidly escalated but I cared less about that than I did about eating a decent lunch that wasn't a sandwich.

I think a housekeeper is the right job, if you want to pay home cooking rates rather than chef rates. It might make sense to bundle in some cleaning tasks unless you already have that covered elsewhere. You just need to make sure you are paying for enough hours for the job to be done properly, and give them the time at the beginning to learn your likes and priorities. Food planning is quite personal if it's your day to day, not just a one off.

Hang onto your meal plans from previous weeks and hand them over to the person - it's all "brain work" you've done documenting what you like and eat.

You could still cut a few corners eg have them do the main but use microwave rice, and being prepared to eat the same dish 2 nights in a row.

Just a thought, if you have any friends who have nannies - or maybe try some agencies - I wonder if there might be scope for a sort of "nanny/housekeeper share" with a family whose children are off to preschool or school, but who wants to keep the wraparound. If you can offer flexibility round school runs etc and you can find someone local enough, they might be able to combine your job with their existing nanny role as the children outgrown needing FT care.

Have you tried doing "serious" batch cooking? It can work really well and save you time and stress. Look at the Batch Lady online and recipe books. Her "grab and cook" bags might be ideal; 5 minutes to throw things in bags at the weekend, freeze and get out the night before you want them and then most just need to be thrown in the oven or simple cooking.

I would just make an advert for exactly what you want and place it on your local marketplace - that would be an ideal job for someone I’ve no doubt !

I know people who would do this as a job. Though they might be more likely to deliver stuff for you to heat up.

I have a friend who has a career who comes in and cooks (well) her tea every night.

A colleague of mine pays his friend to cook his dinners.
She's cooking for the family anyway, she makes an extra portion and he collects them. Not sure if frozen or not.
Another colleague gets meals delivered to work that he just heats up. Anyway, the point is you can think outside the box.

Loads of people moan they can't get school hours work. Why not make a Facebook post saying you want someone to cook for you 3 times a week? They could come into your house say 2-3pm and leave the oven on a timer so it's ready when you get home. Or arrange delivery.

Around here there are a few people who offer a “freezer filling” service. They will batch cook meals/sauces for your freezer. I don’t know how widespread this is, but you would probably find them advertising on local Facebook pages or similar.

You could also look at Stocked which is a similar idea. Curries, chilli, sauces, casseroles etc that go in the freezer and you just do the rice/mash. I think this is a great idea although haven’t tried them personally so I don’t know how the quality compared to Cook/homemade. They sell their stuff in “cubes” so you can adjust the portion size to suit unlike Cook.

Freshly cooked food like salads and fish is harder to buy in unless you use a Gousto or Hello Fresh service. Maybe that’s one to try in the summer when slow cooked food is less appealing.

@TwinklyStarlight yes this is a great point about the nanny share and might be helpful. I am wondering if asking them to come at 11.30 and make lunch for me (chop veg for salad or cook something simple) and then prep dinner for the family. We could make it 3 days a week to give some variety but I was even thinking just give them the Mindful Chef recipe book and say cook anything from that type thing.

I have a separate cleaner and we could maybe use some support with school runs so could bulk out the role a little, but now the kids are both in juniors we need a lot less than we would have done when they were home.

@Paradoes Yes I have never seen anyone do this but it might be a good option - it could be quite a good fit for someone who is looking for some casual work that fits around the school run. I think part of me is a bit nervous that other people will be like ‘who do you think you are hiring out stuff that most mums just do’, but I would love to make life and work feel more manageable.

@BigDahliaFan that’s encouraging! I’ve done some googling and most websites are either personal chefs for a big occasion or carers for the elderly which doesn’t feel like quite the right fit. But maybe it’s the kind of thing that just putting an ad on Facebook might be most effective for.

@Huskytrot yeah I like this idea actually! And you’re right, it’s a bit outside of the box so not necessarily what you can find established already but I think would be a good job for some people and a great service for others to have

@minipie I’ve seen the ‘bricks’ advertised and wondered if it might be worth a try! Also Frive but they have quite bad reviews on trustpilot so not sure if it’s worth it. I can’t eat tomatoes so that makes batch cooked stuff more complicated but I’ll google freezing filling service and see where I get to.

the thought of not having the 6.30 energy slump followed by late dinner and kids late to bed is making me feel quite hopeful 😂😂

Thanks for all these replies - it’s giving me some good ideas about where to look. I don’t think it’s quite a mothers help or nanny because I would actually like to outsource the food prep so I can be more present for the kids in the evenings, but going to look at freezer filling services and maybe do an ad for a food prep person locally.

I used to provide exactly this service, or something very similar. I had a list of meals I could cook and a price per portion and would deliver a batch as needed. They were generally freezable and in reusable containers so I would just swap them out.

I freelance as a designer now but it's exactly the kind of thing that would work between my busy periods. I advertised in the local shop so it might be worth doing similar.

Tbh I love the idea of hiring a part time personal chef, it's one of the top things on my list if I won big on the lotto!

I found someone like this, not just food but
more a house keeper who helped across all household tasks via Nextdoor (twice). The First Lady had been a professional housekeeper in big estates in Scotland and had semi retired to my area with her partner, eventually she retired through ill health and the Second Lady was also a therapist who wanted some guaranteed regular hours of work while she built up her own business. When she was ready to go full time with that I needed the help less as it had mostly been when my two children were very small. Next door was much better than Facebook for me up in the north east so certainly no more metropolitan than Yorkshire