Meals

[slipperandpjsmum]

Just wondered if anyone has any tips for cooking. Do you cook meals ahead of time and freeze them? Which meals work particularly well for the larger family? Any tips very welcome!

All the basics: shepherds pie, chicken curry, spag bol, fish pie, roasts, stews, macaroni cheese, toad in the hole etc. Am a big fan of ubiquitous mince - mince with lots of different veg (chopped small) and a few lentils in a tomato sauce. One 500g thing of mince can do x3 meals for my four boys this way e.g. day one spag bol, day three shepherds pie, day five chilli etc.

Same as cooking for fewer kids really - only thing I would recommend is insisting that they eat whatever is served and if they don't then too bad, they'll have to wait for the next meal. Cooking separate meals for more than a couple of kids is a huge waste of time IMHO

I cook and freeze stuff then re-heat through the week. I also fill the slow cooker during afternoon nap time and leave it cooking through the school run until tea time. I have completely given up cooking from scratch when the DC's are around its a nightmare for me.

DP cooks at the weekend, usually something with mash so I get him to make too much mash so I can freeze portions of that too. I always have at least 1 emergency meal in the freezer like frozen mash, fish fingers and veg. Fridays is always something easy like pizza.