Timesaving,meals and how to keep juggling work and home life.

[namechangefortoday543]

Hi all
I thought a thread for us to talk about time saving tips, how to eat healthy quick meals and keep a balance between work and home.

I was a SAHM in the early days but Im one of those people who needs the time pressure to get on with things so WOH is better for me and my MH.
I was a terrible procrastinator and really couldn't be bothered to really crack on and get things done.
DH and I have our own chores and generally both pitch in.

My best tips are :
Set up online shopping - it takes minutes to do the shop,I do it while I watch Saturday Kitchen
Meal plan: saves time and money .
Use your slow cooker - I set up the next days meal in it and place in the fridge and then take it out and whack on in the morning.
We have lots of casseroles, bolognese, tuna pasta bake,veggie curries and its lovely coming home and dinner is ready plus not too many pots and pans.
I have 2 really good slow cooker cookbooks-by Judith Finlayson
Get milk delivered.
I did school laundry on a Friday night and had it dried and hung up so that I don't have to run around looking for it and washing on the weekend.
keep a big stock of cards, wrapping paper and buy presents online.
My DC pack their own lunches the night before and are responsible for getting up on time and all their own stuff. no mollycoddling here
Pay bills as soon as they come in,deal with letters etc

Ah, so many good ideas to steal, thanks all!

I have a Roomba. It is an incentive to clear and tidy one room properly every morning. Then I set it going as I leave the house each day.
I meal plan and do certain household tasks on set days to stay on top of things a bit.
I box up individual portions of lots of dishes so there are always one person 'ready meals' in the freezer for emergency.
I buy frozen fish and cook it from frozen. Thus I can have a stir fry with noodles topped with a pan cooked fillet of salmon, for example on the table within 20 mins of walking in the door.
I use the slow cooker for things which require/taste better with a slow cook (shin beef, gammon, bolognaise) but don't use it for chicken, for example, as it overcooks if left all day. On Bolognaise: it is still watery after slow cooking but ideal for lasagne, so I'll use it to make one up for the next night.
I bulk buy onions and chop them up for the freezer. I bulk cook potatoes and carrots and have bags of mashed potatoes and carrot (separately) in flattened ziplock bags so I can snap off portions.
I do one big butcher shop each month, portion up and freeze everything: for example I buy 5kg of chicken breasts at a time and freeze in bags of 2, shin beef gets frozen 1kg at a time.
I make up cheese rolls and ham rolls in 12s, individually bag and put in the freezer: they can go straight into lunch boxes and be defrosted by lunchtime. This does not work if you put the tomato or cucumber in before freezing!

I get up at 6, do 45ish mins of 'chores' before breakfast, then kids up and ready, me dressed and bit of make up and then I swoop out at 7.30. DH does breakfast club run.
Evening - quick audit of school bags, DH does packed lunches if needed. Washing into tumble. One of us cooks, the other 'supervises' bathtime/reading/homework. School bags ready. DH cleans kitchen. Sat down by 8 on a good day.

All goes to pot on the weekend. Thank god!

I don't clean really, so can't comment on that.
I make DH do all the ironing, so that helps.
weekly online shop, and i work next to a tesco so i can grab a quick top up shop on my way home or if I can carve out a lunch break I do it then.

the food thing though, I'm quite good at that bit. I work four days, so on at least two of my non-work days I cook double, which means I only have a couple of nights where I'm cooking after work, as opposed to to reheating. Curries, tagines, bolognese, chunky soups and stews, any kind of one-pot type dish like chicken cacciatore.

quick suppers are pasta with smoked salmon and lemon, or sausage and mushroom, or carbonara; steak or chops with gnocchi and veg, frittata, nicoise salad, fish with a chive and creme fraiche sauce, potatoes and veg, paella ( i saute the onions and chorizo the night before so it only take 20 mins), thai chicken noodle soup.

Interested in that TPB in the slow cooker!
I use my slow cooker every week - variation of beef casserole, or sometime the veggy curry mentioned below.
I love coming home and having dinner warm and cooked for us.
Often put the oven on timer with baked potatoes to be ready when we get home.
I buy lots of frozen veg - very cheap in ASDA, much easier to chuck frozen onions, garlic etc in a frying pan than be chopping and peeling, less waste too, and can use just the exact quantity of veg you need whereas our fridge is a bit of a graveyard for fresh veg.
Frozen veg stir fry form Asda good, cooks in minutes.
,

I'm getting my slow cooker back now DD is 1 and we can ditch the steriliser and have a bit more worktop space.
I have been cooking a lot of things in the oven on a timer, prep during nap time while I was off work. I'm not completely sure though that I want to spend my evenings doing prep. Anyone do the freezer slow cooker meal thing? Most of the recipes seem to be with American sauce mixes.

Rather than wash every day we have a cleaner on a Friday and put the children's clothes in the night before, she hangs them up and changes everyone's sheets.

I try and make one meal double, for everyone. The DCs eat a cooked lunch at nursery but they won't feed DC1 tea so we make a packed tea the night before and it's in the fridge waiting when they come home, that's usually DH's job.

Ironing service and online shop, post office in my lunch break, dry cleaning rarely but at the supermarket branch that's open till 8. Pick up prescriptions in my lunch hour too but the chemist is miles from work (there's a tiny one near the GP but they never have anything in) so get the actual medicine on a Sat.

Daily load of washing - often in evening and hung on indoor airer to dry. Cleaner 2 hrs a week, online food shop. Weeknight meals are things like chorizo and roasted veg - in oven for half an hour while chores are done, stir fry, courgette and anchovy pasta, sweet potato and feta, couscous and veg/ salad, fishcakes and veg. Nothing that takes more than half an hour. DC have a hot meal at nursery/ school so they only need a sandwich.

Otherwise it's about keeping up with the tidying, admin, so that non-working days aren't all about chores.

This week's meals have been roast chicken on Sunday (and the left overs have been my lunch all week with salad)
Monday - sausages with mash, veg and previously frozen Yorkshire puddings. I also made a chicken curry.
Tuesday - quiche, new potatoes and salad.
Wednesday- curry made on Monday with 2 minute micro rice and mini naan.
Thursday - burgers with sweet potato fries and salad.
Friday - dinner out.

Watching with interest as I never se to be on top of things! DH and I both work f/t, DS is 4 (starts school in sept).

I have a slow cooker which I used once, about 6 years ago. I need to start using it but not really sure how. A lot of the recipes I've got say you need to brown the meat first - I don't have time to do that in the mornings! Can I put it in raw?

I do meal plans which we try to stick to in the week. I batch cook sometimes but need to increase the amount I do. Am never on top of the washing/ironing

We've just got a cleaner who comes for 2 hours every other week but we might up this to every week. It definitely takes some of the stress away.

We don't do an online shop as we kept getting stuff that went out of date the next day. Supermarket shop is done either Saturday evening or Sunday morning.

You can't really put the meat in unbrowned but you can brown it the night before, I'm fairly happy leaving all the casserole out overnight, uncooked, but you could instead put the pot with all the ingredients in the fridge, including the browned meat, and then put it on in the morning.

I saw a recommendation recently to buy the bags of frozen mince so you don't need to defrost. Anyone done that? What's it like?

I also brown in flour the night before - when cool chuck into slow cooker with veg and place in fridge overnight ,add stock, seasoning, tom puree in the morning.

We are still alive

I also do a tray bake type of thing like chocolatebut its chicken, chorizo and new potatoes halved a la Nigella or I do a different version but use sausages ,potato and lots of red onions,herbs and peppers - yum.
Chuck it all in a baking tray with olive oil and seasoning the night before, come in from work, bung in the oven and dinner is ready 45 minutes !
Only one pan for DH to wash up

I also save time by using garlic olive oil and have those tubes of garlic and ginger puree in the fridge .

Thanks, I'd never thought about doing it the might before! Will have to try it

Meal plan
Mary Berrys quick pasta/fajitas/spaghetti bolognese etc
Low standards of housekeeping!!
Check school bag and deal with stuff ASAP also put term dates in the calendar as soon as I have them
Lots of washing at the weekend

Do any of you have husbands who do a 50% or more share of meal planning, shopping and cooking? (I don't) Seems to be quite rare.

Our DC mainly eat in childcare during the week and DH and I eat separately (we have different hours and preferences). At weekends we try to eat together and I usually cook because DH is terrible! This was fine with our last CM who was a good cook, not working so well in new childcare where they just have a pack lunch for tea and snack when get home.

I avoid hosting meals and having house guests! We know quite a few couples where one is a SAHM who are (as a couple) keen on entertaining. For a while we tried to reciprocate but found it a big hassle!

Visitors or cooking for guests at weekends means not spending much time with each other or the DC and either staying up late catching up with domestics or the following week being a mess. Realise avoiding is quite antisocial though.

DH has got me into the habit of filling the nursery bag as soon as we get home. It does mean it's hanging around full for ages but you don't forget wipes till the night before and then panic (they don't go every day).

I meal plan, but have 4 emergency sod the meal plan dinners if it all goes tits up. ( they are fresh tomato soup, minestrone soup, carbonara and beans and cheese on toast) this means despite my meal planning intentions the dc eat one of the above at least two evening a week. I don't let that worry me.

I can't get on with batch cooking. I forget to take it out the freezer and if I don't forget by the time it's defrosted it's not what I fancy anyway.

Slow cooker aurbegine parmigiana is a good veg staple though only takes 5-6 hours so no good for my work days. North African pearl barley and squash stew is good slow cooked too, in the winter.

In the mornings I get the me dc ready - dressed, hair done, washed etc while he's (dh) downstairs making breakfast and packed lunch. While they eat he goes to get dressed.
This sort of relay approach works well in many ways. Same at bedtime- I bath them, get them dressed, he cleans the kitchen and runs a new bath after tea, he comes up to tell their story so I can get into the bath.

I must confess we are a shop together family I hate supermarkets and get very anxious in them alone, and dh is useless and would come home with loads and nothing. But I find it only takes half an hour max if your prepared and have a list.

I am a single parent WOH and it is very tiring! My meals

1. chilli con carne (fry onion, fry mince, add tin of tomatoes, add chilli seasoning, add red kidney beans - ready in under 30 mins)

1. Chicken pie (frozen sainsburys), frozen chips (Sainsburys be good to yourself), frozen mixed veg - under 30 mins

1. Pasta with bacon, mushrooms and leeks with creme fraiche - under 30 mins

1. Chicken korma sag - (fry onion, chicken, add a jar of korma sauce plus a bag of spinach. Serve with naan bread) - under 30 mins

1. Quick kedgeree - tinned mackerel in oil (or fresh haddock), add curry powder, make rice and boil eggs, add rice to fish and add peas. Chop eggs in half and serve with them on top. Under 30 mins.

On the weekend I normally do a roast and then use the leftovers for sandwiches. I normally make a big batch of cakes too so the kids can have them as snacks.

Big online sainsburys shop once a week. Cleaner once a week (would love to do without it but can't). Washing - one load a day on average (as son plays sport so loads of kit). I unload the dishwasher when I do breakfast and reload it before bed. Son does all the rubbish, daughter helps with cooking. Both are criminally untidy ;)

Sometimes I make the korma with fish, depends how I'm feeling! And in lamb season we do have lamb chops sometimes :). Chops also quick and easy!

PP just get a plug timer for the slow cooker for shorter cooking times.

Also family rule is we have dinner round the table every night and no phones at the table during dinner. So we can all catch up with what's happened in our days and anything they need for school tomorrow.

Breakfast is a rush so is normally toast or cereal or if I'm super early boiled eggs. I leave for work before they go to school so I get breakfast ready and dd/ds clear it up so when I'm back from work there isn't an automatic mess!

Milkman delivers bread with the milk which is a necessity for us. It costs a little bit more but means we always have bread which we need for toast at breakfast!

Some great ideas here. I'm a teacher and try to get things done in the holiday for the next half term, like sorting out birthday presents and cards for the next couple of months. I also online shop in term time, which does save a lot of time, I find i get stuck in a bit of a rut though and jist eat the same things a lot. I like to go to the supermarket in the holidays to try and mix meals up a bit.

Has anyone preped meals for slowcooker and then feozen them? Saw it on pinterest last night (inspired to look up time saving ideas after this thread. Look up freezer meals). Thinking I might give it a go. So all chilli ingredients chopped and meat added to a zip lock bag. Freeze then get out the night before and stick it all in the slow cooker in the morning.

That korma sounds nice, the DCs have just decided they like spinach..

I used to make my own korma sauce which was just curry powder/spices plus half fat creme fraiche or low fat yoghurt - that is substantially cheaper (and probably healthier!) than a jar of sauce if you are on a budget tbh or prefer making your own sauces.

Cleaning lady for an hour a week - keeps on top of bathrooms etc.
Washing machine with 15 min cycle. Do a load or two every night - DH hangs on indoor airer. Finish off drying in TD the next morning.
Online shop every week.
Slow cooker meals most days - we mostly have curry/bolognaise/casserole. No need to brown the meat in advance.
I LOVE pre-cooked packet rice - 1.5 mins in micro - this means curry can be on the table within 10 mins of getting in the door.
Dealing with correspondence/school letters etc as soon as they come in/ noting events in diary as soon as mentioned.
Make packed lunches on a Sunday for Mon, Tue and Wed. Then make two more on Wed night for Thu and Fri.
Things seem to function pretty smoothly here following that routine -notwithstanding the occasional emergency!