So stressed about cooking for baby

[AbsolutelyUselessMum]

I am so ashamed that I've changed my username for this.

I'm 30 and I absolutely hate cooking. I thought that I wasn't the only one, and that quite a few others never cooked. But I've got an 11 month old daughter, and have suddenly realised that I can't keep giving her pouches until she goes to school

I've done some research and bought some supposedly easy books (eg What Mummy Makes), I plan to batch cook as much as possible, but it just feels so overwhelming. I see a recipe for fish fingers that looks easy, then I realise I'll have to think about the potatoes and the veg as well... plus the other two meals for the day! I know, I sound ridiculous. This kind of thing seems to be second nature to everyone else. I know, I know, cooking properly will be much healthier for me and DH as well (we currently live off ready meals or ready done sauces etc, but organic and high quality ones).

I suppose I'm posting here because I want to know...

Was anyone else like me, and how did you transition to being a cook?? Were you left with enough time to sleep and shower and actually spend time with your child?!

Are there any useful tips and shortcuts, other than batch cooking and trying to eat the same things as a family rather than cooking separate meals?

Gosh I feel like such a failure of a human being.

Don't worry, I am actually quite a keen cook but I struggled with it with a baby because the baby takes up so much time or would start crying so I'd have to stop food prep to see to them!
Things that helped:
Yes to batch cooking

Use the microwave - quick to make things like porridge or scrambled eggs and easier to wash up
Meal plan and shop for the week so you don't suddenly realise you are missing a vital ingredient when you have already started cooking. Plan for "freezer meal" once a week - can be something you have already cooked and frozen or something like fish fingers. The good thing about this is that if your plans change you can swap freezer night with a different night.

The baby led weaning recipe book is really good. We still cook things from it years after weaning.

As your baby gets a bit older they can help with cooking, laying the table etc. My dcs like doing this and have done since about 18 months e.g. beating eggs, mixing pancake batter, chopping bananas with a table knife (probably a but older for that one!)

The BBC Eat Well for Less books are also good for a beginner and include ideas for making several dishes at once e.g. spag bol, shepherds pie and chilli which you can then freeze.

Yes to batch cooking! If it’s a busy week and the freezer is full then add will eat from the freezer most evenings, and lunch is what we have - sandwich bits, cheese, tomatoes, ham, cucumber.

Can she not have what you have? Just give her fish fingers instead of making them from scratch shes not going to be eating them everyday.

Mine literally gets a smaller portion of what we eat at tea time. Dont make it difficult for yourself

Try a fish pie instead, potatoes and peas included and you can just do a bit of green veg for the side. Annabel Karmel has a very nice nursery fish pie recipe

Concentrate on one proper cooked meal for you all a day. You can save a small portion for the baby for lunch the next day so she will always get two home cooked meals a day.

Start small and basic otherwise it's overwhelming.
So maybe a jacket potato and cheese, then basic tomato and veg pasta sauce first

Hope this works

Fish fingers come out of a box!

Some sauces I make, many are from jars.

Given the amount a baby eats, I don't think jars of sauce will tip them over with salt etc, and it's nothing compared to the amount in bread etc, which no one seems to worry about.

I think moving away from ready meals is probably a good idea, but ready meals involving jars etc are probably you next step.

I’m just about to buy more of these pots for freezing NUK Food Cube Tray with Lid for Freezing Baby Food | 6 Months+ | Dishwasher Safe | BPA Free www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004EWG9D2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_h.xaGbXJ7J36X?psc=1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21
Last night DD 18mo had one of frozen mashed potato (I made loads extra a few weeks ago, added more milk and no salt to hers before freezing portions) plus one of a meat ragu,- 2 onions, carrots, celery sticks, garlic, pack mince fried up then 2 tins of tomatoes added. Made enough for about 16 meals.
To make her meal I literally popped one of each ice cube into her bowl, microwaved it for a minute then left to cool. If we have rice or chips I’ll give it to her with that but the frozen mash is great.
I also have one full of Jamie Oliver 7-veg tomato sauce which I serve with pasta (or any carbs - she loves dipping buttered toast into it).
If you always have 2 or 3 things in the freezer, you can generally add one to whatever you are having or put one on pasta.
Also If we’ve had a rubbish food day (Mummy’s pizza for lunch...) I add frozen peas / sweet corn to whatever is for dinner. Fruit for snacks. If she’s picky I grate cheese on anything and she’ll eat it.
Keep stocked up on fish fingers / veggie fingers too, and potato waffles, some brands have a lot less salt but I can’t remember which.

Just give them what you eat at that age minus salt and chilli. This is what I was advised by the HV (post 9 months) and it worked very well, no stress.

There are many quick easy things you can give a toddler

Cous cous boil a kettle and pour overuntil just covered leave
Add butter sir in with a fork

Add peas or sweet corn

Serve with fish fingers shop bought!

Batch cook Bolognese......
Pasta sauce
Shepherds pie

Learn how to make a good cheese sauce

Rice: again you can add veg to it and a reduced stock cube

Chicken stew... just cut everything into small pieces and cook

Chicken carrots peas chicken stock! That's it nothing too fancy

I'd leave out onions/garlic until she's older

Serve with rice or the Cous cous

Toast fingers with a poached egg

Anbabell Carmel has some good ideas

You can always mix and match shop bought with fresh stuff

I just remembered more we did at that age because trying to cook with a little one is hard work. I used to sit them in the high chair where they could see me with a few spoons, plastic cups, bowls etc to stir/bang and give them little bits to try eg grated cheese, raw pepper, carrot etc. This generally kept them entertained while I cooked and meant that they tried more food!

Someone else mentioned the Jamie Oliver 7 veg sauce. It is a really good recipe. We often cook a big batch a freeze in different sized portions to use for pasta sauce, pizza sauce etc

Good advice here. Also get a multi tiered steamer for doing different vegetables together.

Do you cook for yourself and/or partner? I just give the baby the same as we have but mashed up a bit, and with no salt added - we put ours on after serving if we feel it needs added salt.

Also freeze some small portions of stuff. E.g. if you make a beef casserole for 4, you and your partner eat 2 portions and then you're left with probably 8 baby portions to freeze.

Frozen veg is also your friend!

@ConfusedcomMum

Just give them what you eat at that age minus salt and chilli. This is what I was advised by the HV (post 9 months) and it worked very well, no stress.

With the greatest of respect this doesn’t work if OP is living off ready meals.

OP I would Learn for make a basic bolognaise sauce - v easy, and covers you for endless meals (chilli, bolognaise, lasagna, cottage pie etc).
Ensure you have a steamer for veg.
Just remember no honey and no salt.

It says in the OP that the adults eat ready meals, so the child can’t eat what they eat-salt content

You lot are amazing, thanks so much. Just like that I feel so much more relaxed about it! I think I've been over thinking things too, imagining that everyone spends three hours every day lovingly preparing three full meals from scratch. I'm sure many do and I absolutely salute them
Thank you all again. Bloody love MN!

This my go to. Just chop up all the veg and cook them, then whizz it up. Then just add pasta. Makes huge batches.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pasta-tomato-hidden-veg-sauce

I try and alternate.

Once or twice a week I make something like Bolognese/ cauliflower cheese of similar. Make it for us too all salt free, then portion out 5 portions for baby to freeze, and then add some stock and salt for us.

A few nights he eats easy things like avocado, scrambled eggs, fruit, toast.

I roast root veg for him as finger food, but do whole tray at once and freeze. Then just microwave. Pumpkin/carrot/ sweet potato/ parsnip. I can just give him those with either something form above, or something quick like fish fillet.

Fish fingers from packet

Don't let it get you down! It's so overwhelming at first, but just like everything baby related the more you do it the easier it gets. You'll become a lot more efficient in your cooking and I promise that soon you'll have gone a week just doing it automatically without worrying about it.

Mine are over 5yo now, but I used to cook up a few bits twice a week to cover lunches (two chicken breasts, steam some broccoli and carrots etc, put into 5 little tubs to cover mon-fri). Breakfast was toast, scrambled egg or porridge and yoghurt so super quick.

Dinners - focus here on making a couple of evening meals that you and dh can have that you can portion up for the little one. Spag bol, as mentioned above, sausages and mash, mild chicken curry etc. Keep it simple. Honestly once you try a spag bol without the jars you will wonder why you were so scared to try it.

I’m a bit like this. I neither cook nor eat a lot of things that would have suited a baby/toddler so we had a lot of pre made Ella’s kitchen pouches and then honestly when she started nursery she eats all of her meals there anyway. At weekends we eat much later than her but we batch cook spag Bol, pasta and and shepherds pies for her - then she sometimes has beans on toast, fish fingers mash and peas etc

Hey OP!

I would suggest a few things

1. Create a weekly meal plan so you can get into the rhythm of it, take the day-to-day thinking out and also perfect some quick and easy recipes.
2. Shop for convenient meal prep based on your meal plan eg. you can buy frozen / tinned veg, microwave pouches of rice, microwave ready baked potatoes, frozen sweet potato and other veg waffles etc.
3. There are Annabel Karmel ready meals available at some super markets - I wouldn't recommend them for every meal but we used to regularly use the chicken tikka masala and the fish pie as go-to.

Here's some of my suggestions food wise:

• Slow cooker soup (great for adults too) - chop up squash, carrots, potatoes and chuck them in a slow cooker, cover with water and dissolve a stock cube in. Couple of hours on high (ready when the potato is mushy), blend and serve with bread or shop-bought naan to dip in
• 'Green' Omlettes - defrost a bit of frozen spinach, and blend with egg mixture
• Peas, sweetcorn, cucumber, carrot batons are all easy ways to add veg into a diet
• Look up an easy dal recipe, again, you can add veg to this and may be able to do it in a slow cooker if you have one.
• Pasta with a veg sauce (Jamie's 7 veg sauce batch cook I think a PP mentioned already)
• Baked potato with tuna / baked beans and cheese.
• Veggie muffins

Good luck, you will get the hang of it! Also, send her to nursery and then you can slack off and depend on them to provide the nutrition ;-)

Don't make a rod for your own back and start cooking endless little meals that your dc will turn their nose up at anyway.

As another PP said - fish fingers come out of a box. Don't faff about making them, tens of millions of kids have been fed fish fingers out of the freezer.

Unless the food you are eating is really spicy or has loads of salt and sugar in it, then small portions of what you are having will be fine.

I am exactly the same as you. I have a 4 year old and 1 year old.

Even looking at some of these helpful replies you got, those recipes are overwhelming for me.

My kids have healthy diets though. And eat what I make because they are used it

So I make things like pasta and a jar of sauce. With boiled broccoli and sweet corn on the side. That's about as advanced as I go.

Also No idea how to batch cook and safely freeze and reheat things!

Honestly, buy fish fingers, have it with mash and frozen mixed veg.

It’s not worth working yourself up over.

Learn a nice tomato sauce recipe, you can have that with pasta and meatballs or sausages. Cook fish portions in it and serve with savoury rice and veg/salad.

Work out a good Bolognaise recipe, that’s spag Bol and lasagne if you can master (or buy) a white sauce.

Chilli is another good one, chilli and rice, matches, burritos, chilli dogs.

Cottage pie, mine is just mince, onions, stock (oxo) and gravy Granuals wanted in the slow cooker till cooked. Put in oven safe tin, add mash (home mare or shop bought) serve with veg and more gravy.

Not particularly good for the environment, but my kids love chicken in the maggi bake in the bag things. One option is new potatoes and steamed veg or savoury rice and salad.

Once you have a few ‘regulars’ that work it’s easy to add a new one, and before you know it you have a whole list of favourites.

The biggest thing, is don’t stress, don’t panic and utilise shop bought stuff where needs be, it’s not poison!