Advice on providing 3 meals & 2 snacks a day!

[1t6y9o]

The sheer amount of effort required to meal plan, shop for and make 3 meals and 2 snacks a day is actually killing me! 4 yr old & 1 year old... feel like i spend my entire life thinking about and preparing food.

I don't have a lot of freezer space so can't store much batch cooked food.

Now it's lighter and warmer I want to be able to do things after the school run but I always feel I have to be home to prepare tea for 5pm.

It's all really doing my head in.

Is there an easier way to feed my family?

Food takes up so much of my headspace and time!
I tend to do quick meals and one dish meal so I'm not wasting too much time.
Plan your meals and prep stuff in the morning so it's ready to go when you need to cook. Or shove in the oven on a low heat and get on with other stuff, including going out.

Snacks are usually easy things like fruit, cheese and crackers, carrot sticks,

Oh and cake. Lots of cake.

I don't think it's hugely complicated.
Cereal and a piece of fruit for breakfast.
Crudités, sandwiches and cheese or so,etching for lunch.
Dinner can be thrown in slow cooker, so bolognaise sauce, chorizo stew, soup.
Or halogen cooked quickly, like jacket potatoes, or pizza.
Or just boiled pasta and poure on sauce.

I do lunch the night before, chop all up and put in a lunch box. I also prep dinner ingredients then. Or I get DH to when he gets home.

Snacks are easy, leftover breakfast, yogurt, or crackers.

You don't need to eat hot food.

Leftovers are good enough.

Cook in morning and re heat?

But mainly when I was faced with this problem on every sunny day, I'd make sandwiches for lunch and keep enough for the car journey home so food was done by the time we got home.

Breakfast.. cereal,toast,cheese,fruit
Lunch sandwiches,omelette, tast cheese fruit yogurt(if she had cereal in the morning)
Dinner ...whatever dinner is soup,pasta,roast dinner,chicken,fish

Oh and snacks are more fruit or pombears/breadsticks/wotsits/biscuit in between

I am a SAHM to a 3 and a 1 year old and often feel like my life is consumed by food!
Our typical day looks like this:
Breakfast: Banana, toast, Greek yoghurt. Often boiled eggs
Snack: breadsticks and blueberries
Lunch: cheese and ham wrap with cucumber and tomato.
Snack: banana muffin or slice of brioche
Dinner: chicken and mash with broccoli and carrot

Oh and last summer I made a packed lunch every day, regardless of what we had planned. If we were out they ate it there. If we were at home they either had a picnic on the garden or on a blanket in the lounge if raining. I made it while they were eating breakfast and it felt like I'd taken some stress out of the day as it was ready to go!

Thanks all for this!

I know I overcomplicate things sometimes.

Love the packed lunch idea. Going to try this. :-)

our house is pretty similar set up to everyone else.

We have cereal for breakfast most mornings with maybe a pancake/crumpet/waffle/fruit if still hungry.

Lunch is nearly always a sandwiches/wraps/cheese crackers type meal with fruit a yogurt and sometimes crisps

Evening meal is always something hot so what ever we have maybe a roast dinner or spag bol nothing too adventurous

snacks are never ending in this house we do fruit/rice cakes/cakes/crisps/cheese strings or triangles/carrot sticks