Share your tips for ways to stress less with HelloFresh - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

Modern family life can be very busy - and this might mean that otherwise simple tasks like thinking about what to have for dinner or getting out of the door in the morning can become overwhelming or stressful. HelloFresh would like to hear about the tips you have for stressing less, whether this is in the kitchen or elsewhere in your family life.

Here’s what HelloFresh has to say: “HelloFresh is on a mission to help families stress less when it comes to mealtimes with the launch of its new Family Box, offering an all new range of tailor-made family-friendly recipes designed to appeal to kids, teenagers and adults alike and bring variety to dinner time. The HelloFresh Family Box has been created to reduce stress levels and help save parents time and energy. The focus in development has been to make meal planning and preparation as easy as possible, whilst serving meals that guarantee to make family mealtimes delicious, but most importantly totally fuss and hassle-free. Want to give it a try? We've got a special offer for you with 50% off your first two boxes with the code HELLOMUMS.”

Do you have tips that mean sitting down to a family dinner in the evening is an enjoyable rather than hectic experience? Perhaps you’re a pro at making tiny changes to meals so that fussy eaters are catered for? Do you and your family cook together to reduce the stress of preparing an evening meal? Maybe you ensure you’re making time for ‘me-time’ every day so that you can wind down?

Share the ways you #StressLess with HelloFresh below to be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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the slow cooker is great - so nice to not feel so ragged just before eating

Put all the dinner plates in a bottom cupboard so the smallest children can lay the table.

I have always given my child a choice between 2 meals. I then cook that meal for the while family. It means she was always more likely to eat it because it her mind it was her 'choice'
I also like to batch cook and freeze a few meals. We make, blend and freeze lots of soup. It's a great way to get veggies into kids xx

I meal plan so I don't start the meal stressed to begin with, my eldest helps to cook and is great at the little jobs like laying the table etc too!

I get everybody helping. I did most of the prep for our roast today apart from peeing the carrots which my 12 year old did. My husband then did the mashing and dished it all out while our 10 year old set the table.

meal planning is essential no gadgets allowed at the table

It's all about planning - and making extra each meal time. With the extra tub it up and pop it in the freezer then you have an array of essentially homemade microwave meals to hand for those super busy days!

The rule is that everyone has to sit around the table at a set mealtime to catch up as a family - no exceptions, no phones or other distractions!

I meal plan and then batch cook items - I also make good use of my slow cooker esp when I know I am going to be busy or late home from work

We always have meals planned in advance and try to prep as much as possible to make things easier, wash up as go along and do the next days sandwiches too #StressLess

whoever is home first starts dinner in my house and having a mixture of some meals that require more prep with those that don't balance the week out

It's impossible to get everyone sat round the family table every day in our house. DH works away a lot, DS1 is home from uni at the moment, but spending lots of time visiting his GF. DS2 is travelling to uni from home this year, but his hours vary and he is often very late home and DS3 is home from school and starving at 4pm!

I like to know who's coming in and when and prepare meals around that. I'll cook easy things eg a big pot of pasta bolognese /a cottage pie ready for DS3, then re-heat a portion for each latecomer. Or ready made pizzas, so I just need to put one in the oven at the appropriate time.

Sunday is the only day we really all eat together - we always have a tradiotional sunday lunch (with veggie option for me) and that's stress free for me, because DH cooks it!

I batch cook at the weekends when I have more time - I would live on beans on toast throught the week otherwise as I don't get home from work till about 7pm. Who can be bothered to prepare a meal at that time?!

aside from having someone else do the cooking for me (never happens!) I #StressLess by just prepping/cooking whilst the kids are playing, when I'm almost finished I'll ask them to tidy away and then throughout dinner we just concentrate on each other and chatting about anything and everything. I find that by giving them that specific time whilst im doing cooking to play they are then less distracted with the idea of playing with their favourite toy or game and are able to fully engage with each other over mealtimes....much better than the days where they'd be whining constantly at the table about 'she took my tablet' 'he won't let me watch my little pony' etc

I use the slow cooker a lot, especially in winter. It definitely makes life easier if meals are planned for the week. We can then sit and eat and talk about our day without feeling stressed out.

I buy frozen chopped peppers and onions. It means that I have far less preparation to do when cooking from scratch and therefore we all eat more healthily.

We have a picnic table in the garden and have enjoyed eating our meals outdoor all Summer. It has made it stress-free because the kids enjoyed being outdoors and we spent time together as a family - plus much less mess inside the house for me! I'm going to miss it as the weather gets colder! We will be keeping the family time over the Winter months and trying to keep meal times just as fun.

I'm not one that claims to cook from fresh everyday, bulk cook for for the next 2 weeks or cook extravagant meals each night. as a busy working family, school, homework, after school clubs and endless childrens parties to attend it just isnt possible! weeknights we have lots of one pot meals such as stir fry or chilli which saves time on the clearing up. weekends is a bit more relaxed and we experiment a bit more. The boys are much more likely to try new things if they've helped make them so we will make new meals and try new ingredients out then.

I find that we are so busy in the evenings as the children have lots of activities and my husband works shifts so it's rare that we are all home at the same time so we try and aim for one proper decent family sit down meal time a week. Other than that the kids eat early and the adults eat late or if my husband at work I'll eat with the children. I find by planning and knowing what we are all doing each day helps and if the children are eating alone I let them choose what they have (normally pasta!). I also find it helps at the weekend if the children help prepare their food, they love joining in grating cheese, or topping their own puff pastry tartlets or pizzas etc - it certainly makes meal preparation a fun and enjoyable experience!

Planing meals upfront :)

I turn the music on while I cook so I can dance to #StressLess

meal prep and planning! Need to get back into it before I go back to work...

Stress is one of my main downfalls so I need to try and minimise it all the time! I really find preparing things the night before helps, having uniform out for school, bags ready, etc. Also, coincidentally, I started doing meal plans last week in my shiny new Happy Planner. Im forever worrying what to make then end up having to rush to make something we always have at the last minute. So I've written a meal plan, made sure we have the ingredients and am hoping it will work! I also think I am going to stop asking what my lb (age 5) wants for tea and instead i'll make something I know he likes to save the stress of going round in circles with what he wants. I also am aiming to put two new things a week out for him to try as he's quite a fussy eater.

Our mealtimes are not conventional as I can't eat, and my husband is away an awful lot so little one eats on his own (with me there of course) so I'm trying to make it as normal as is possible for him, and also make sure he eats with my husband when he is home.

Fingers crossed! #StressLess

I get very stressed if I don't know what to cook for dinner plus I cook 3 different meals (daughter is a fussy veggie, OH a meat, potato & 2 veg man and I don't like what either of them like!). Before we all used to eat together but I quite often messed up my timings but as my daughter is now a teen so always hungry and OH who wants "dinner at 5, dinner at 5", I now have her dinner ready when for when she gets home from school at 4 (she eats her lunch at break as their lunch time isn't until 2), then I can cook his, then concentrate properly on mine so now I #StressLess

We bought a slow cooker and it's helped SO much. I can pop a meal in it in the morning and it'll be lovely by dinner time. It saves us so much time and hassle.