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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Prepping what you can in advance helps a lot - like making and batch freezing stuffing!

Prepping in advance, especially when I know there's a busy work week ahead. Using the slow cooker, and making double of "staple" meals like bolognaise sauce and chillie, freezing the surplus then there's a home made "ready meal" when there isn't time to cook

we try to have a family feast night at least once a week where my son gets involved in the cooking too - more hands help lots! its nice to all help out then sit down together! x

From when my children were babies, I have tried to incorporate the idea of one meal for all. Initially that meant cooking for my husband and I (without the use of salt) and saving some veg and any other bits suitable for a baby and pureeing it for the next day's meals. As the baby stage passed, the food was adapted to meals for the next day until everyone could sit at the table together and eat a meal together.

I have always encouraged my children to help with meals - from clearing and setting the table, to helping prepare a meal. My children are now 22, 20, 18 and 11 and I am registered disabled. I do cook when I am able but my husband often does more of the cooking than he has ever done. This means that it is helpful that everyone is able to help cook. My 22 year old goes back to uni this coming week and she has been really good at cooking meals when she has been around and has been encouraging her 11 year old sister to help. My son, who is 20, is often not around at meal times but will cook for himself and my 18 year old will cook, especially if it is something she is preparing with her elder sister. Certainly less stressful to cook one meal for all, rather than different things for different people.

I try to cook large batches and freeze for another day or meals that can be used the next day like a ham So I only have to cook from scratch a few days a week!

We make cooking a family thing. Daddy is the chef, whilst our 3 year old DD helps with chopping veg and i supervise and wash as we go. We eat together and then have time after for games or puzzles before bed time.

I think routine and communication is important. Everyone has a role to play and helps out so any burden isn't on one person.

my #stressless tip is to use plenty of "mummy marketing" to fool the kids into eating their food - lasagne becomes puddle pie, naan bread is called 'banana bread' (don't ask!), and sometimes veg is pureed until it's invisible!

Making food as fun as possible for kids helps a lot - sometimes its as simple as arranging things to form a face shape on the plate.

We try to cook dinner together, each person having their own 'job'

I do a weekly meal plan. We have one option and it's like it or lump it. Thankfully, my kids aren't fussy, and I'm a good cook. Everything is cooked from scratch - sauces, naan bread on curry night, you name it. I avoid whole aisle in the supermarket this way! And we eat at least 10 a day.

I married a chef, so that helps Seriously though, not so much a meal plan but a list of dishes that can be picked from, no seperate cooking - EVERYONE eats the same, agree who's cooking on which day in advance and only that person allowed in the kitchen. It doesn't always have to be a hot meal and a chalkboard to keep a running list of needed items.

Using a slow cooker regularly has been a game-changer for us. I use it at least twice a week and find it takes all the stress out of cooking, as I can prep it the night before and not worry about cooking late afternoon when the kids are tired and tetchy and argue if I'm not supervising.

I find doing the food shop online and planning meals for the rest of the week saves a lot of stress - no more top up shops or struggling to know what to cook every day. It's also a money saver as less temptation to just get a takeaway!

We love to cook from scratch and this could feel stressful, but me and DH both enjoy cooking so we use it as our precious bonding time :) Am pregnant now and off work but so looked forward to getting home from the office, having a glass of wine, putting TV or music on in the background and helping DH cook whilst entertaining the kids too. I actually love weekday evenings!

We try to make sure the easy meals are on the days where we will be tight for time; the days both my husband and I are working full days. The rest of the time we can have the slightly longer to prepare meals. We also meal plan fortnightly, which helps us to buy properly and save money.

I do all the cooking. It's much less stressful than watching DH hamfistedly holding my super sharp chefs knives to butcher perfectly innocent ingredients.

He can cook, just not if I have to see him to do it....

I love prep boxes like these - it gives me the chance to be more imaginative than usual and experiment without much risk.

I #StressLess by cooking big batches of food which then get swapped with friends who do the same

If I ma making a stew or a mince based dish I always make double and freeze one so that I have some quick and easy meals to fall back on when we are busy.

I take a lot of time out of prep work but buying ready prepped ingredients like frozen chopped onions or garlic. I also make large batches of curry powder or pastes in one go and store the rest, so I can just chuck in the seasoning when I want to make a dish straight from the cupboard/freezer.

We tend to have specific days where we eat certain types of food. And this tends to be the same every week. So for example, Friday may be pizza or mac & cheese, and every week Friday it'll always be 1 of those 2.

Saturdays tend to be free, so more often than not takeaway. Sundays DS gets to decide and then we might bake together.

I do tend to make things in batches though for DH to take to work as I go to university. So cut up all the veggies, preparing all the easy stuff and so on.

Sometimes we might do spin the wheel and have whatever it shows just to make it fun for DS as he can get fussy.

Meal planning! Before I go shopping, I plan out the next weeks food, looking at the calendar to see what activities are happening when. I don't always stick religiously to the plan but it such a help to have it there. When we were just a couple, coming home from work, opening the fridge and deciding what to cook for dinner was part of the fun. We both enjoyed cooking, would use that time to unwind and chat - so I am looking forward to getting back to that stage one day. But at the moment, when we're all a bit tired, one child needs to get to swimming for 7 and another needs to be picked up at 6, it's a godsend to have one less thing to have to decide and think about.

Besides basics buy what's fresh and cheap in the market and in supermarkets grab bargains that will keep in the freezer. Varied meals are more fun when added a few tried and tested old favourites.

Be prepared! I get everything ready the night before so I can just put my feet up and relax then!

The slow cooker is my friend!
Meal plan.

And my mantra is don’t put something on a to do list that can be done immediately - make that call, send that email etc immediately!

#Stressless frozen pizza night when am exhausted.