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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Putting things in the middle of the table and serving DC or letting them serve themselves (depending on age) helped us.

• It removed the circus that is trying to plate up when a doesn't like 1 or 3, b doesn't like 2, c will eat all, d will only eat 4 etc
• I'm not as stressed about how much is eaten because leftovers haven't been on people plates so can be used following day
• They are more likely to try something if they know they can take 1 pea rather than having a big portion on their plate
• Appetites change day by day so everyone can eat as much or as little as they like

Plan what time you eat each meal every day and work around that with cooking times etc

I batch cook and freeze

A good way to #StressLess is to make sure no one is hangry so the kids get a small snack an hour or two before dinner. Otherwise behaviour massively deteriorate and they are whacking each other over the head. Also no toys and definitely no screens are allowed around the dinner table.

I find getting the kids to help causes less stress later, I think because when they chop, prepare and help cook it gets them used to whats about to be served up in front of them. It means that when we do sit down they all are keen to eat what they made, rather than what I have prepared.

We try to eat together as a family as much as possible. I always try to just make one meal but will include a fee different options of veggies or sides to help with individual 'fussiness'. Where possible the kids either help to prepare the meal or will come along to buy some if the ingredients do they feel involved.

Definitely no TV on and everyone sits at the table until the last person has finished eating.

Using the slow cooker and batch cooking.

planning is the key
so everyone can choose 1 or 2 meals that are their favs then that saves arguing!
always making time for eating together whatever time it is!
get the kids involved more in cooking too makes a massive difference if they help to cook it with you :) xx

We plan our weekly meals and shop when the kids are in school. Find being able to browse easily gives us new ideas. Soon to start batch cooking now schools have gone back.

I plan a meal in advance and tend to think about it throughout the day whilst doing my chores. The cooking part is my me time! So I tend to have planned timings and what order I will prep in before it's time to start:

Preparation is a must. Then sitting down together and talking about everyones day is always lovely.

Having some slow cooker recipes that the family loves is brilliant. Just bung it in on the morning and come home to a lovely hot meal with no fuss.

It's great way to cook healthy food from all over the world in matter of minutes
Easy to follow, shopping list to take with u to the shop and rest of the condiments provided in the box
Which makes cooking enjoyable and the kids curious to try it so works well as quiet enjoyable family dinner time

The thing that tends to stress me most is just how much stuff we have and how cluttered the house looks! The answer has been clever storage for the things we need to keep and a ruthless streak of selling/donating our unwanted stuff. In the kitchen I rely quite heavily on convenience foods - not ready meals (apart from pizza lol) but oven chips, pre-prepared fish etc. For the ultimate zero stress dinner I chuck something in the slow cooker!

I've covered the back of our kitchen door with blackboard vinyl and use it as a shopping list and to plan out the meals for the week. I batch cook family-pleasing meals like spaghetti bolognese so that I busy nights we can just heat them up.

Another advocate of meal-planning here. Saves on stress, time and money! And also always having a couple of 'back up' options in the freezer, for nights when I don't want to cook or an alternative is the better option.
We've always eaten together at the table, even when DS was just starting weaning so it's easy as we've never known anything else...

Slow cookers are great for healthy, hearty meals with a minimum of prep and hassle. I love flinging it all together in the morning and getting on with our day, in the knowledge that there'll be a 'proper' tea waiting for us in the evening.

I don't get enough 'me time' but I do enjoy taking baths instead of showers some evenings so that I can wallow for a while!

I do a meal plan for the month so I know each week and day what we are having. I use this plan to write my shopping list and buy everything I need.
I encourage my children to join in and we make home made pizzas together,fresh fruit salad,fruit muffins together,for example.
To make cooking less stressful if both my husband and myself are home at this time one of us will entertain the children whilst the other is cooking,otherwise I will set the garden up with things they enjoy doing and they run in and out and I can easily watch them from the kitchen with the door open. I also include the children by asking them to help to set the table etc so they have their own job to do.

Just remembering that my kids eat better food than we did in the 80s is enough to make me stress less :D

Meals planned and shopped at the beginning of each week

My dc from each being about 2yrs old have had the eat it or don't rule. They are given a meal and they eat it. If they don't they get offered nothing else until the next mealtime. I obviously don't give them things they absolutely hate eg my eldest hates mushrooms so I wouldn't serve him mushroom risotto. Much less stressful having kids that aren't picky.
I also plan every meal (breakfast,lunch and dinner) and all snacks and this goes on the fridge so everyone knows what they're having.
We have a running shopping list on the amazon echo as well that everyone can add to.
I use the slow cooker a lot on work days and also do a lot of bung in the oven meals so just ready prepared veg and meat on a tray with some herbs/spices that cooks itself while I get on with other jobs

My dc have a hot meal at lunch time at school and nursery so I don't have to make packed lunches and if I get home late or can't be bothered I at least know they have had a proper meal so can do something easy or light

Meal planning at the weekend which helps with the shopping, and makes us feel so much more in control during the week as we're not stuck in a rut about what to make and not having the right ingredients at the last minute. We also have a piece of paper stuck on the fridge for when we run out/short of something, it gets written on there for our next shopping trip. Any meal that can be frozen will be made in bulk and excess frozen, makes life so much easier

Meal planning and only buying the ingredients you'll need for those meals. Avoids wasting time and food. Having said that this all went out of the window over the Summer holidays but we're making an effort to get back into it now!

We use the slow cooker most weekdays so that it'll be ready for when my OH comes home from work!