How many different dinners are cooked every evening in your house? am sick of it!!!

[mumonthenet]

With three kids between 16 and 11, all of them going to and from gym, hobbies, friends', all of them with their own fads, plus me and dh starving at 6.30 and half asleep by 9pm, evening meals are chaotic and an awful lot of work in this house.

What do you do?
Cook a massive pot of stew on a Monday and tell em to microwave it til Friday?

It's worse than when they were toddlers, even if they do occasionally load the dishwasher.

DH and I eat soup, fish/meat and salad every evening. The kids will only eat carrot soup (which dh hates). Kids hate fish. DH loves fish. One dd comes in at nearly ten pm starving after training 3 nights a week, and there's only so many meals you can cook and keep warm in the oven.

The whole thing is ridiculous - think am going to have to start laying down the law - just not sure which law!

one meal - everyone eats the same thing, or goes without (they never go without). I did the 'different meals for different kids' thing with my own, I learned my lesson and now we all eat the same.
Surely the older ones can cook and feed themselves anyway.

Can't they have a cooked meal at school at lunch time, then sarnire, beans etc for tea, that you don't have to make.

I know how you feel, it is like a running buffet sometimes, this one likes that, this one will only eat this....drives me insane.

Ds14, is 6ft 2" and so thin he could snap in too. Feel i have to feed him up

I think teenagers are much harder work than little ones, but somehow you expect them to be easier, because they are older and can look after themselves..........

I'd make sure the cupboard was well stocked with tins. Big soup , baked beans, macaroni cheese, ravioli, that kind of thing.

If they won't/can't eat what you eat when you eat, they fend for themselves.

Also a well stocked fruit bowl as dessert, to balance it all up.

One or two.

Generally speaking, DH, DS2 + DS3 will eat most things, whereas DS1 and myself are more erm picky, so we'll sometimes have a different meal (or we have variations of the same meal iykwim).

One meal with veggie alternative for DS2. All sit down at same time, if not there can be heated up.

Cupboard always full with beans, pasta, pesto and other sauces. Humous + pitta bread good for late night snacks.
Fruit and yoghurt always available.

BUT, any cooking/eating done outside of mealtimes must be cleared up. Nothing worse than getting up to kitchen full of dirty pots/pans etc.

My two are at uni now, but when they are home I have 2 food intolerances to cope with- one mine and one theirs! One no dairy, one no wheat, dairy or spices.

I sometimes end up cooking 2 meals- but with something in common- eg. pasta but with 2 types of sauce. Or everyone has the same veg and some have meat /or fish. if it's grilled or baked,then it's quite easy.

generally though, I try to cook things we can all eat- always plain like roasts, shepherds pies, plain-ish fish and veg etc., stir fry etc.

My daughter doesn't like shepherds pie but she'll eat it under sufferance.

If it wasn't for our food intolerances- yes, they are real and for medical reasons- I'd make everyone eat the same or fill up on bread and cheese etc if they didn't like what was on offer.

have read everybody's input and really will take it all onboard. at weekends I find it easy to do the big meal plus a plate of pasta or rice for the fussy ones but it's week nights that finish me off.

dd 3 had cereal and milk last night at 10pm as the frozen pasta dish I had bought at the supermarket was revolting - tasted of oregano and nothing else! (even I agreed and I love pasta). I felt guilty and sad but tonight she's had chicken kebabs, white rice and chips followed by fruit so I don't feel like a bad mummy.

thanks for replies!