Cooking is wearing me out

moneyistooshorttomention

..and for an idea from left field...

I've been checking out recipes by "The Happy Pear" recently. They eat (genuinely) healthily.

I know they are vegan - and you probably aren't - but check out their YouTube channel. I wince visibly at their presentation - two athletic-looking male twins starting every one of their videos with "Yo Dude (high fives)" or the like. But they do have recipes that will be tasty to anyone and there is a little mini-series on there of "5 minute meals".

Yes - they really are 5 minutes to do!

It should give you some ideas - and you could chuck in some meat, fish (eg canned fish?), cheese as an added extra if wanted.

I've watched several of these 5-minute videos now and they have a formula they work to basically. It goes:
- it's cooked on the stovetop
- they use spring onions instead of ordinary onions (no peeling)
- canned beans and lentils instead of cooking them up themselves (obviously could be modified by cooking up whole packets of dried beans and lentils and then storing portions in the freezer)

thriftwizard

Been there, done that! Some very sensible suggestions up above. In the end I came up with an alternative to the main meal that any one of them could prepare themselves if they really didn't want whatever I was serving; a pitta bread smeared with tomato puree, sprinkled with cheese and any other topping they could find in the fridge, and grilled. No-one starved...

Stir-fries are very healthy, cheap, quick & easy to prepare & almost infinitely variable; I learnt that from a neighbour who had lived in Korea. She worked FT, had church commitments every evening and two very active youngsters, but could prepare & serve an inexpensive but nutritious & tasty meal in about 20 minutes start to finish. You can ring the changes with the carb element; rice, noodles, bulgur wheat or cous-cous, for example. Almost any meat if you're carnivores, sliced very thin, or a handful of cashews, and just about any assortment of veg as long as dark green leaves are in there somewhere! Spring onions too. Proper fermented soy sauce, a sprinkle of sesame seeds or some grated ginger add a tasty kick.

Whereas I tended to serve baked potatoes with everything; I had a small automatic oven back then, so I could chuck them and a casserole (or chilli, or similar) in first thing, set the timer, and relax (a bit!) in the evenings. Life got more complicated as the thermostat on the oven gradually died, and the new cooker's auto oven is the bigger one so only gets used when I can fill it, but baked potatoes are still my go-to meal as long as I'm home in time to set them off!

culpepper

Making a bit extra and freezing can be very useful on days where you REALLY don't feel like it. I do that all the time so that I can have an evening that is 'no cook' night or 'mums night off'.
It doesn't have to be a whole meal for all, one extra portion is enough if you do it regularly then let the gannets choose which one they want.
As far as home made bread versus shop, we started out on the HM when I used to hand-make it, then swapped to shop when the price of flour was silly , everyone called the shop bread 'stick to your mouth bread', we have a machine now and no one complains.
Of course you could do an 'experiment' and feed them nothing but 'shop' for a week but keep to your original budget, then when everyone looks at their tiny little portions you can just shrug and say , that's what my budget stretches to if I don't cook from scratch

paddy's_mum

I like that idea of getting the members of the family to choose/write down their own meal-plan. It reminds me of an ornamental plaque I saw somewhere:-

Sit at the table and take a look-
The first to complain is next week's cook!

My mother used to say that if we didn't like what she was doing for supper, any one of us was free at any time to take over the job. Cue back-pedalling!

Siebrie

Lots of good advice above.


What ages are your kids? My mum took the weekends off cooking when we turned 12. My sister and I had to provide dinner, one on Saturday, one on Sunday. I always cooked mashed potato from a packet, peas from a can, and a ready-made meatball; my sister cooked a proper 3-course meal with different dishes every time. So, for 6 years, my parents quietly suffered mash and peas on a Sunday But mum appreciated the time off, and her only thought was that I knew how to cook a dish, I would not starve if on my own, and that more techniques/dishes would come when I moved out on my own.


Also, give yourself a break; there are some very pressed-for-time years when working and raising kids. Maybe you can do some semi-prepped meals? For instance, I buy pizza bases, and then add my hm sauce and home prepared toppings.

DigForVictory

On holiday in summer, mum and dad decided to take their lives in their hands & share out cooking the evening meal. The four year old produced a splendid array of doings to make your own open topped sandwiches, with Mars Bars for dessert. The ten year old made lasagne (following written instructions from grandmother) followed by fresh fruit salad (& cream). Toward the end of the fortnight, it was getting mildly competitive with menus & prettily laid tables & flowers etc. Of course m'father cooked amazing things but his menus were barely legible...

(I have since made lasagne about eight times, but always to rapturous applause & the smug certainty some other blighter gets All the Washing Up.)

So, over Christmas, share the fun around...
Also one meal a week of supermarket bought & home baked pizza is not going to irrevocably damage the health, but might help your sanity.

Batch cooking, when you have the energy, means they have the love & care when when you don't have the energy.

Plus, conduct at table is not just the cook's job to supervise - there should be another adult reminding children to eat & be thankful & whinge for nuggets Some Other Time.

Finally, when about ready to take up your pans & tap some mouthy young soul around the noggin, there is always the gentil trick of inviting some nugget fed brat to play & eat with your brood & hope they have the grace to devour real food with delight & thanks, dropping the not so subtle hint to the offspring that food can feed the soul and heart as well as stomach...

There will come nights you simply cannot bring yourself to face the whinging. Line up the tins of soup & cheap baps & leave the little horrors to it.

All the very best!

determined_new_ms

I love cooking and the challenge of feeding my loved ones a healthy diet on a limited budget. But sometimes I get tired of all the prep, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. I've recently had a couple of weeks where I've felt like this and then have just relied on all the many tupperwares in the freezer from when I cba!

MallyGirl

determined_new_ms wrote: »

I love cooking and the challenge of feeding my loved ones a healthy diet on a limited budget. But sometimes I get tired of all the prep, cooking and cleaning up afterwards.

I do the vast majority of the cooking - I do not do the washing up. That is the deal.

Slowly57

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

..and for an idea from left field...

I've been checking out recipes by "The Happy Pear" recently. They eat (genuinely) healthily.

I know they are vegan - and you probably aren't - but check out their YouTube channel. I wince visibly at their presentation - two athletic-looking male twins starting every one of their videos with "Yo Dude (high fives)" or the like. But they do have recipes that will be tasty to anyone and there is a little mini-series on there of "5 minute meals"

Thank you so much for this - love them - and this one particularly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTC1LJY2Zxw

phizzimum

Thanks for telling us about the Happy Pear. Definitely worth watching when I'm needing inspiration and motivation. Trying to get my 14 year old to cook more, I think she'll like their haphazard style