I Feel Such Rage About Planning/Cooking Dinner

[cjzimmer1]

9 minutes ago, Caraway said:

 

Buying a new fridge is one of the things we are discussing.  Current fridge is super dysfunctional.  I have considered an extra freezer before, but we don't really eat from the freezer.  Haven't decided if that is because the freezer is tiny and holds almost nothing, or if it is more of a "process issue".  Do you then cook in bulk on certain days?  Or just always make extra?

For me grocery shopping and meal "planning" are 2 completely different things (and this is where the extra freezer comes in).  I grocery shop for things that are on sale (of course there is those staples that you need no mater what).  But when chicken is on sale, I'll buy 30 pounds, or pork shoulder or bacon or whatever.  I buy 20-30 pounds of assorted kinds of frozen veggies.  I also keep quick meals in the freezer.  Then when it comes time to actually cooking for the hoards, I have pretty much everything I need on hand.  If it's a crazy day and I know I won't have time to cook, pull out an easy meal.  If I have my act together, pull out a big hunk of meat and let it thaw, on days in between make something with chicken breasts or hamburger.  But because I keep enough different kinds of ingredients on hand, I can put together a meal almost everyday without having to spend much time on the planning side of things (which I fail at tremendously because things always come up so I do better with a method that gives me a lot more flexibility).  

So in your shoes, with lots of late night meals, I'd be keeping precooked hamburger and chicken in the freezer, frozen veggies and quick cooking starches in the pantry.  I'd also keep something like e premade shepherd's pie, lasagna,  or stuffed peppers in the freezer that could be put in the oven and cooking while I'm gone.  I'd also have a stockpile of deli meats/cheeses in the fridge, canned chicken/tuna in  the pantry and bread in the freezer (some of the thicker kinds that don't freezer burn as easily so I could buy several weeks worth at one time, or naan or other flatbread, tortillas always keep well and wraps are a nice quick option)

[OH_Homeschooler]

18 hours ago, EKS said:

I didn't see the age of your kids, but from the time my kids were pretty young we have been having what we call "own" dinners once or twice a week.  This is where everyone gets their own dinner.  I just am sure to keep stuff on hand that people can use, and this includes frozen dinners.  

 

This is what I've been doing. I try to plan 4 dinners per week. My older boy has Asperger's and a lot of food issues, so the meals I plan tend to revolve around his tastes. But since his tastes are so limited we have to deviate sometimes. Those nights, I have him try what I make but he can make a sandwich. (Fortunately he doesn't mind eating the same things over and over). 

I started using eMeals to help plan. I too hate planning meals, but I realized I hated standing in the kitchen trying to figure out dinner every night even more. eMeals gives you 7 meals a week on their basic plan, and I just pick and choose from those (I usually disregard their ideas for sides). I don't know a lot about Whole30 but they have a lot of specialty menus, like Mediterranean and Paleo. 

Once I've decided my menu for the week, I go through the recipes and put in an order on Walmart Pickup. I've been using that exclusively for a couple of months now. With some practice, I've found it barely takes any time to plan and get my ingredients for the week. I do my planning on Friday night and pick up groceries on Saturday morning.

 

 

[Storygirl]

3 hours ago, Caraway said:

 

Buying a new fridge is one of the things we are discussing.  Current fridge is super dysfunctional.  I have considered an extra freezer before, but we don't really eat from the freezer.  Haven't decided if that is because the freezer is tiny and holds almost nothing, or if it is more of a "process issue".  Do you then cook in bulk on certain days?  Or just always make extra?

I do some bulk cooking, and there are certain things that I will double when I make it, so that I can freeze half.

When I cook in bulk, I do it when the meat item is on sale. I do not buy 30 pounds of things, as a PP does, because I don't have the space for that or the time (though I have bought a portion of a side of beef a couple of times).

I have recently changed how I do things. Previously, when I bought extra meat on sale, I would put it in the freezer directly from the store, still raw and in the original packaging. That works, but with six people in the family, fridge space is at a premium, so I always found it annoying to have to have space in my fridge taken up by roasts, or chicken, or whatever, as it defrosted. This summer and fall, I have been cooking ahead and then freezing. Or freezing chicken in marinade, so that I can defrost and prepare it for cooking simultaneously.

I have, over the years, learned what works for me for freezing. I do lots of meatballs (regular Italian style, large cheese filled ones, tiny ones for soup, a Pioneer Woman BBQ meatball, a Swedish meatball). I've used up what we had, so when ground beef is on sale this fall, I will buy it and turn it into meatballs. Some of them I cook, and some I leave raw, depending on the type, and both ways works. I also make and freeze lasagna, enchiladas, quiche, egg burritos, smoothies for breakfast (this is new for me and is going well, and the kids love it), hamburger formed into patties, ground beef and onion that I can use in chili, etc., chicken breasts that I dice and freeze in 2 cup portions to use in recipes that call for cooked chicken, and grilled chicken breasts that are already cooked that I can thaw and add to salad or pasta salad or wraps or to go with something like fettuccini. I cook pork butts and make pulled pork of several kinds (one Mexican seasonings, one plain, BBQ)

That sounds like a lot, but I don't have it all in my freezer at one time. I rotate things in and out, depending on what has been on sale. Right now I have chicken and pork, but not much beef.

In the winter, I like to eat soup on Sundays when we get home from church, because it's can be ready and waiting in the crock pot. Each time I make soup, I double it and freeze a batch, so over the winter, we can have soup often, but I don't have to make it all of the time. Soups that have certain ingredients in them may not freeze well, so I make a portion of the soup and freeze it and then add the remainder the day I am cooking it. So tomato soup that has cream in it, I will leave the cream out before I freeze it and just add that part and the fresh basil the day that we eat it. I have a minestrone recipe that we love, and I freeze the meatballs and vegetables ahead, because they take the most time, and on the day of, I add the chicken broth, tomato sauce, etc. to it. In that case, I don't want to take up room in my freezer by making the soup completely; having a portion of the soup prepared ahead is sufficient for making it quick to get ready when we want to eat it.

I have built up my system over time, based on what my family eats and what I have found freezes well that we like to eat anyway. There were recipes that we already ate, and I just tried freezing them, and it worked well.

I have also checked freezer cooking cook books out of the library. My library has a huge cooking section, including books for special diets. Every once in a while, I will check out a few to look for new ideas. Recently, I found one that I liked so much that I bought the book to own.

I have also checked out crock pot cookbooks to get new ideas.

I'm still tweaking and learning. It can take some time to find what works for you.

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Storygirl

[TABmom]

You might watch Facebook marketplace for a refrigerator or freezer. I've noticed lots on there!

[MaBelle]

On August 25, 2019 at 11:28 AM, Caraway said:

 

I think what I need is an attitude adjustment, but what I want is to burn the whole situation to the ground. 

LOL,  do you really want one?

 

[Carol in Cal.]

5 hours ago, Caraway said:

 

Buying a new fridge is one of the things we are discussing.  Current fridge is super dysfunctional.  I have considered an extra freezer before, but we don't really eat from the freezer.  Haven't decided if that is because the freezer is tiny and holds almost nothing, or if it is more of a "process issue".  Do you then cook in bulk on certain days?  Or just always make extra?

My mom changed her shopping completely after getting a large upright freezer for the basement.  (It is key to have a relatively cool place for a large freezer or else energy costs might end up being prohibitive.)  She started shopping twice a month, sales only.  She would take the sale flyers out and figure out a list for each store.  Things she froze she would be in large quantities on sale, and her most common ones tended to be:

Concentrated milk (I don't know whether they have this anymore, but it was milk that was mixed with water, 1:2 by volume, to make regular strength milk, and it froze well, unlike regular milk)

Ground beef--she always had a stack or two of single pounds of ground beef frozen

Whole chicken packages of chicken parts

Packages of swiss steak.  I don't actually know what that is, but we used to  eat it.

Roasting chickens

Frozen vegetables in those square packages that exactly fill a 2 quart wide Farberware pot (that's the only kind we ate, except for salads and occasionally canned corn, or fresh asparagus or artichokes)

Beef roasts

Prepared potatoes--boxes of French fries or tater tots

Sandwich bread, hamburger buns, and hot dog buns

Ice creams

Swanson TV dinners for once in a while

This hamburger soupy stewy dish that we called Stewp that was better frozen than fresh and nice to have on hand.  

Additionally, when they were in season she would buy things like green peppers in bulk and wash and core them, cut them in strips, and freeze as a little bundle, one bundle per pepper.  And sometimes she would batch make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and freeze them individually.

She also always kept a bag of potatoes and a bag of onions in the basement, and various canned items that we used a lot, like corn, tuna, spaghettios, pickles--always all bought on sale.  When she did shop, she would buy salad stuff that was relatively hardy and sometimes a 'treat meat' and we would eat it for a few days until it was used up, and then revert to what was on hand at home.

What this meant was that she didn't have to shop very often which saved a great deal of time, and also that she had a lot of flexibility in that she could make many different dishes with what she generally had on hand.  All she had to do to 'plan dinner' was move some meat from the freezer to the fridge in time for it to thaw before cooking.  We had roast chicken (very simple!) a lot, and made two meals out of it generally.  She had several recipes for ground beef and for chicken parts and rotated them quite a bit.  But she tried to keep things simple, no 5 step 10 ingredient dishes, and no need for fresh ingredients driving an extra trip to the store.  Desserts were usually packaged cookies or ice cream, simple and instant.  She used a lot of those 'envelopes' of seasoning--Taco mix, spaghetti sauce mix, chili mix, etc.  

It made things efficient and cut way back on shopping time AND grocery cost when she got that freezer.

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Carol in Cal.

[Carol in Cal.]

Personally, I like to cook a lot more than my mother did, so I use my big freezer much differently, but I still value my time a lot.

What I tend to have in the freezer in addition to the few quick meals I mentioned earlier is frozen stuff that is ready to eat as soon as it thaws and is warmed up, like homemade spaghetti sauce, homemade bean soups (I have 3-4 recipes that we like a lot), homemade chili, homemade ice creams, and homemade breakfast sausage casseroles.  I also tend to have some leftovers frozen to warm up later on, and when I make burgers or meatballs a lot of times I make extras and freeze them for later use--I freeze them on a cookie sheet and then wrap or bag them once they are frozen solid overnight.  Also fruit from our trees--generally apricots and pomegranate seeds.  I have never tried the 'side of beef' thing, and I wouldn't now that our local utility has the right to shut off power for wildfire danger for up to 5 days at a time.  Everything would be lost if that happened, and I don't want such a big investment at risk.

[Caraway]

1 hour ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Personally, I like to cook a lot more than my mother did, so I use my big freezer much differently, but I still value my time a lot.

What I tend to have in the freezer in addition to the few quick meals I mentioned earlier is frozen stuff that is ready to eat as soon as it thaws and is warmed up, like homemade spaghetti sauce, homemade bean soups (I have 3-4 recipes that we like a lot), homemade chili, homemade ice creams, and homemade breakfast sausage casseroles.  I also tend to have some leftovers frozen to warm up later on, and when I make burgers or meatballs a lot of times I make extras and freeze them for later use--I freeze them on a cookie sheet and then wrap or bag them once they are frozen solid overnight.  Also fruit from our trees--generally apricots and pomegranate seeds.  I have never tried the 'side of beef' thing, and I wouldn't now that our local utility has the right to shut off power for wildfire danger for up to 5 days at a time.  Everything would be lost if that happened, and I don't want such a big investment at risk.

 

I think we may need to move freezer up on the idea list.  At the very least we need a new fridge.  Current situation holds two days of food MAX, it's insane.  

PG&E situation is also nuts.  You're welcome to come stay with us since we are in a slightly different zone, but I can't promise I'll fix dinner.  🤣

[Pen]

3 hours ago, Caraway said:

 

I think we may need to move freezer up on the idea list.  At the very least we need a new fridge.  Current situation holds two days of food MAX, it's insane.  

PG&E situation is also nuts.  You're welcome to come stay with us since we are in a slightly different zone, but I can't promise I'll fix dinner.  🤣

 

More fridge/freezer space would help.  I can easily shop just once per week, and less often if necessary.  Makes a big difference!  We are rural and going into city every 3rd day cuz refrigerator won’t hold more would be unfeasible.  But except in some unusual big city or other country situations where kitchens are tiny and fresh foods are close, repeated shopping itself would be likely to cause tiredness and frustration.

also, noting you said you have to cook different food for family than for you.  Why?

what do you eat that they cannot eat?

[Carrie12345]

11 hours ago, Caraway said:

 

I think we may need to move freezer up on the idea list.  At the very least we need a new fridge.  Current situation holds two days of food MAX, it's insane.  

PG&E situation is also nuts.  You're welcome to come stay with us since we are in a slightly different zone, but I can't promise I'll fix dinner.  🤣

Oh, that would definitely make things a million times worse for me!  We always get the largest fridge available (well, outside of the gourmet kitchen price range) and fit a week’s worth of food, give or take, for 6-7 people. Plus, we have a chest freezer.  It isn’t ideal for our layout. The fridge takes up a ton of space in our tiny kitchen and the freezer is in my office/loft area! But our closest grocery store is 20+ minutes out of the way, so I try to keep it to a minimum.  Since I’m in an area that is prone to harsh (and long) winters, food storage is a priority for me, even though my home’s layout forces me to get creative about it.

Having my house set up a little “strange” is much easier than dealing with groceries and planning every couple of days.

[mom31257]

On 8/25/2019 at 8:28 PM, Caraway said:

 We are in module mode now and it’s chaos. The teens eat a ton of food and I can’t keep up this way. They are happy to cook for themselves but I am unwilling to let them eat what they want to cook. 

This sounds like you care more about what your kids are eating than letting go of the burden it has become to you. You sound like you really want to be in charge of it, so I think the stress of your life is causing the resentment.  

Our son has swim three nights a week, and dinner needs to be ready when we get back (around 7:30). We take turns going to swim (he's not driving himself yet), and sometimes dh cooks dinner, sometimes I do, and sometimes it's in the crockpot. When dh cooks, I plan something doable for him.  It's just the three of us, though, so that's easier than a big family. And there's usually one of us at home. 

I hope you figure out something that will relieve the stress of it all! 

[Pen]

1 hour ago, mom31257 said:

he teens eat a ton of food and I can’t keep up this way. They are happy to cook for themselves but I am unwilling to let them eat what they want to cook. 

 

@Caraway

how about sitting down with the teens and going over what they need to cook that fits with what you want them to eat.  And setting up a cooking and cleaning Rota? 

With plan—

Monday dinner is _____  A and B are on cooking and clean up duty ;

Tuesday dinner is ________ C and D are on cooking and clean up duty

that with more space to hold food so that shopping could be once per week might be able to solve your problem 

along with figuring out why you have to eat a different meal and seeing if that can be fixed — perhaps you could eat half of the regular foods made by the teen cooks at each dinner 

[ScoutTN]

My 12 and 14 yo each do dinner dishes (or lunch if that is the bigger meal) 2-3x a week. Routine chore. 

The each make one simple meal for the family a week. 

 

[Sharon77]

"daily grocery shopping"????

That in and of itself would drive anyone insane!

 

I hate hate hate despise loathe feeding teenagers. Absolutely hate it. It killed my enjoyment of cooking. Throw homeschooling in there too and I disliked the last years of my sahm mom years.

By the time my kids were in late teens, I had the house fridge, the biggest upright freezer sold at Lowes, a huge chest freezer and a refrigerator-only fridge. I loaded up my freezers with meat and frozen food once a month and bought 30 dozen eggs at a time. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Ok, that tops my 15 dozen eggs. Good for you! I am also team huge fridge in the house and garage fridge and stand alone freezer! I prepack lunches twice a week and am so delighted by the stacks of preprepped veg and marinating meat in my fridge.

Don’t let perfection stand in the way of good, OP. Being hangry every night sounds like hell. 

[BooksandBoys]

On 8/26/2019 at 10:11 AM, Caraway said:

 

Buying a new fridge is one of the things we are discussing.  Current fridge is super dysfunctional.  I have considered an extra freezer before, but we don't really eat from the freezer.  Haven't decided if that is because the freezer is tiny and holds almost nothing, or if it is more of a "process issue".  Do you then cook in bulk on certain days?  Or just always make extra?

If I didn’t have my extra freezer/fridge, I would hate/resent that I’m responsible for all things food even more than I do now. But I do a little of both.

In general, I cook twice as much food as we need for any given meal so that we have leftovers for lunch and leftover night. So, I cook chicken on one night, tacos the next, then we eat leftovers, then burgers the fourth night, some kind of pasta the fifth, leftovers the sixth, and an adult/oldest child favorite (read fish, usually) the seventh (I do not cook extra of this meal). Each night I cook, I cook double the meat and double the sides (veggies and starch). 

In addition to that, I use my freezer to let me shop the meat sales/prep meat for easier cooking. So I’ll buy 20 pounds and cut it up into gallon bags with different marinades, freezing these flat for easy defrost and grilling later (I grill almost year round). I buy a pile of ground beef and make a bunch of meatballs for pasta night (food allergy house, so I can’t buy things like that). I make piles of carnitas all at once, then freeze several servings for later. I buy a bunch of pork chips and freeze them in the right size packages for dinner later. I buy enough ingredients for 4 chicken soups (veggies plus chicken) and make up 3 freezer bags of ingredients the night I cook soup (and I cook double, so the bags are also double amounts). 

And I use my extra fridge and freezer space so I can stay out of the stores as much as possible. I can buy produce once a week or less if I pay attention to the order we eat the produce (apples and Brussels sprouts can wait. Eat the bananas and berries and salad greens first). Bags of broccoli and carrots and cauliflower, other veggies are always in my freezer. I can buy extra milk because I have the room. I’m so grateful for my extra fridge/freezer (I didn’t have the extra refrigerator until last year). 

[Pen]

This type cooking can be a help if you get a big freezer. Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead https://www.amazon.com/dp/0800730550/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_PZDzDb61KG8PQ

[katilac]

 

On 8/26/2019 at 6:25 PM, Caraway said:

 

I think we may need to move freezer up on the idea list.  At the very least we need a new fridge.  Current situation holds two days of food MAX, it's insane.  

omigosh, that's a huge part of the problem right there! 

It's, um, possible that I own a side-by-side fridge/freezer, a full-sized freezer, and a full-sized refrigerator (all fridge, no top freezer). We don't need it as much now, with the kids at college, but it was crazy helpful when they were home. And there's only two of them! When they were home, the dedicated fridge held lots of fruit and salad, with generally at least one shelf for leftovers and one shelf for meal prep (like marinating meat, etc). Dedicated freezer has meat and meals. 

 It actually is really nice to have the extra fridge even now, particularly in summer when one full shelf tends to be occupied by watermelon 🍉 another with other fruit 🍇🍓🍒and another with veggies 🍆🥕🥦

It's hard to eat the right things when it's a hassle to store them! 

[cjzimmer1]

1 hour ago, katilac said:

 

omigosh, that's a huge part of the problem right there! 

It's, um, possible that I own a side-by-side fridge/freezer, a full-sized freezer, and a full-sized refrigerator (all fridge, no top freezer). We don't need it as much now, with the kids at college, but it was crazy helpful when they were home. And there's only two of them! When they were home, the dedicated fridge held lots of fruit and salad, with generally at least one shelf for leftovers and one shelf for meal prep (like marinating meat, etc). Dedicated freezer has meat and meals.  

It actually is really nice to have the extra fridge even now, particularly in summer when one full shelf tends to be occupied by watermelon 🍉 another with other fruit 🍇🍓🍒and another with veggies 🍆🥕🥦

It's hard to eat the right things when it's a hassle to store them! 

I have 2 fridges (the largest capacity I could find) and 2 full sized freezers.  I regularly (as in at least once a month) wish I had a 3rd of each.  But I simply have no more space for them.  But the 2 I have get emptied and refilled so often it's kind of scary just how much food my crew goes though.  I would be lucky to store a day's worth of food if I only had 1 appliance.  You are right that this single issue is a huge part of OP problem.  Cold storage space is a necessity for my sanity.

[Pen]

 

On 8/25/2019 at 9:28 AM, Caraway said:

I’m tired of daily grocery shopping and the general waste of my time. 

We are gluten free, Whole 30 style eaters.

 

Alternatively, if you cannot achieve a freezer to reduce shopping needed,

go raw in addition to whole 30, and thereby save yourself the cooking part.  

And/Or get an instant pot for steaming a vegetable you don’t want raw, or putting in a bunch of vegetables along with a meat for soup if you eat meat

 

[Corraleno]

On August 26, 2019 at 11:59 AM, Storygirl said:

I also make and freeze lasagna, enchiladas, quiche, egg burritos, smoothies for breakfast (this is new for me and is going well, and the kids love it), hamburger formed into patties, ground beef and onion that I can use in chili, etc.

I'm curious about the smoothie thing — are you just freezing single-serving  "smoothie packs" with an assortment of fruit & veg, and then any liquid/protein powder/etc. gets added when the frozen fruit pack is blended, or are you blending all the ingredients and then freezing a whole, pre-made smoothie? If it's the latter, do they defrost OK without separating or getting a weird texture?

[bethben]

For a while, I made a two week meal plan and a grocery list for those two weeks.  We just had the same meals every two weeks.  It is meal planning/grocery autopilot.

[Storygirl]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

I'm curious about the smoothie thing — are you just freezing single-serving  "smoothie packs" with an assortment of fruit & veg, and then any liquid/protein powder/etc. gets added when the frozen fruit pack is blended, or are you blending all the ingredients and then freezing a whole, pre-made smoothie? If it's the latter, do they defrost OK without separating or getting a weird texture?

I am blending it all ahead of time. I was just freezing fruit and then adding yogurt etc later. But that doesn't work for breakfasts here, because it's too messy, time consuming, and loud to run the blender at 6:30 am.

So I decided to experiment. I bought 12 ounce Mason jars, because I thought 8 oz was too small to count as an entire breakfast, and 16 oz. too big for my kids. I've been blending up the smoothies, pouring them into the jars, and then freezing. We take them out the night before, so that they are defrosted by the morning. I've found that we need to let them sit on the counter at room temperature for a bit, to get the defrosting started, in order for them to not still be too frozen in the morning, before we pop them into the fridge. By breakfast time, they are ready to drink right out of the jar.

I am not a smoothie fan,  so I actually have not had one myself, but my kids are liking them. They don't seem particular about how melty or icy they are, so perhaps the texture would bother someone, but I haven't found it to be a problem. The smoothies remain mixed together and don't separate.

I use fruit, Greek yogurt, protein powder, and either fruit juice or milk (I've been experimenting). We haven't tried veggies, though if I sneak some in, my kids might not notice. At first, I used frozen fruit, but then I figured why bother, since it was all going to freeze anyway. So I then used fresh (and some canned pineapple, which blended deliciously, though I thought it might end up with stringy bits).

So far I've made strawberry banana, mixed berry banana, and banana mango pineapple. Even though I'm still experimenting, my kids have liked all of them.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Storygirl

[Stacia]

I have always liked this advice: Simple Eating: How I Learned to Save Money, Reduce Stress + Spend Less Time in the Kitchen

[Corraleno]

3 hours ago, Storygirl said:

I am blending it all ahead of time. I was just freezing fruit and then adding yogurt etc later. But that doesn't work for breakfasts here, because it's too messy, time consuming, and loud to run the blender at 6:30 am.

So I decided to experiment. I bought 12 ounce Mason jars, because I thought 8 oz was too small to count as an entire breakfast, and 16 oz. too big for my kids. I've been blending up the smoothies, pouring them into the jars, and then freezing. We take them out the night before, so that they are defrosted by the morning. I've found that we need to let them sit on the counter at room temperature for a bit, to get the defrosting started, in order for them to not still be too frozen in the morning, before we pop them into the fridge. By breakfast time, they are ready to drink right out of the jar.

I am not a smoothie fan,  so I actually have not had one myself, but my kids are liking them. They don't seem particular about how melty or icy they are, so perhaps the texture would bother someone, but I haven't found it to be a problem. The smoothies remain mixed together and don't separate.

I use fruit, Greek yogurt, protein powder, and either fruit juice or milk (I've been experimenting). We haven't tried veggies, though if I sneak some in, my kids might not notice. At first, I used frozen fruit, but then I figured why bother, since it was all going to freeze anyway. So I then used fresh (and some canned pineapple, which blended deliciously, though I thought it might end up with stringy bits).

So far I've made strawberry banana, mixed berry banana, and banana mango pineapple. Even though I'm still experimenting, my kids have liked all of them.

This is such a great idea! I will definitely try this, thanks so much for suggesting it. 👍

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Stacia said:

I have always liked this advice: Simple Eating: How I Learned to Save Money, Reduce Stress + Spend Less Time in the Kitchen

I love the way she compares a "capsule kitchen" to a "capsule wardrobe" — that is the perfect analogy. What she describes is exactly the way I shop and cook, and it's so much easier, faster, and less expensive (due to less waste). I think it's also a great way to teach kids/teens/young adults to cook, because it's very intuitive and infinitely flexible/expandable, versus relying on a series of specific, unrelated recipes which each have a different list of ingredients. 

[Scarlett]

18 hours ago, Stacia said:

I have always liked this advice: Simple Eating: How I Learned to Save Money, Reduce Stress + Spend Less Time in the Kitchen

I can see this working when dh and I are empty nesters.  

 

[KungFuPanda]

On 8/25/2019 at 12:28 PM, Caraway said:

I leave the house mid afternoon to commute to my kids’ sports activities and then don’t return home until 7 pm. 

I am trying to “organize” dinner so we can eat as soon as we are home without a bunch of hassle. I’m tired of daily grocery shopping and the general waste of my time. 

We are gluten free, Whole 30 style eaters. Usually I cannot eat the same meal as my family and have to create a second meal for myself, or eat something I’ve meal prepped for myself. 

Im sitting here with a cookbook where you cook some things on the weekend and then reassemble during the weeknights. It seems fine, and like it might even work for us. 

Yet I am so full of rage on this topic. Why am I in charge?  I’m not even eating the food. Why do I have to figure out how to make it all work?  Why do I have to make their meals fast, exciting, and healthy every night?  Why can’t anyone else realize that if you’re eating 3 eggs for breakfast 7 days a week you’re going to need to start with more than 4 eggs?

I think what I need is an attitude adjustment, but what I want is to burn the whole situation to the ground. 

Can you do your big, main meal mid-day before you leave and make your evening meal easier and more lunch-food-ish?  

Also, how old are your people? If there are other adults or older teens in the house, they should each have at least one day of dinner responsibility.  If they can't help, go to a boring schedule where you have the same menu for several weeks in a row before you change it up.  That's right, meatloaf every Monday.  They can suck it up. You're in survival mode.  Also, Costco prepared meals are not to be overlooked.

[Pen]

 

On 8/25/2019 at 9:28 AM, Caraway said:

 Why can’t anyone else realize that if you’re eating 3 eggs for breakfast 7 days a week you’re going to need to start with more than 4 eggs?

 

Are you homeschooling?

sounds like they need some lifeskills math

and lifeskills planning  

writing could be meal and grocery planning

math could be planning and shopping from a meal POV   

 

Sometines it takes a lot of practice to turn workbook and textbook math, logic,  and writing etc. skills  into real world,  functional skills.  

 

[Caraway]

16 hours ago, Pen said:

 

 

Are you homeschooling?

sounds like they need some lifeskills math

and lifeskills planning  

writing could be meal and grocery planning

math could be planning and shopping from a meal POV   

 

Sometines it takes a lot of practice to turn workbook and textbook math, logic,  and writing etc. skills  into real world,  functional skills.  

 

 

Homeschooling my husband is beyond my scope. 😂