I have a 3 yr old and a 3 month old. My husband and I both work full time. Right now, I am going through sleep deprivation as my little one doesnt sleep through the night yet.. so I am exhausted each day….(which i am understanding and realize that this part is temporary). But for now, I am looking for ways to plan out meals each week, prep them so they are ready to cook when I get home from work at 6pm .. but i realistically do not have a lot of time in the AM to meal prep as I already am up by 5:30AM and out the door by 6:45AM. Drop the kids off.. come back, get myself ready and be at work by 9am.. where is the time? (Yeah.. and forget exercising!!!) aahhhh! Help! Yes, im sure you will ask about my husband- he leaves at 6am and picks the kids up at 515pm every day… so he is home just slightly before me.. still not much time in the world of infants and preschoolers…
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You need to plan one day ahead. When you cook, make things that are almost interchangeable. Like burger meat. I like sirloin because it is less greasy, but you use your favorite. I make 3 times what I need for a meal using it and season with basic ingredients like onion and perhaps a smidge of garlic.
One day you toss in some taco seasoning into some and reheat. Instant tacos.
The next day you open a jar of spag sauce and toss in the meat and reheat. Make some noodles.
The next day you toss some beans and tomato sauce in the rest of the meat and make chili.
You can think of a ton of meals that you can do some prep work for on your day off. Chicken is another really easy one. You cook up some chicken. One day it might be to toss in a quick salad, one day you reheat and make chicken wraps.
Think outside the box and I am sure you can come up with some favorites.
Are you off on Weekends? Make homemade frozen dinners.Try having a cooking day on Saturday or Sunday while Daddy watches the kids. Make meals for the week,and put them in the freezer. A large pork roast for example can make 2 separate meals both roast and BBQ.For any type of casserole/soup/or chili product you can use freezer containers that are also microwaveable. For non liquid food item I used a foodsaver machine where it sucks all the air out of the bag an seals it completely,(this was a life saver), then when you get home you take out what you need and you have a ready made boiling bag. Pop the bags into a pan of water and boil for 15-20 minutes. Viola dinner is served.
I totally understand what you’re going thru. I have a 1 year old at home and it can be crazy trying to plan meals. What I do before I go grocery shopping is plan all of the meals for the week. I buy everything I need. When I get home, I put all of the meals on a list and go from there. That way it’s in front of me and there’s no more guessing or “honey what’s for dinner”
BBQ weenies! Hot dogs cut intosmall peices, boil them for 5 mins, darin water and add bbq sauce.. my 3 year old LOVES this. ac and cheese.. they have precooked chicken strips at the grocery store.. heat them up.. corny dogs, dora soup? the funner the better obviously.. but all these are VERY quick. grilled cheese sandwiches… pizzas/…
OK, well OBVIOUSLY things like Beef Wellington are out for now. What do the kids like? My 3 year old is HORRIBLY finicky…………we are limited to chicken nuggets, fries, macaroni & cheese, fish sticks, waffles, pancakes, and the like.
Try to stick with the most healthful foods your little ones will stomach and trust that SOMEDAY they will eat other things.
I do a lot of “TV dinners” that are nutritious. With your schedule, just do what they will eat and you and hubby will eat, too…………..and count on supplemental vitamins, too.
I understand. I have a 10 month and work until 5. The crockpot is a great thing to use. You can make soups and stews. Chicken, ham, potatoes, pot roast, mac n, cheese, and sloppy joe to name a few. There is a cookbook called fix-it and forget it. I definately recommend it.
You poor thing. aggh. Here is my system. I shop weekly every Sunday. So on Saturay night, I write the days out, Sun thru Sat. Next to each day, I write a meal. If Thursdays. I am exhausted ( towards the end of the week ) I plan a meal that is easy, for example Spaghetti. One day a week we do a pizza or someone invites us over. Here is what my schedule looks like:
Sun- Rotisserie chicken with roasted pot and veggiess ( I freeze the carcass)
Mon- Leftover chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy( gravy from packet)
Tues. Pot of chilli ( leftovers freeze in individual freezer bags)
Wed. Spaghetti ( freeze leftover sauce)
Thur- Chicken with pasta and veggies
Fri- BBQ steaks or whatever meat you like ( we also invite people over on Fridays and they tend to help out with kids or cooking. )
Sat- Pizza or make soup from car carcass with steak sandwiches ( leftover steak from BBQ)
****So now you have leftover Spaghetti sauce and Chilli frozen in individual bags. I don;t care for leftovers but I love when I can pull meals out of the freezer. I try to accumulate as many meals in the freezer as possible.
I love shopping week to week, then not only do food NOT go to waste, but I already have all the ingredients and I know what I am making instead of sifting the cupboard and stressing out what you are going to feed. Good luck. If you need anymore info you can email me at yazagreen@hotmail.com and I can give you recipes of our fast meals.
I try for things that are not preparation intensive. We usually have a main dish with a fresh fruit and a fresh veggie; the fresh things are healthier and take less time than, say, mashed potatoes.
I do what a lot of the other mothers do – I cook meat and freeze it in portions. For instance, I might bake or crockpot boneless chicken, and the first night have nice pieces of chicken. Freeze the rest and use in…
–bbq chicken, just on the plate or in sandwiches
–on salads
–in tacos
–on tostadas
–add to canned chicken noodle soup
–have grilled chicken and cheese sandwiches
–heat and dip in ranch dressing
–put with cheese in tortillas, cover with enchilada sauce, and bake
–use in other recipes such as taco soup
Spaghetti completely made is another good thing to freeze. Meat in gravy freezes well. [Potatoes do NOT freeze well.] Things in tortillas freeze well.
By doing some precooking you will not only save time cooking, but will also save a LOT of time doing dishes.
frozen chicken nuggets are a WONDERFUL creation you can also make your own marinara sauce if your kids will eat it. it sounds like sunday is your day to prep! for monday why don’t you get a pork loin or chicken so you can marinade it overnight on sunday so its ready to cook on monday try already ground meat for tacos with refried beans (in a can) or you can make really easy hamburgers or turkey burgers by just adding spices to the ground meat or make a meatloaf which are really quick on sunday you could also make meatballs and freeze them so you can just cook some pasta and throw the meatballs in homeade or store bought sauce don’t forget you can make all kinda of pasta easily and on sundays you could make pasta sauce to freeze frozen vegetables or baby carrots are good quick vegetables there are also frozen pot pies and frozen fish sticks that are easy also try subscribing to a magazine that has quick meals and use saturday to shop and sunday to prep remember just chopping saves time! look online for crockpot meals that you can prepare for at night and you can just throw the stuff in the morning and it cooks all day and is ready when you get home! good luck!
Ok – my plan calls for cooking on SUnday night. It’s easy and healthy. Did I mention easy?…
If you aren’t into Organic stuff, it’s cheaper…
Go to a warehouse store (BJs/Sams/Costco) and buy a bag of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Defrost them. Yes, all of them.
You will also need:
Hammer
Plastic Wrap
Cutting Board (not a glass one)
2 Kitchen Towels
Wooden or Metal Skewers
Baking Pan
Plastic Freezer Containers
Variety of Frozen Veggies
assorted foodstuffs (you’ll understand when I have explained the rest)
Beat all of the breasts flat – like a tortilla but not to the point where the meat is shredding.
It’s easiest and neatest to put 1 towel over the cutting board then cover both with cling wrap. Then the breast, another sheet of cling wrap, then the other towel. Use the hammer to beat the chicken flat.
The whole bag will take about 20 minutes. Once they are flat, take a small amount of ingredients of your choice and put them in the middle of the chicken breast. Fold it like a soft taco and then use the skewers to keep the edges together. When Chicken cooks, it seals itself together wherever it touches itself.
So…I use a couple slices of Pepperoni, a tsp of sauce and a little mozzarella to make a Chicken Pizza Wrap…
You can also use…chopped olives and feta for a greek one or a little chopped ham and swiss for a Cordon Bleu one.
Anyway, once they are skewered, put them seam side down in a baking dish (yep, all together if you made different ones) and bake for TEN MINUTES at 325 degrees. Separate them and put them in a plastic container that can be frozen. Add a frozen veggie you like and freeze.
Yes, you have undercooked the chicken a little, but when you microwave it, it finishes it off and does ***not*** make your chicken act and taste like a rubber ball.
I have a lot of stuff like this if you are interested. Email me if you would like more recipes. kimkrugh@yahoo.com
I have 18 month old twins and work as well…
I run and in home day care and I’m always looking for quick meals to fix for lunch when you have six kids running around I know that I like to use those Banquet Family Size dinners. You can get Turkey and gravy or Boneless Pork Ribs Salisbury Steak. I give them bread Fruit , and a vegetable and milk to drink and they are good to go. I know my husband and I like those Crock Pot Meals Chicken Dumplings that you can put in the Crock Pot and they are done when you get off work. In my case when all of my little people go home.
I suggest that you take a few hours every Saturday or Sunday to prep food for the week and freeze it. That’s probably the only way you are going to survive. Make a few 2 night meals, portion them into single portions and freeze the portions. You would be cooking a lot that one day, but then you are free the rest of the week. Don’t worry, this will pass, but if you want to do home cooked meals, I just don’t see that you can get past this.
Another thing, there’s a fantastic book, 5 ingredient, 15 minute cook book, it really is pretty fast. Not 15 minutes, but not much more than 30, its low fat, and its relatively healthy, and again, its home cooked food.
Check it out at amazon or other book store.
I only have one just now so it isn’t as tough. I’m a fan of cooking things at the weekend and freezing them:
Macaroni
Mince
Soup
I usually make enough for about five portions of each. I serve dinner each night with salad, cheese, bread etc and that’s easy enough to prepare. Tuna and corn canned are also saviors when I am in a rush.
Oh no I’m scared of having two now!
Good Luck with the cooking
Okay I don’t mean to sound harsh or mean but I have 4 children between the ages of 9 and 2, a full time job that is 45 minutes away from where I live, a husband who works nights, and I am 20 weeks pregnant with our 5th child and I STILL make my children dinner every night! And I don’t mean fast food either.
http://www.menus4moms.com. Its completely free and they make your menu for five days and provide a grocery list. They email it to you weekly. I’ve been using it for about three weeks now and love it. I substitute some things that I know my kids or husband don’t like (like certain veggies) but it sure makes things easier and provides variety. I use to keep a 30 day menu that I had planned and basically used the same 30 meals each month. However I got bored with cooking the same things every month after awhile and didn’t have the time to look up new recipes each week and plan it all out. Another thing you might try is http://www.dreamdinners.com or http://www.supersuppers.com You go and prepare a bunch of meals in advance all in about two hours and come home and freeze them. The cost is pretty reasonable too. My husband thought the meals were too fancy for his taste buds though and menus4moms has worked out better for us. I would always plan one night a week to give yourself a break, like have a pizza night and a then a leftover night to clean out all the leftovers from the fridge from that week.
Oh, gracious, honey! You deserve a medal, or someone to watch your kids so you can sleep.
All of those are quick, and incredibly easy. My husband, who can’t figure out how to boil water, can make almost any of those options.
I work full-time, and so does my husband, and we have a five-year-old and a three-year-old, both boys.
Most often, we do skillet dinners and those Betty Crocker “Homestyle Bakes” things. Most of them are pretty balanced meals (it beats chicken nuggets four times a week), and they are incredibly easy. Also, with both of them, you don’t have to buy extra ingredients. We also do the occasional crockpot meal (Marie Callender’s is really good, they can be found in the freezer section. Banquet also has several varieties). All you have to do with those is follow instructions that usually include dumping the ingredients into the crockpot, stir some hot water into it, and let it cook all day. When you get home, you throw in one or two other ingredients, stir, let it cook for about thirty more minutes, and you have a good, hot dinner. Use a crockpot liner, and cleanup is about 3 seconds.
On the weekend, if you happen to have a teeny bit of time, you can try to make a casserole or two and put it in the freezer. Make them relatively small, so that it will thaw and cook quickly, and to make a good amount for two adults and a small child.
We also keep several Banquet frozen dinners in the freezer. I know they aren’t the greatest quality, but for my kids, they provide a pretty rounded out meal. We do that sometimes, so that my kids are having something like chicken, veggies and noodles, and we’ll sometime just get Taco Bell for us.
Other good suggestions are the seasoned pork loins, or the seasoned chicken breasts. You can get both in the meat section of your supermarket. The chicken comes in Italian, and I think something like Lemon Pepper. The brand is Pilgrim’s Pride. The pork loin comes in bbq, teryaki, and (I think) apple bourbon or something like that, and it’s from Hormel.
The last thing we do probably once a week is chicken broccoli alfredo. This is about as easy as it gets: cook pasta, mix in a jar of alfredo sauce, tear up pieces of precooked chicken (either chicken you cooked over the weekend, leftovers, or the precooked and seasoned chicken strips that you can get in the meat refrigerated section). Microwave some frozen bagged chopped broccoli, with a little water, for a few minutes. Stir it all together. Yum.
Best of luck to you!
kraftfoods.com has a wonderful website (even a section for picky eaters). or maybe you can record rachel rays “30 minute meals” on food network. here on the east coast it’s on at 6 &630 p.m. rachel also has many books published on 30 minute meals. best of luck to you!
Hi, try this great site – http://www.menuinabox.com
Menu In A Box it will help you think of planning meals with a long term view, and will be perfect for your situation.. HECTIC LIFE you lead!
I used to have to do exactly what you’re doing when I worked full time, so I feel for you. I’m now a SAHM of 4 kids, ranging 3-10yrs so I’m still pretty busy running around. I’ve learned to prep meals ahead of time on the weekends. When I do have to cook during the week I try to prepare a little extra of something I know will freeze well or make something that morphs into something else the next night. ie plain fried chicken turns into chopped chicken salad the next night.
Also try freezer cooking. Type in “freezer cooking” in your search box and a bunch of sites will come up that can help you with recipes and how to do it. There are also groups on Yahoo that focus just on this. I think they’re call OAMC or Once a month cooking.
Of course you don’t have to prepare a whole month at a time, but maybe just cook a week of meals on the weekend and freeze for the rest of the week. For example, make hamburger patties, seperate @ patty with wax paper, put in tupperware and freeze till needed. You can make meat sauce and freeze for spaghetti. Also, while cooking on the stove top, put a roast beef in the oven and you can shred some and make taquitos(freeze pretty well) and just slice the rest and freeze for sandwiches or quick meals. Most soups and chili do well too.
It’s not necessarily what you cook, but how you cook it. We are a family like yours but the dad is only home on sundays. I found having a contact grill speeds up cooking time as well as using the microwave for steaming fresh veggies and now adays you can get fresh veggies already washed and ready to go. The contact grill can cook anything from sausages to steak. Pork chops (I buy the thick boneless kind) cook in like 20 mins. Bake potatoes take like 10 mins in the microwave. Utilize a slow cooker. After the kiddies are in bed, fill the slow cooker and put the crock part in the fridge and in the morning put the crock in the cooker and set it and forget it. Dinner will be ready when you get home. Using the contact grill and microwave I can cook a complete meal in 30mins. Always have salad on hand to for veggies when running late as a good meal filler. I let my 3yr old choose his own dressing when we go shopping and now he eats salad like there is nothing better on his plate.
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