Working moms - dinner question

DO you cook every night? If not, what do you give your dc for dinner? I try to cook every night but by the time I get home from getting mikayla, is is usually around 6pm, kinda hard to cook then and feed her, bathe her, have some play time and get her into bed by 7:30....

I need some help in this area

TIA

Re: Working moms - dinner question

maybe set aside one day a week to cook a few meals and freeze them, that way they'll only need to be deforsted!

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I don't work everyday and I'm currently on maternity leave but what I do is cook every other night. I cook Sunday and she has leftovers on Monday - a workday for me. Tuesday I cook and she has leftovers on Wednesday - another workday for me.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Does anyone have some EASY quick recipes for me for dinner meals?

THANKS

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I normally cook every night. I order out on Friday's. I get home at 6pm, cook, eat, bath DS, spend some time together playing or I take him for a walk and in bed by 8/8:30pm.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Message edited 7/8/2008 2:54:45 PM.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Andrew eats PB&J with Broccoli or Mac & Cheese every night. It is very fast. He is a very picky eater. He does like meatloaf too which is fast to make.

What about using a crock pot?

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I rarely cook , although it is my pledge (and DH's) to start cooking every night now.

But I agree with the crock pot suggestion. I love that thing-- I try to use it as much as possible. You can cut stuff up the night before, and throw it in that morning, and come home to a hot dinner. You could make a double batch and freeze half so that's 2 meals out of 1 crock pot batch.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

DH totally broke my heart last week when he told me how much he misses my cooking. I feel so bad but we created a schedule and routine that works for Lucas so we both agreed to make the sacrifice. Although my new goal is to try to get back to family dinners during the weekend.

In the meanwhile, Lucas eats at daycare but on the rare occassion that I get him early and on the weekends I usually do quick easy dinners that we can all enjoy

Some ideas:

Taco Night
Lucas gets a cheese quesadilla
We make our own tacos (I just brown the meat and season)

Mac & Cheese with Chicken Cutlets
I started baking the cutlets which actually saves me a lot of clean up -which saves me time. The Mac&Cheese is easy - I only use one pot - boil the pasta and while that drains I make the cheese sauce.



Also some things I used to do and need to get back to doing:
- Make sauce on the weekend so that I can make pasta during the week and just warm the sauce. Or take chicken cutlets and turn them into chicken parmigana
- Marinate chicken in Italian Dressing Friday night. Grill on Saturday. Makes two meals for us - grilled chicken with rice and salad and also chicken salad which we eat on wraps for quick meals.


I have a few of the 30 minute meal cookbooks by Rachel Ray and used to get ideas from that as well.


ETA: Another quick meal..Penne Alfredo
with spinach

Boil pasta (any kind really - we do tortelini as well)

Alfredo Sauce
1 cup heavy cream
2 oz cream cheese
1 tbsp butter
Heat in pot over medium heat stiring until blended.

Add
1/4 romano cheese
pepper

continue stirring until melted and sauce is a good consistency.


Pour over pasta (can add cooked frozen chopped spinach) and whalla!

Message edited 7/8/2008 3:12:10 PM.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

During the school year I cook about 3-4 nights a week. Some nights my FIL will cook, then call us up on the way home from work and we'll pick up a meal "to go" from him. We are so lucky to have him.

Other nights we do subway, pizza, stuff like that.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

always plan out your meals for the week when you food shop..

30min meals rock and are cheap easy and fun....

I get home anywhere btwn 6-730 and I cook almost every night.. Wash Sofia feed sofia..
Wash myself feed myself and Ronnie..

Clean and have some alone time.

bed by 1030.. out of the house by 6-630am!

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Re: Working moms - dinner question

DH cooks. He is home by 3:30 pm, so he cooks almost every day. Bella eats at 5:30-6 pm, about an hour before I get home, so she usually gets fed by DH. But she will eat, most of the time, what DH and I eat a little bit later on.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I cook every night. I get home around 6 pm and then start dinner. DS does not go to sleep until between 9 - 10:30 pm so I have time. I usually try to plan ahead over the weekend for the following week.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I get hoe about 6pm, and DS eats at 6:45 PM, so I thry to plan ahead and only make sometign that willtake 30-40minutes tops.

Its not easy and we do eat alot of the same things, but it works.

Also DS just started eatign regular food, so a little goes a long way for him.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

In a pinch or on a night that I REALLY don't feel like cooking they have those bertolli and voila chicken bags...

it's like pasta, veggies, chicken all in one bag and it takes like 10 minutes to heat up.

Ravioli is very fast. I have a fresh ravioli place near me that makes tons of varieties, the portobello mushroom ones are my favs...with homemade sauce from the same place.

What about salads and you can utilize leftovers from other nights----like grilled chicken, grilled veggies, I've even seen rachel ray do mini burgers in her salads.

i made a great "chicken ball soup" that makes enough for 2 dinners plus a few servings of lunch. DH loves it.....FM me if you want the recipe but it's basically an easier chicken soup and you use ground chicken to make mini chicken meatballs.

if you do salads with leftover chicken, etc you can also make them into wraps.

i have some rachel ray cookbooks --- about 5 of them probably. i'd be willing to lend them out!

Re: Working moms - dinner question

A lot of our dinners are quick and easy. I'd say 2-3 times a week we just saute up some fish and couscous. It takes all of 10 minutes.

Otherwise, we often have falafel with pita and hummus and salad (frozen falafel from Costco - heat it up in the microwave), pasta with veggie meatballs (frozen from trader joe's), eggs (omelette, schnitzel, shakshuka), or veggie burgers or hotdogs

So yes, we do make dinner, but it's not often an elaborate one. And at least once a month DH buys a big chunk of salmon from costco, grills it up and we eat it for the whole week, which cuts down on preparation as well.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I don't cook every night, maybe 3-4 times a week. We usually get home around 7pm so I tend to give them leftovers from the night before. I'll start cooking when I get home, but it's usually not ready by the time they go to bed. So I just set some aside and then feed it to them the next day.

I sometimes to do easy things like Mac 'n cheese and a veggie, grilled cheese with mandarin oranges, Ravioli and sauce. I also started buying frozen single serving packs of veggies (peas, broccoli, corn, etc) and split it between the two of them. Those come in handy if we have left over meat and I just pop one of them in the microwave.

I also have also given them stuff like eggs w/sausage, waffles, oatmeal or PB&J for dinner if I'm really lazy.

Message edited 7/8/2008 3:24:33 PM.

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Re: Working moms - dinner question

As AP said-how about crockpot-I think you have one don't you? How about K picking up Miki so you can go right home and cook or have him start dinner while you pick her up. Some easy stuff I make-and its all easy if we have anything complicated Mike cooks it.

Turkey meatloaf
pkg ground turkey mix with 1 can cream of mushroom soup about 1 cup of cracker crumbs(any kind will do-I've used goldfish, saltines, even doritos!) and a bit of ketchup salt and pepper. It does take about an hr to cook-I form it into a loaf shape and put it on a cookie sheet rather than use a loaf pan-you can also cut up potatoes and spread them around the meatloaf to cook-use a bit of cooking spray so they don't stick

You can marinate meat the night before and throw it on the grill or have K do it

tacos also with ground turkey

You can make homeade mac and cheese with some frozen veggies in it for her-melt 1 TBS of buitter-add milk or cream add shredded cheese-pour that over pasta and veggies

We make chicken caesers a lot.

I love the 3 and 4 ingredient cookbooks-maybe pick one of those up and B&N they are always on the bargain rack

Re: Working moms - dinner question

Thanks everyone. I have some ideas to get me started

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I try really hard to cook every night....what I've found helps is to have a lot of frozen meat choices on hand. Then I'll atke one out the night before to defrost in the fridge and I can make something quick when I get home.
Most of the time, I'm too exhausted to cook though....

Re: Working moms - dinner question

I rarely cook during the week. I cook on the weekends for atleast half of the week. I am too tired by the time i get home too cook especially being preggo. DS thank goodness gets fed lunch and dinner at daycare (DH feeds him bkfst in the morning).