Cooking and decision fatigue

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some things that work for me:

Have your past meals organized in some way. For me, it's a list in Google sheets with basic categories like Vegetarian, Pasta, Meat. Then just pick from this list. It doesn't matter if you made the same thing last week.

Have set nights for certain things, like other PPs mentioned. Mexican night, sandwhich night, pasta night, etc.

Lean into breakfast for dinner, easy and always a hit.

Your DH can cook up some chicken nuggets and prepare salad from a bag, or roasted veggies. That's an acceptable weeknight dinner for the family. Not everything has to be a recipe.

I more or less do the same as do, but write my favorite recipes on cards which then go into Container Store photo cases. I've got different color cases for different food categories. So my green case is for vegetarian recipes (Mondays), one for soup, one for salad, one for fish (Thursdays), etc. I don't get as much decision fatigue, but I still don't like cooking every single night. DH works away during the week, so he is not there to help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to break it to you, but you have no idea how easy you have it now that your kids are little. Not only do they go to bed at night in a routine, but they eat like simple little birds.

I have 3 teens/tweens who all play sports and have metabolisms of race horses. the volume I have to cook is truly exhausting. I can’t buy meat anymore at the regular grocery. I have to go to Costco. A pineapple? Don’t in a sitting. 1 gallon of milk a day, 3 dozen eggs a week, 2 bundles of asparagus a sitting. 3 loaves of bread a week. Hamburger night? I need to grill 9. I’m spending $400/wk on groceries (we don’t eat out AT ALL).

Enjoy your cheese sticks, chicken nuggets, and apple slices.

Yes, but the upside is that older kids (at my house, at least) will eat things like asparagus now. When they were little, they refused most everything. We might go through more food, but cooking and menu planning are fun again, because they are willing to eat pretty much anything!

Hang in there, OP, it gets better.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 children and family dinner every night. I hit the point you describe when the youngest was 1 or 2. I was just so tired from caretaking and working that we had a pretty shortlist of meals we were working through. I did get 2 series of meal kits (Plated and Hello, Fresh) - those were great because it was new ideas and since everything is premeasured, my older kids enjoyed preparing them with me. We still cook some of those recipes. I also got a 10-week CSA, since I could easily find recipes for the veggies in the box, even if I didn't have the energy to decide to go by Kholrabi or microgreens.

On the mealkits, we got 4 portions for our family of 5, and many times I could stretch the main event over 2 meals if I made an extra veggie or side.

[Anonymous]

Definitely try a meal kit. I like Every Plate, and get more than four servings for many meals. It's just so easy to get out of the mental fatigue.