Family dinner prep is sucking up my weekend. Need tips!

[Anonymous]

I have a 1 1/2 yr old and a 4 1/2 year old, so I understand tight timing for dinner. I do a variety of things:

1) big batch cooking one weekend every couple months, making a variety of things that freeze well - chili, beef burgundy, coq au vin, soups. That's usually at least one night of dinner each week (defrost overnight and then just warm up and serve for dinner). Each of those recipes usually gives me 3+ freezer meals.

2) use my instant pot a lot. I prep the night before or on the weekend (all chopping etc.) and then dump it in when we walk in the door. Tonight is butternut squash risotto so last night I chopped squash & onions and shredded cheese. Also really like saffron & sweet peas - she has a bunch of IP recipes, including a post on 7 freezable chicken marinades. I'll prep a bunch of those ahead of time (dump in chicken, seasonings, broth etc. and freeze raw), then defrost overnight and dump for dinner.

Meal prep/planning is the only way I stay sane when in comes to dinnertime. DH isn't around for it so I manage the kids while cooking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a personal chef once a week who makes four reheatable dinners for us on Monday afternoons.

Do you mind telling me what you pay for this service? I would do the menu planning and shopping (with my son’s allergies it’s just easier to do this myself)

$400 a week. We are in Los Angeles so I imagine it is about the same in DC. The chef does the shopping for the meals she makes and can handle any restriction. You just tell her what you want.

You serious? That is an insane amount of money to pay for someone to cook just four meals!

Hmmm...not that bad if it includes cost of food and travel to buy it, is custom-prepared for a family with restrictions, and the chef does the meal-planning.

My brother is in S. California (San Diego), and he pays less than that. But the chef prepares large batch meals and he gets what he gets without much customization.

You could get amazing ftesh delivery meals for $25/plate.

[Anonymous]

Can you give us an example of your time line? Do the meals need to be ready to just warm up? So you are essentially cooking 4-5 days worth of dinners on a Sunday. Of course that takes the whole day.

I have a 2 and a 4 year old. My DH and I cook after they go to bed (so we eat at around 8pm, which I don't love). We feed them at 5:30pm leftovers from the night before. So last night DH and I had salmon, rice and brocoli and the kids will eat that today for dinner.

This works well for us right now. I generally get home with both kids around 4:45pm. My DH gets home around 5:15. My youngest needs to eat at 5:30, or I would maybe try to cook a family meal each night. We do that on the weekends now, have family dinner both nights at 6pm. The 2 year old just can't make it that long on weeknights.

[Anonymous]

I used to do what you do, but really scaled it back. Here are the shortcuts I do to make the week smoother. I will have to caveat this by saying my DH works from home and I'm home by 5PM, so evenings are not such a rush.

-On the weekends I chop up veggies and put them in stackable containers ( I use the containers for deviled eggs and remove the egg part) I do exactly 4 vegetables that are washed and prepped. They are normally broccoli, bell peppers, cucumber, and celery. Additionally we have carrots and mushrooms prepped at all times. This way if I don't have time to make a vegetable, I can just grab raw. Or if I need veggies in my meal, I have them nearly ready.
-On the weekends I boil small red potatoes and cook them 75%. I food save them in 3 separate bags. That is potatoes for the week. All that needs to happen is I take them out of the packaging and fry up or quick roast for 5 min.
-I once again food save marinated meats. I just pull out and put on the grill as needed.
-I have an assortment of frozen bolognase, frozen soups, chili, and sloppy joes on hand for emergencies.
-I do grill chicken breasts Sunday night for lunches and "emergency" food such as chicken and cheese quesadillas.

So my meal prep is very basic and our eating is very basic. However, we eat fresh whole foods and that is basically what we are getting at. I do often make an elaborate meal once or twice on the weekends (last weekend was homemade sushi and we also did stuffed zucchini). On a rare occasion on a weekday I will try something new that is a bit more elaborate.

[Anonymous]

This does not need to be hard. Here is what I did tonight. I purchased sirloin from Costco, cut it into kebabs marinated them, put them on skewers. I'm cooking half and the other half I threw in the food saver and the freezer. That will be a meal I rehash in a few weeks. So simple, my beef already marinated, already on skewers and will be pulled out to dethaw the morning before that nights dinner. All I need to do is grill. How hard will is be to toss some veggies in salt and EVO in the grill basket next to the beef? Maybe I'll bake some potatoes or do some pilaf in the rice cooker for those in my family who need the carbs.