How much do you cook nice meals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter if they’re eaten earlier or later, or with one family member at the table or everyone, I still try to make “nice” meals every day. They may not be fancy on busy days, just a soup on the stove, or a hefty salad that sits in the fridge for everyone to help themselves.

I consult the family and the calendar, make a plan for the week and shop for the ingredients over the weekend. Then whoever has the lighter schedule on a given day does the cooking.

I try to keep all that in mind as I plan, especially everyone’s cooking strengths and individual schedules. So if I have to be somewhere on Tuesday, we’ll have something DH enjoys cooking. If everyone is busy, it will be something that can be prepped the night before, or a crockpot meal.

My family would not eat a salad from the fridge and consider that dinner.

Dp- then you are making your salads wrong. A good salad presents the same ingredients as a good plated meal, just in a different form.

Our salads typically are - grilled chicken, mixed greens with extra baby spinach, avocado, shredded broccoli, shredded carrots, sliced almonds or seeds, craisins, tomatoes and cucumbers. Often with a boiled egg white and amazing bread.

How is

Sounds delicious and I’d love that for dinner! My DH and teens would not go for it though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter if they’re eaten earlier or later, or with one family member at the table or everyone, I still try to make “nice” meals every day. They may not be fancy on busy days, just a soup on the stove, or a hefty salad that sits in the fridge for everyone to help themselves.

I consult the family and the calendar, make a plan for the week and shop for the ingredients over the weekend. Then whoever has the lighter schedule on a given day does the cooking.

I try to keep all that in mind as I plan, especially everyone’s cooking strengths and individual schedules. So if I have to be somewhere on Tuesday, we’ll have something DH enjoys cooking. If everyone is busy, it will be something that can be prepped the night before, or a crockpot meal.

My family would not eat a salad from the fridge and consider that dinner.

Dp- then you are making your salads wrong. A good salad presents the same ingredients as a good plated meal, just in a different form.

Our salads typically are - grilled chicken, mixed greens with extra baby spinach, avocado, shredded broccoli, shredded carrots, sliced almonds or seeds, craisins, tomatoes and cucumbers. Often with a boiled egg white and amazing bread.

How is

Sounds delicious and I’d love that for dinner! My DH and teens would not go for it though.

How do you shred broccoli?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter if they’re eaten earlier or later, or with one family member at the table or everyone, I still try to make “nice” meals every day. They may not be fancy on busy days, just a soup on the stove, or a hefty salad that sits in the fridge for everyone to help themselves.

I consult the family and the calendar, make a plan for the week and shop for the ingredients over the weekend. Then whoever has the lighter schedule on a given day does the cooking.

I try to keep all that in mind as I plan, especially everyone’s cooking strengths and individual schedules. So if I have to be somewhere on Tuesday, we’ll have something DH enjoys cooking. If everyone is busy, it will be something that can be prepped the night before, or a crockpot meal.

My family would not eat a salad from the fridge and consider that dinner.

+1 dinner salads are for women watching their weight. We do side sales but my kids need a heartier meal with more carbs.

[Anonymous]

We do Blue Apron 3 nights per week and have used one of these companies every week for the past 7 years.

It works for us. We have 2 jobs and 3 kids (who are now teens).

Our typical week:

-Blue Apron x 3 nights
-Frozen food (pizzas, frozen lasagna) x 1 night
-Cook from scratch x 1-2 nights
-Don't cook at all x 1-2 nights (Either we all eat out or the teens are out during dinner (sporting events, parties, friends homes) and my husband and I just scrounge up leftovers or snacks)

[Anonymous]

Only on holidays. My DH just won’t cook, and I refuse to do it all myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to cook pretty nice meals 5-7 days a week. Now kids are in and out with sports, games, work, and I find I am always frazzled to cook unless I prepped during the day. I wah so can some days, but not always. So sometimes we eat really fast meals. Today ds just scarfed down tortellini between practice and going to work, and dd and dh aren't home yet.

Its tough and what helps is Instapot, Airfryer, marinated meet in freezer, grill and always cooking doubles of what you need so you can freeze half for busy days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to cook pretty nice meals 5-7 days a week. Now kids are in and out with sports, games, work, and I find I am always frazzled to cook unless I prepped during the day. I wah so can some days, but not always. So sometimes we eat really fast meals. Today ds just scarfed down tortellini between practice and going to work, and dd and dh aren't home yet.

This sounds like us. I still make it a point that we eat together most nights because I’ve read studies that speak to the last positive effects. But I don’t cook all the time now, always feel we are running here or there, coming home late. We pick up on the way from a late practice or order if it’s a late night of homework help or I’m just spent from work. I prefer cooking from scratch for health reasons. Also I used to really enjoy cooking but I seem to have lost the joy in it. It was much much easier when the kids were little.

[Anonymous]

We manage 5x a week, including both parents working and a teen doing sports 6 days a week year round, but we only have one kid. We schedule our dinners around kid's schedule, and eat healthy but quick meals. Takes a lot of juggling, but doable with one kid.

[Anonymous]

I cook at least four nights a week but with two teens and a tween in various activities, we rarely eat all together. I’m thrilled if I get at least three of us together out of the five. I usually have the teens heat up their plate after dance or sport. We have Sunday night dinner at home as a family or go out to a restaurant Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My tweens have manners. They also have sports practice 3x week in the evenings (differing nights) plus traveling weekends for tournaments. We do the best we can. Some weeks I meal prep, other weeks there is too much take out or easy meals (like quesadillas). But it is more than not we are eating on the fly, including in the car. It is what it is. They are happy and busy. It’s a season of life.

Exact same life here with two club players. I treasure our time in the car and watching them play.

I enjoy cooking and will bulk cook and meal prep on Sundays. Kids love easy healthy stuff like salmon cakes and roasted veggies soup. We are all lovers of poke bowls and salads so I make sure I’ve got healthy proteins ready so they can make dinner if I’m with the other.

You just inspired my next meal - my kids love salmon cakes too but I haven’t made them in ages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter if they’re eaten earlier or later, or with one family member at the table or everyone, I still try to make “nice” meals every day. They may not be fancy on busy days, just a soup on the stove, or a hefty salad that sits in the fridge for everyone to help themselves.

I consult the family and the calendar, make a plan for the week and shop for the ingredients over the weekend. Then whoever has the lighter schedule on a given day does the cooking.

I try to keep all that in mind as I plan, especially everyone’s cooking strengths and individual schedules. So if I have to be somewhere on Tuesday, we’ll have something DH enjoys cooking. If everyone is busy, it will be something that can be prepped the night before, or a crockpot meal.

My family would not eat a salad from the fridge and consider that dinner.

Dp- then you are making your salads wrong. A good salad presents the same ingredients as a good plated meal, just in a different form.

Our salads typically are - grilled chicken, mixed greens with extra baby spinach, avocado, shredded broccoli, shredded carrots, sliced almonds or seeds, craisins, tomatoes and cucumbers. Often with a boiled egg white and amazing bread.

How is

Like PP, that sounds awesome for me but my kids wouldn’t eat it. Two of the three kids love veggies but only roasted or sautéed, not uncooked like in a salad. The other won’t eat salad greens with any protein, cheese, egg on it. None of them will eat cold grilled chicken so that would have to be heated up separately. So unfortunately a meal like this wouldn’t work for them.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know about “nice” but I cook something 6//7 nights per week, or use leftovers. Nothing fancy and no serving dishes at the table. Usually just a meat, starch, vegetable, and some fresh baked bread. People can mix and match what they like: make a grain bowl, salad bowl, taco, whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cook at least four nights a week but with two teens and a tween in various activities, we rarely eat all together. I’m thrilled if I get at least three of us together out of the five. I usually have the teens heat up their plate after dance or sport. We have Sunday night dinner at home as a family or go out to a restaurant Saturday.

Exact same here. Two teens and a tween and I cook most weeknights but usually someone has to eat later/reheat later. I try to plan things that reheat decently. We eat as a family on the weekends whenever we can. DH makes a big Sunday meal usually.

[Anonymous]

4-5 days a week. We go to my parents (grandparents) once a week. The rest is leftovers. The bigger issue is not the lack of time to cook, it's that the kids are often at practice or lessons, so we are eating the fresh thing but not necessarily all together (though that happens on weekends fine).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter if they’re eaten earlier or later, or with one family member at the table or everyone, I still try to make “nice” meals every day. They may not be fancy on busy days, just a soup on the stove, or a hefty salad that sits in the fridge for everyone to help themselves.

I consult the family and the calendar, make a plan for the week and shop for the ingredients over the weekend. Then whoever has the lighter schedule on a given day does the cooking.

I try to keep all that in mind as I plan, especially everyone’s cooking strengths and individual schedules. So if I have to be somewhere on Tuesday, we’ll have something DH enjoys cooking. If everyone is busy, it will be something that can be prepped the night before, or a crockpot meal.

My family would not eat a salad from the fridge and consider that dinner.

Dp- then you are making your salads wrong. A good salad presents the same ingredients as a good plated meal, just in a different form.

Our salads typically are - grilled chicken, mixed greens with extra baby spinach, avocado, shredded broccoli, shredded carrots, sliced almonds or seeds, craisins, tomatoes and cucumbers. Often with a boiled egg white and amazing bread.

How is

Sounds delicious and I’d love that for dinner! My DH and teens would not go for it though.

How do you shred broccoli?

You can buy bags of precut broccoli "slaw."

My household is also good with dinner salads on occasion and no, no one is watching their weight.