Forum Index
»
Off-Topic
how do other WOHM's handle dinner?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
i'm feel really tired and worn out and trying to figure out how to do this all better...
after work, i pick up DD, take her home, start/cook/figure out dinner, have to feed her, clean the food she threw on the floor, clean her highchair, wash her hands, change her diaper, etc etc etc... i i don't like cooking with a toddler (15mon) underfoot and every way i have tried to contain her have ended with loud, long tears with stress me out further, so i can't pen her up... my husband doesn't cook at all and truthfully gets home too late to be of any help getting dinner on the table, unless he's picking up something to bring home. i'm totally sick of pizza and getting tired of eating out so much... i try cooking on sundays while dh is watching baby and when i have a babysitter on tuesday afternoon/evening... so, in general, we eat at home 4 days a week, but that's hard for me... any ideas would be appreciated. |
Anonymous
|
sounds like me....not sure whatt type of advice you are looking for but a couple of ideas pop up...
1. pup DC in highchair with appetizer while you throw pasta into boiling water 2. give DC uncooked pasta, measuring cup and bowl and have her cook in highchair while you cook dinner 3. frittata - with anything you can think of 4. pasta pasta pasta - need I say more? Hang in there! It really does get easier! |
Anonymous
|
Let's Dish for entres plus precooked then frozen starches that you can reheat, like Trader Joe's Basmati rice, or instant couscous, or mashed potato flakes. It's usually the starch that takes the longest to cook (need to wait for water to boil)
Hearty chef salads: Bags of prewashed lettuce, pre-chopped or at least pre-washed vegetables, chunks of cheese and some hardboiled eggs; or keep a bag of walnuts/almods/sesame seeds in the fridge. Add a few rolls and it's dinner. Soup and sandwhiches for dinner -- keep chopped celery on hand, and a bunchof hardboiled eggs or cans of tuna and chicken; add capers, etc; you can make tuna salad or egg salad or chicken salad sandwhiches and add a soup you pick up at the store. |
Anonymous
|
This is my husband's situation. He makes dinner; I arrive home around 6:30 if I'm lucky. Honestly, I'm not sure how he does it.
Wait, yes, I know. DVDs of the kids' favorites. That's the only time they get 45-60 mins of TV a day. DD does not eat on her own, she is not "fed" a separate meal. She eats with us. If anything, she gets a snack to calm her down e.g., slice of cheese or mini yogurt or apple slices. And hubs does NOT do dishes. That's my job, and the very least I can do. |
Anonymous
|
ps: If you go the DVD route, good ones to try are--
Goodnight Moon Sesame Sreet Old School Madeline (the live action, real person one) Pocoyo (downloadable) Pingu (downloadable) Get a little mini DVD player that can be plugged in close to where you work, set children in high chair or at their own little kiddie table. And make dinner.  Pasta is a good choice because all you have to do is set to boil, make sauce, defrost some veggies or else steam them (salt + lemon juice for flavor) and vioala! Dinner!
|
Anonymous
|
We started Let's Dish tonight. It was delicious and SO easy.
I got home, put the calzones in the oven, and voila, dinner was ready. I got 12 dishes split in half, so I have 24 meals, I am SO excited I won't have to cook for a month! It cost me 295, I think it is a good deal. |
Anonymous
|
baby einstein video or the like
bertoli pasta bags mexican pizza: rice in rice cooker, beans from can, pre-shredded cheese, salsa from jar, tortillas from bag. |
Anonymous
you think you're fooling us? |
Anonymous
| I've put my daughter on the kitchen counter since she was about 18 months old. She seems to like to see what's going on and to taste what's cooking. Sometimes I'll have her help me tear up mushrooms or something like that. I don't do anything too complicated (rice and beans, pasta mostly), but it's one way to pass the time. If you don't want her on the counter, you could get a learning tower. |
Anonymous
I'm the first poster who mentioned Let's Disj, but this post could have been mine as well. I did the same as this poster did -- split the meals into half, and had 24 freezer meals for about $300. It's definitely a good deal, at least for occasional use, and no, I am not associated with the company. |
Anonymous
|
My children are older now, so I can tell you with assurance and from experience that it will absolutely get easier. So hang in there!
Back when they were small and still now, the main thing I do is cook two huge soups every Sunday. I have two enormous soup pots, and I choose the two soups to have at least some of the same ingredients: minestrone and veggie chili (both have chopped onions, crushed garlic, and olive oil to start, then both add beans and tomato sauce, from there I vary), for example, or an Asian noodle soup and a Thai veggie soup (both get garlic, ginger, sesame oil and scallions, and from there things vary). Then the family eats one soup on Monday and Wed night, and the other soup on Tuesday and Thurs nights. I make very very thick soups, so usually it's more like a stew, and then for hot lunch for my daughter's thermos, I can often just make rice or simple elbows to add to whichever soup base we have more of, and that is another meal. Choosing two soups with similar bases helps with chopping -- I can just take three onions out, chop hte whole mess and throw half into each pot. I'm big on adding brown rice to soups, spinach to anything that will take it, and beans to everything (I;m a vegetarian) so that the one dish contains everything needed for a healthy meal for adults and children. I will say that having Trader Joe's nearby now has made me lazier but also added more variety to our diets. We really like their bagged jambalaya and their frozen rices...make for an easy meal for the children or for us when a particular soup can't stretch to cover the second night! And don't forget their burritos too - throw them in the oven for 20 min and yum! Good luck! |
Anonymous
|
We use the crockpot a lot. I place all of the ingredients into the crockpot the night before and place the crockpot into the based as I leave for work. When I get home it is just a frozen veggie and fruit to prepare. Things I make in the crock pot are chili, soups, salsa chicken (literally just chicken breasts and salsa) that I serve with flour tortillas, and some random casseroles.
I have also done a Let's Dish type of place. It was easy, but we found that a lot of the dinners still took a while to cook when we got home - sometimes like an hour and a half. Hope that helps! |
Anonymous
|
We have started planning out our dinners for the week on the weekend - not having to come up with an idea for dinner after a long drive home is really nice. After we've planned out our menu for the week, I try to pre-chop as much as I can for those dinners and put them in storage containers in the fridge - that way when I get home on Tuesday and it's chicken stir fry on the menu, I can just pull out the container with all the veggies for the stir fry already prepped and ready to go. This may not actually save that much time, but it feels like it does, and that's good enough for me. When we have time, we've also made up big batches of things like beef stew and frozen them - that makes for a nice fast dinner without resorting to takeout.
My husband leaves work before I do, so he brings the baby home. Depending what time I get home, we play for a bit, then start our dinner, give the baby her dinner (husband does this if traffic is bad and I get home really late), and then we eat dinner. Sometimes the baby eats with us, and sometimes she doesn't - it really depends on what time I end up getting home. |
Anonymous
|
Does your oven have a "Timed Cook" & "Delay Start" or similar functions? I sometimes use this when I have to be out and about with our MS aged child at lessons, activities, etc. Yesterday, for instance, I cooked a pork loin roast while we were across town at music lessons. Not much to prep. Came home, made a salad, steamed some veggies and dinner was ready.
Chime on crockpot. |
Anonymous
|
If your husband can hold down a job, he can assemble a dinner salad. If he can make it home in time to get to the table most nights, he can make it home 15 minutes earlier at least once per week, and put something together. If he is able to "watch the baby" (his baby, for whom he shares equal responsibility) on a Sunday, he too can take 1/2 hour on a weekend and prepare a pot of chili or soup to be served the next day.
It's still early enough to change the "default settings" from 100% your responsibility to shared, and you'll really appreciate this even more if you choose to have baby two. The suggestions above are excellent but both of you can take responsibility for executing them. |