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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have lots of thoughts and they may not work for you but I’ve always worked full-time, as has my husband, and our twins are 10 so I haven’t been doing this forever but it’s been a while.

- Your husband needs to help with this responsibility. There is no reason he can’t be equally in charge of food. If his work schedule doesn’t allow him to actually cook at dinner time, he can still come up with meals, place a pick up grocery order, prep stuff, etc. 
- Your kids need to also take responsibility for this if they are old enough to talk. They should each come up with a dinner once a week. It is not your job to feed multiple people with no input or help. You have a job. You have other things you do. This shouldn’t be all on you. 
- You don’t need to have a perfectly balanced dinner all the time. Pizza is fine. Cereal is fine. Don’t strive for perfection, it’ll drive you crazy. It may seem weird to have a banana on the side of a pasta dish but if you don’t have time to steam broccoli, it’s ok. And, gasp, if you serve a dinner that doesn’t have produce on the side, that’s also ok. No one is going to get scurvy because they didn’t have a fruit or vegetable that night. 
- Make easier food. Get a rotisserie chicken instead of making one from scratch, for example. Buy pre-chopped vegetables. Do what you can to make the steps easier sometimes. 
- [b]Make dinners that allow for customization.  We eat a lot of Mexican food, so every week we grill a big batch of chicken, cook peppers and onions, make guacamole, do a huge pot of rice, and make black beans (from a can, I’m not soaking them for hours or anything). From that we get multiple meals that people can customize. Burritos, fajitas, nachos, quesadillas, bowls, salads, etc. I do similar with Asian dishes - sauté vegetables, cook some chicken and often beef, buy some frozen potstickers. Then we can have stir fry, fried rice, potstickers, meatballs, noodles, etc. Depending on the sauce you want to put on, you can make it Korean, Chinese, Thai, etc. That way everyone gets the flavors (I like spicy, my husband prefers salty) and consistency (one kid likes rice, the other prefers noodles) they want. [/quote][/b]

We have 3 teens and also do a lot of Mexican/Tex Mex and Asian food, and for the same reasons. It works really well. Not only is it easy for everyone to customize their food, it all reheats well and tastes good reheated (important for us on weeknights as with everyone’s activities, some of the family might eat earlier or later). We vary the proteins and accompaniments by the week so we don’t get bored. Also accommodates different dietary habits- for example my DH eats lower carb so does taco salads, with meat/veg stir fries he skips the rice or buys frozen bags of steamable cauliflower rice etc.

We also do very boring/uninspiring meals at times, and I don’t feel guilty about it all. For example buy a rotisserie chicken, do some plain baked potatoes, set out bagged salad. Boring and unappealing.  Everyone is welcome to customize their food or make it more appealing with toppings or whatever (and usually does)- but I’m not doing it. I’ve kind of accepted that on some nights, food is just fuel, and not every meal needs to be tasty or interesting. [/quote]

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