There are pasta meals with vegetables included in the frozen food section. Might not be as intimidating as cooking from scratch for her.

Can you make big batch meals and leave them for her to reheat?

If she's now at home full time, she needs to learn to cook. I will admit I was a horrible cook until my kids were teenagers, but in my defense I worked full time and had a long commute. You are not going to be able to force her to learn to cook, but working with her to plan meals might give her the incentive she needs to do better. How is she obese if she was in the military? I have never met an obese service member ever. Also: I don't think meals for young children need to be particularly imaginative. They just need to be balanced and nutritious. Chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and apple slices one day a week is not a terrible dinner. See if you can meet her halfway and go from there.

Agree with PPs that you need to take over cooking. If she doesn’t like healthy foods, can’t think of ideas, and isn’t interested in learning, you’re not going to make her change.

Also it’s waaaay easier to go to a drive thu than it is to completely change your habits and learn how to cook healthy foods that toddlers would be interested in. Of course she is choosing the fast food route.

Buying someone one cookbook is not going to teach them how to cook.

Can you introduce some super easy healthy or semi healthy things, or even just things that add variety? Bagged salads or maybe even fresh spinach ravioli (might not be much healthier than spaghetti but it’s just as easy and adds variety). Then maybe make a sheet pan meal together.

My guess by the way is she doesn’t know how to cook things esp. meat (can be intimidating) and vegetables.

Why can’t you cook with her before you go to work? Or cook during the weekends?

Why don’t you make big breakfasts and lunch for everyone and then she and the kids can eat simple sandwiches or something easy for dinner. Night shift doesn’t excuse you from cooking.

Meal planning and prep. My DH plans and shops for our meals, and I'm the one that usually cooks them. I can cook, but I'm not that creative in coming up with meals, so this works for us. Well talk about the menu for the week, and write it out on a chalkboard on the fridge. Then each day, I don't have to think about it, I just make what's on the board. We also do a lot of crockpot and instant pot meals. Rice, steamed veggies, and a simple protein like shrimp or chicken breasts.

I think your only choice is to take over cooking. I use Hello Fresht, and it is pretty easy- you don't have to do the grocery shopping, and you just follow a step by step recipe with pictures.

She doesn’t know how to cook. A cookbook doesn’t teach you how to cook.

Why can’t you cook a damn meal and have it prepared and ready to just be heated up? McDonald’s every now and then is fine so on her days, let them have it but on your days throughout the week when you make dinner, be it or home or not, you make the meal

What about ordering some of those meal prep kits such as Hello Fresh? They’re pretty easy to follow.

Or get some cooking lessons. I’m sure you could find someone that could coach her online.

First few weeks you buy and cook the food.

Sounds like you all need to meal plan and decide the week's meals in advance. Then, you all can prep for the week together, or you can cook and leave her with food ready to go for the meals. You can't put this all on her. How can you help her?

DW retired from the military and is now staying at home with our two kids -1 and 4yo. I work the night shift at my job so I’m not home for dinner. Instead of cooking at home, she will take the trouble of driving to McDonalds or BK and get fast food instead. If she does cook, it’s Mac and cheese or spaghetti with pasta sauce. No variation and it’s not healthy for our kids. She isn’t healthy either, being in her early 40s and suffering from sleep apnea due to obesity. She says “I don’t know what to cook” so I bought her a cookbook weeks ago but she is visiting the drive-thru as I post this. She grew up on a farm in the Midwest and yet doesn’t like vegetables. She refuses to learn how to use the instantpot and takes the trouble of ordering fries, burgers, and nuggets when she could be cooking real food at home. I’m shaking my head. If you’ve faced this at home, how did you manage?