Sausage and peppers, or grilled chicken breasts, or any prepared grocery store entrees. Seriously.

Anonymous wrote:I bulk cook on Sundays and usually freeze half for a future meal. I try to have something in the crockpot, something in the oven and something on the range at the same time.

For example, my meal plan for this week is:
Sunday fish dinner with steamed veggies and rice (double batch of rice in the rice cooker for later in the week)
Sunday prep: salmon cakes (freeze for future meal), soup in the crock pot for Monday
Monday: soup, good bread, salad
Tuesday: eggplant parm (frozen from two Sundays ago bulk cooking) with a side of steamed spinach and leftover bread.
Wednesday: salmon cakes (half of Sunday's batch) plus one fresh, one frozen veggie, maybe Sundays rice.
Thursday: burger night with sweet potato fries (I work from home on Thursdays so I can throw the homemade fries in the oven)
Friday: leftovers or omelets with leftover veggies from the week.

Meal planning. It's all about meal planning and Sundays.

Nice menus but that food wouldn't fill up my teenage boys.

Cook double batches at night after their activities.

for tonight, I was going to make tomato soup in the vitamix (tomaotes, garlic, basil, etc) blend until heated through in vitamix, and make pesto grilled cheese with spinach in the toaster oven simultaneously. Will let you know how that goes...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the 20 minute turn-around is every night, the first thing that I'd try to do is cut back on activities.

We needed this kind of turn-around twice a week over the summer. I always planned a crockpot meal for those nights. Dinner was done as soon as we got home -- faster than grabbing fast food -- and so we could immediately start eating.

We have some good cookbooks with recipes that take 20-30 minutes max for the other nights.

what cookbooks?

We use the rice cooker (I have a programmable Zoijurushi (sp?)) a lot - I do a lot of lentils, rice.

I make pasta on the weekends, keep it plain. Come home - throw in a sauce (tomato, or pesto), a protein (or not) and some zapped frozen veggies if you want (or not). a meal!

you can make egg muffins for the car, or PBJ muffins for snacks. I like the idea of prepped trays (Meat, cheese, crackers).

Love the crockpot. Start in morning on your way out, come home to meal. I ONLY look for the 7-8 hr recipes, none of those ones that require a 1000 steps THEN slow cook. Make soup in the morning, come home, make pesto grilled cheese with spinach (if you can sneak it in, my kids are getting hip to this) (I keep purchased pesto in the fridge) and you have a meal.

Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express is organized by seasonal ingredients, and everything can be made within about 20 minutes. He's coming out with another book very soon with quick recipes, and I think I'm going to get that as well.

I also use the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook really heavily. A lot of the recipes are NOT fast, but everything comes out great, and they have a key to show you which ones can be made quickly. I'm just sure to use the quick ones (or the crockpot ones) for weeknights. They also have a "Quick" version of the family cookbook that's supposed to be all recipes that can be made within 45 minutes, but I haven't tried it.

A lot of recipe websites also have indications of which recipes will cook up pretty quickly. Depending on the website, they may have a different definition of quick (e.g. 20 minutes versus 45 minutes), but that can also help me to find good, quick recipes.

I plan out meals once a week and by the ingredients I'm going to need online with Harris Teeter Express Lane. I do a big cookup on Sunday after I pick up my groceries and do some prep the night before throughout the week. On my meal plan I include the prep work I have to do that night to prepare for the next day.

Yesterday I baked 3 lbs of chicken thighs, made meatballs with red gravy, browned 1/2 lb. ground pork I had left over from the mealballs, boiled some spaghetti, and roasted a spaghetti squash (I do gluten free but my kids don't).

We'll have spaghetti and meatballs tonight. I'll take the browned pork out of the freezer to thaw it out for tomorrow and make some rice.

Tuesday we'll have the chicken, frozen stir fry veggies, and rice with terriyaki sauce. I'll assemble and cook lasagna roll-ups for Wednesday using the thawed out ground pork and the red gravy I made on Sunday.

Wednesday, reheat lasagna roll-ups. Cook a pork loin in the crock pot or pressure cooker.

Thursday is pork with mac and cheese with broccoli. I make a cheese sauce in my Vita mix. It takes 4 minutes. I thrown frozen broccoli in with the elbows the last couple of minutes of cooking.

Friday I use the left over pork for carnitas tacos by adding salsa to the pork and stuffing into hard taco shells. I shred some cabbage and carrots in my salad shooter for a salad and cut up some tomatoes and avocados.

DH and I will have the leftovers for lunch and pack them for DS in his lunch when he is a "bringer" at school.

Good luck.

I have a horrible commute and we have lots of activities through out the week, giving us very little time in between. My kids aren't old enough to wait until 7:30 for dinner and aren't old to really to make it themselves. Here are the things I try to do:

1st and foremost - meal plan once a week every week.
2nd: Prep and cook as much as possible on Sundays. This week I made soup for Tuesday ( will go with Salad and bread ) Pot roast and mashed potatoes was Sunday dinner and will either be made into beef barley soup or just a repeat of dinner another day. Pumpkin muffins/bread for grab and go snacks/breakfast. Butternut/Kale couscous salad for my lunches. I also made pizza dough for make your own pizza night ( the day we don't have activities ) and dough for quiche. I will put the quiche together and cook it after kids are in bed one night for dinner the next day. It's really time consuming to be in the kitchen that much in one day and I don't always make so much effort but my DH has surgery this week and will be out of commission so I needed to be fully prepared. that said, I normally cook enough for three full meals on Sundays - every week. If I do not manage to get that done, we eat noodles with butter and parmesan every night and that gets really old quickly.

Good luck OP - I love to cook so this is normally not a problem for me but I can see how people find it really annoying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to roll my eyes to this thread. Really op?! In 10 years you haven't figured out how to make meals that are simple. LOL

I know how to make simple meals, but there will only be 20 minutes from the time we all get home till when we need to be in the car. My kids can barely eat in 20 minutes. I won't even have time to heat up a frozen pizza. I literally need something that will take 5 minutes max.

What time do they get home and what time is practice/game? DD used to have practice from 6-7 PM. She would have a few snacks between the end of school and the start of practice. Dinner was when we got home. If dinner was not a crockpot item, I'd call DH as we left the field, and he would put meat on the grill and a veggie in the oven. 15 minutes later we would be sitting at the table.

Anonymous wrote:If the 20 minute turn-around is every night, the first thing that I'd try to do is cut back on activities.

We needed this kind of turn-around twice a week over the summer. I always planned a crockpot meal for those nights. Dinner was done as soon as we got home -- faster than grabbing fast food -- and so we could immediately start eating.

We have some good cookbooks with recipes that take 20-30 minutes max for the other nights.

what cookbooks?

We use the rice cooker (I have a programmable Zoijurushi (sp?)) a lot - I do a lot of lentils, rice.

I make pasta on the weekends, keep it plain. Come home - throw in a sauce (tomato, or pesto), a protein (or not) and some zapped frozen veggies if you want (or not). a meal!

you can make egg muffins for the car, or PBJ muffins for snacks. I like the idea of prepped trays (Meat, cheese, crackers).

Love the crockpot. Start in morning on your way out, come home to meal. I ONLY look for the 7-8 hr recipes, none of those ones that require a 1000 steps THEN slow cook. Make soup in the morning, come home, make pesto grilled cheese with spinach (if you can sneak it in, my kids are getting hip to this) (I keep purchased pesto in the fridge) and you have a meal.

If the 20 minute turn-around is every night, the first thing that I'd try to do is cut back on activities.

We needed this kind of turn-around twice a week over the summer. I always planned a crockpot meal for those nights. Dinner was done as soon as we got home -- faster than grabbing fast food -- and so we could immediately start eating.

We have some good cookbooks with recipes that take 20-30 minutes max for the other nights.

I prep and par-cook every night's dinner the night before -- I've started doing it while DH does the dishes and kitchen clean-up, so it's actually kind of nice (we catch up while we work). With that short a turn-around, though, I agree with others that you should do a high-protein snack and have proper dinner after activities.

Cook your week's worth of dinner on the weekend and freeze.

Plan every meal on Friday night (including snacks and take outs)

Adhere to portion sizes, so you do not have lots of left over. Fill the gaps by also serving fresh fruits and salads. It cuts down on the cooking quantity, provides variety and a balanced meal.

If your kids are self reliant you can pack up each individual mean in a freezer safe container and label them - that way kids can pick out one entree, one fruit, glass of milk, a small dessert, and be done with feeding themselves.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to roll my eyes to this thread. Really op?! In 10 years you haven't figured out how to make meals that are simple. LOL

I know how to make simple meals, but there will only be 20 minutes from the time we all get home till when we need to be in the car. My kids can barely eat in 20 minutes. I won't even have time to heat up a frozen pizza. I literally need something that will take 5 minutes max.

Do not listen to the pp, it can be a challenge for us mere mortals.

Some nights with activities I do crock pot or make dinner - two small dinners that are really healthy snacks. It depends on your kids. It is challenging and takes lots of planning. Keep portable healthy snacks around so if you are running late, the kids can eat something in the car on the way to the activity. Keep a freezer stocked with super-easy microwave meals for when all the planning falls apart (missing an ingredient, running late, burn the crap out of something....maybe the last one is just me).

Plan for the week, so you don't waste time figuring out what you need to do.

On nights when you have zero time or kids are going to different activities (so need meals at different times), the crockpot is your friend.

Plan easier/quicker meals on nights you have a little time.

If you have any nights that have more time, plan for more complicated meals - but we are talking stir-fry. Things that take time to cook like roasted chicken are out.

Pre-prep when possible (although sometimes I find this just move the burden, not takes it away).

If the kids are old enough, get them to help.

When possilble, make double batches and freeze half for an easy meal the next time.

I find combining take-out with some home-made stuff is a good combination of convenience and keeping the price down (buy a Peruvian chicken and add rice and salad).