what do you cook when you have a toddler and a baby and working full time?
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at
8:48 pm
I"m working full time, have a toddler and a 2 month old baby, and a husband who needs to eat meat. I normally cook every day but now find it overwhelming when toddler needs my attention, and baby wakes up at dinner time and I have to cook after coming home from work. Any advice?
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when i was little and my mom worked, we LIVED off of hambuger helper
try roasts…throw in a roast, potatoes, veggies in a crock pot in the morning and just turn it on with some water in there and forget about it til its time to eat dinner. very little preparation. i do it while i am at work all the time.
Mass cooking on the weekends. Get a big freezer and put it in the basement.
What I used to do is get up early, prepare it before work, and come home and put it in the oven as soon as I picked my daughter up from daycare. Corningware is good for this. I would have marinated chicken in one dish, into the oven, and frozen veggies with the butter already on it, again, right into the oven. No need to stand at the stove and juggle babies. The oven is your friend!
Honestly, he should be helping out, either by cooking or by taking charge with the kids. My husband works a lot of hours and does most of the cooking because he always wants meat and honestly is a much better cook than I am LOL. Either that or just bump your dinner time to later so you have a little time with the kids first.
eggs or porrige
Tell that husband of yours to help. he is the one that also wanted kids. MEN can never give a women a break.
Use a slow cooker. Just throw everything into the pot before you leave for work and come home to a hot home cooked meal.
I would suggest making Sunday a cooking day. Cook your meals for the week and freeze them This will make your prep time almost zero during the week and help you stretch your budget a bit. You can buy a big pkg of ground meat and make a meatloaf, taco salad, and burgers in 1 week!! Rachel Ray also has tons on 30 min meals that freeze well. Spending time in the kitchen on a Sunday will free up your time during the week. Also invest in a slow cooker…they are great!!
Why don’t you take a few days off from work? Or maybe take a part-time job. In your situation, I would probably decide to give full attention to my children. My children always come first. I think they need the nutritious food you spend time cooking for them (that’s what a mother does). Nowadays, people only care about themselves and their own jobs (I’m not AT ALL saying this about YOU, believe me, I work too). I wouldn’t recommend those frozen meals you get in Ralph’s because it really isn’t nutritious, and not what your kids or husband deserves. A two-month old baby? If you really care about him/her…well think about it. At least for a few years, and then you can go back to working full time!
crockpot meals! you can even get a bread machine and put it on a timer, so you have fresh bread & split pea & ham soup or a roast (really good with just a can of cola & some onions & garlic in the crock pot on low).
you can get the crock pot prepped the night before, and throw the ingredients into the bread machine in the morning. and usually you have left overs for the next day!
Get a good crock pot recipe book. You can throw everything in there in the morning and dinner ready when you come home. Also, try to cook ahead on the weekend… many things can be made ahead and then possibly frozen and just require re-heating for mealtime.
I was and still am a single parent although my sons are grown now and have kids of there own. Try this schedule. take out 2 days portions of meat from freezer. Have 1 tonight. After dinner prepare the second for baking ,or slow roasting. Freeze this prepared meal. In the morning remove frozen prepared dinner and 1 other meat. Placed the prepared meal in oven with timer set to start 1 hour prior to you getting home.When you arrive home the meal is cooked and your next days meal is defrosted and ready to start the process over. We did this for years and it works well.
Cook your Husband……
Serve him with taco seasoning,
Minced for the baby of course
or in slabs
Fried or grilled, barbequed, even.
For this is no man.
This is a meat eating
responsibility avoiding, life sucking missile
Propelling through life
A hair in the beard of masculinity
A louse on the chin of mankind
OR
Get some MEAT
Buy a BBQ
Give your lazy hubby a pair of TONGS, some FIRESTARTERS and an INCENDIARY DEVICE and say ‘MAN, LIGHT FIRE, COOK MEAT’ and grunt
You may find a man in there somewhere
Good Luck