Long commute for mom: dinners?

I'm very sorry about your terrible commute but I understand why you are doing it, so hang in there. I too have a well-meaning but can't-cook husband.

If yours doesn't mind meal prep, I have a suggestion. Good Eggs https://www.goodeggs.com/ has these wonderful very simple and fast "meal packages" for 3 (I've found they easily feed 4 so you have leftovers for lunch the next day). They give you all the ingredients, plus a recipe.  I mostly use good eggs to order organic produce that they deliver the next day to my door, which I really love. But I have also tried a number of their meal kits, and they are tasty, idiot-proof, and made from fresh ingredients. I've tried their pizza made from scratch, the sausages with polenta, the chicken and kale udon, the tomato soup with gruyere toast, and others. They are really tasty and really, really easy. Even my husband can make them.

Since your husband works full time too, I also recommend using meal delivery services.  You could choose them ahead, and your husband could do the order. Caviar is the one we've been using: https://www.trycaviar.com/sf-east-bay/. You can get all kinds of delicious healthy meals from places like Ramen Shop, Comal, Summer Kitchen, Gregoire.

Finally I would like to say: lower your expectations, food-wise. Take-out is not so terrible. Breakfast for dinner is not so terrible. Mac and cheese from a box is not so terrible. Just try to get fruits and veggies in there too. Your family will survive and thrive!  And there will come a day when you'll be back in the kitchen making awesome meals (that your teenager will refuse to eat - that's where I am! It's all about pizza, burgers, burritos, ugh.)

Best wishes!

I totally hear you on this! Meal delivery services definitely helped me when I went back to work after maternity leave and had a long commute. We tried Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and Gobble, and out of the three my favorite was Gobble because their meals have pretty short prep times (usually around 15 min) and super easy instructions. Now that baby #2 is on the way I'm looking into even faster ways of getting dinner on the table, so one possibility for that is Munchery--basically a ready-made meal delivery service. Good luck!

Sun Basket 20 minute meals have works for us -- my kids still won't eat most of them, but at least the adults in the house get to eat more sophisticated food. My husband, who doesn't cook, has enjoyed learning how to cook with them and they're very easy to pull off. You just need to focus on the ones that are fast prep, as they are the easiest. The quality is high. 

I also have almost no time to cook, a husband who hates to cook, and a desire for healthy, tasty meals. Here are some of my tips and tricks:

1. Slow cooker "dump" recipes. Google this and you'll get tons of recipes. These are meals that require zero prep work, you just dump all the ingredients in the slow cooker and turn it on. I do this at least once a week and the recipes either make enough for two nights of dinners, or I double the recipe to be sure to have leftovers. 

2. My favorite "dump" recipe is chicken taco bowls. I use the recipe on the Budget Bytes website but there are a ton of variations out there. 

3. Budget Bytes "quick" recipes. I love this site, every recipe I've tried has been great. There is a section for "quick" meals and one for slow cooker meals and I use both a lot. Some of my favorite recipes are black bean soup (I serve with quesadillas), and lentil sausage stew.

3. Frozen crushed garlic from Trader Joe's. I never chop garlic anymore. I didn't believe these would work as a sub for fresh chopped garlic but they do and it's saved me a lot of time. 

4. Even a hate-to-cook husband can cook cheese tortellini and put jarred marinara sauce on it (Trader Joe's has a marinara sauce with red wine that I like). I like to serve with roasted brocolli - TJ's has washed, prepped brocolli florets in bags that I throw on a cookie sheet, toss with olive oil and salt and throw in a 400 degree oven. 

5. Roast chicken from the grocery store. I pick them up at Whole Foods, then just make a salad or roast some veggies and serve with bread and butter. 

6. If all else fails, my kids are usually happy to eat a picnic style meal of cheese, crackers/bread, raw veggies, fruit, dip (hummus is popular in my house), nuts, etc. One kid will happily eat a scrambled egg for dinner, the other a hard boiled egg. 

Good luck!

I had a situation where I needed to make dinner much easier.  I bought a freezer for my garage and put uncooked frozen chicken and ground turkey as well as fish in it.  I kept the freezer in the fridge for cooked foods.  So, I would cook about 4 nights worth of chicken breast and freeze the uneaten pieces. I did the same with ground turkey I had make into meat sauce for pasta, taco filling and turkey burgers.  Fish is the only thing that didn't freeze well. Knorr rices, fries, salads and veges  have been stable side dishes that are not complicated.  I didn't cook all day but instead, I found a night to cook and just cooked extra of that meal so my freezer had a lot of food to  just defrost, not prepare,  If the hubby can do fries in the oven, frozen veges or some rice or  noodles, you'd be set.  Good luck.

Our midweek dinner solution as a 2-parent working family is Gobble meal kits. They are like the other meal kits (Blue Apron etc) but with MUCH QUICKER PREP TIME. That's the key difference for us. We found Blue Apron took an hour to prep, while Gobble is more like 15 minutes. My guess is your husband will find the gobble kits easy enough that a not-great cook can prepare them, but it does depend a bit on the meals you choose (some preps are simpler than others - you can look at the recipe card before you decide to select a meal for the next week). The meal kits cost about $75/week for 3 dinners, so it's pricier than if you buy the groceries. For me, the mental relief of not thinking about dinners for Tu-Wed-Th nights is enormous. You can check it out at https://www.gobble.com/

We try to make at least one slow cooker recipe either on Sunday night or prep it to start cooking on Monday. Make a large batch so to yield leftovers for at least one night. Various soups, stews, curries work great. Also prepping something like a pan of roast veggies, baked potatoes or beans is easy enough to do on Sunday and can make an easy dinner when adding a protein and a salad.

I have commuted as a single mom for 15 years. You don't need to spend Sundays prepping, because by the end of the week everything is not that fresh. I recommend using a slow cooker. You can put meat in before you go to work. Your husband can manage making a salad and slicing french bread, and that's dinner! I also recommend a rice cooker/steamer, you can fill that before you go to work in the morning and your husband just turns it on 30 minutes before you get home, and makes chicken sausage or some easy protein to go with it. You have a huge advantage in having a helpful partner at home, keep it simple for now, and maybe you two can take a cooking class together as he gets more confident.

I would start with sitting down with your husband and getting to a point of general agreement about nutrition for your child. I am a lot stricter than my husband on food for our son but we have some agreement around the big categories such as limiting snack food to snack time and that dinner time should include some protein and vegetables every time. We also agree on healthier type ways to eat out. I think if you combine some Sunday meal prep (perhaps for 2 dinners), with take out that you can live with (2 dinners) and perhaps a meal service some of the time or his cooking some of the time along with lowering your expectations, you'll reach a compromise. Changing your perspective to look for the positives can also really help. For example, it has been helpful for me to become a little less controlling in this area and to realize that the relaxed attitude to food that my husband has is a good message for my son some of the time too (to balance with my focus on healthy eating which is also very important). There is also some benefit to the fact that he has some access to foods that I tend to view as off limits so that they don't become too tempting to him if he never had them. Good luck!  

It sounds like it's time for your husband to learn how to cook. It's not an unreasonable expectation; it's a pretty basic component of parenting, and it's not a complex skill. He doesn't need to be a chef. Spaghetti and red sauce is in regular rotation here--buy jars and pasta in bulk at Costco; Trader Joe's has whole-grain pastas. Add salad and ranch dressing and everyone's happy. 

Of course, you're both busy, and I really sympathize about that commute. But as you say, advance food prep is one strategy--no reason it all has to fall to you, though. 

Some frozen dinners and takeout are not the end of the world--we all do it. Costco and Trader Joe's both have healthy options (Costco's frozen spinach and cheese ravioli has been a huge hit with the kids over the years--they'll eat the spinach!). Annie's Mac & Cheese is quite respectable--I throw in some frozen peas. 

And, really, pb and j on whole grain bread with a little fruit is actually quite healthy. 

When we were in a similar situation, we broke it down into simple macros: I would often make a big batch of rice on a Sunday, then get 5 proteins and lots of veg at Trader Joes.  Each weeknight, the rice got heated in the microwave and the veg (broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, brussel sprouts --- just one or all mixed up) got tossed with olive oil and salt and roasted on a baking sheet for 20-30 minutes at 350.  While that was cooking, we often cooked the protein on the stove top or oven with the veg or on the grill.  In 30 minutes we had a healthy meal that involved about 10 minutes of actual work and 20 minutes of waiting.  It gets boring having salmon Monday night, chicken Tuesday, pork chops Wednesday, etc etc ... but it works when you are slammed.  The roasted vegetables seemed to be very appealing to kids.  Also, I agree with the other commentator to lower your expectations.  If we pulled off what I describe above three nights a week and did take out one or two nights we just declared victory.  

First off, thank you for asking this question, as I'm also very interested in the responses! Totally agree with another poster about adjusting expectations - to that I will add - you can always 'enhance' prepped food. Also, meal prep WILL take time on Sundays but well worth it, and once you get a system down, it isn't so bad. I need plenty of freezer storage bags, parchment paper, foil, and tupperware. Here are some of my weeknight dinner hacks:

• Make sure you have things you 'always have' on stock in terms of cooking - for me, it's onions, carrots, some type of green vegetable, potatoes, tomatoes, dried legumes/grains, pasta sauce, dried pasta; also, I buy a few loaves of fresh bread, slice up and freeze - easy to toast in toaster oven. Also, salad greens are a must for me. This leads to my next point since you don't have time to cook on the weeknight...
• Some appliances are a must - for me, rice steamer (easy to put in a few cups of rice in the morning, turn it on, have warm rice when we all come home), slow cooker (throw in any veggies, cut up deli meat/leftover protein, legumes, seasoning in the morning, and you have dinner when everyone comes home); always make enough so you have to freeze; you can also microwave a lot of things - potatoes, corn, etc., and it tastes good because no flavor is lost (my mom also marinates chicken drumsticks and microwaves maybe 8 min for 6 drumsticks?)
• Produce delivery - I use imperfect produce and order weekly so I know that I'm never out of essentials; I don't do meal delivery because that's too $$ for us generally
• Prepped/processed food, enhanced - I buy TJ's ready-made frozen gnocchi and start by heating the pan with some of my own chopped veggies, then add the gnocchi (literally takes 10 min). Same thing with jarred pasta sauce - I'll defrost ground meat the night before, saute in the pan when I come home (or your husband can do that) then just add pasta sauce (remember to cook pasta too!). Also, I do frozen pizza and serve with a tossed salad that literally has anything in my fridge - apples, strawberries, bell peppers, mushrooms, etc. Tossed with olive oil and balsamic is enough for us. I personally grew up on mac -n cheese fortified with tuna and extra Kraft cheese slices, something my mom made up when she was in a jam, I guess.
• Other ideas - tortillas on hand, easy quesadillas with deli meat, cheese, just heat all of it in a pan; frozen dumplings from TJ's or Costco; rotisserie chicken from any grocery - all of this you can serve with a tossed salad and toasted bread (that you sliced and froze over the weekend!), nice sauces or glaze that you can always add when cooking protein - for instance, I do slice up my uncooked protein and freeze into weeknight portions (or 2-3 day portions), then defrost the night before (and put in fridge during the day). Then at night, just take out the cut up protein, heat oil in pan and saute, add the sauce for some easy stir fry.

Hope that helps!

I have one strategy to suggest that I found in 'Simplicity Parenting' by Kim John Payne and Lisa M Ross (a book I highly recommend). The authors talk about creating a simple weekly meal schedule (like taco Tuesday or pizza Fridays - you can buy dough, cheese and sauce and trader Joe's and make it at home!) Kids appreciate predicability and it makes Life easier for us! One thing I have found helpful with this approach is that I know I'm not going To make pasta 3 nights a week, since Monday is our pasta night. It could have the same effect on frozen dinners for your family - if you have 'Frozen dinner Friday' there will be less temptation to serve them on other nights that have their own 'theme'. This will also allow your husband to get good at a few simple meals, since cooking things regularly is how we Improve!I have one night a week where we have eggs for dinner - sometimes it's an omelet or scrambled eggs with frozen peas and toast, sometimes it's more elaborate, but I never need to plan ahead and I feel so much more relaxed about the daily dinner grind. Also, with one kid, getting him/her to help is very doable and could be a great enrichment activity for your husband and child. Hope this helps and good luck! 

I am completely addicted to a meal-planning site called “Cook Smarts.” https://www.cooksmarts.com/ The meals are fast, healthy and easy, and they even have videos embedded into the recipes if you need them. My teenage son can use it, and that’s saying something ;) It also organizes your grocery list and weekend prep, if you want to do that. Try the free trial and see what you think. After that, I think it’s just $8/month or so. Enjoy!

First, congrats on your new job, even with the commute.

Second, I do a lot of cooking ahead because I hate cleaning, I have the word's tiniest kitchen, and my husband eats like a linebacker but has a million foods on his "I don't eat that" list.  I cook in volume, so each dish yields at least 2 dinners, plus one is frozen for a few weeks ahead.

What takes the time is :

• cooking starch (30-60 minutes) and braising onions (but those can be done with little forethought in a spare hour on the weekend)
• chopping things up (so cut up vegetables and store in mason jars or tupperware, and slice up some tender meat for a quick stir-fry early in the week)
• and any large cheap meat cut that requires long braising or roasting to be tender (roasts, ribs, etc.)
• and cleaning up. So the few days you have to wash up, the better.

Cook up a large pot of brown rice on the weekends and freeze some, while you bake a few potatoes. Scoop out the potato innards and mix with cheese or cottage cheese, salsa, and some chopped ham (optional).  Or boil and rinse pasta. Or make a large batch of polenta in the microwave (easy, easy, almost no stirring).

I'll buy a megapack of boneless chicken thighs, make a pot of soup and lasagna, plus a big pot of rice or pasta or some baked potatoes. 

2 heads of cauliflower or a bag of brocollini gets nuked so it's ready to go.  Season with some herbs de provence and a little lemon-flavored olive oil so they're appetizing and ready-to-go.

Half the chicken thighs get a teriyaki marinade (with some citrus added) and are simply grilled or boiled, to be eaten with the vegetable and rice/pasta/potatoes. That's 2 meals over the week.

1/2 the thighs go into a curry with a bag of green beans & a few potatoes--use Mae Ploy thai curry paste (Ranch 99 market) works well, or doctor up Trader Joe's curry sauce with extra spice. Serve with rice; freeze some extra. That's 2 meals.

Soup: heat broth, add assorted vegetables, sliced sausage and a handful of pasta. Or use a soup mix (Sadaf, Manachevitz) and add a chopped onion and some of your rinsed cooked chicken meat. Done. Add a hot sandwich (toast, cheese or hummus, tomatoes, lunch meat). That's dinner or lunch.

Lasagna: use no-cook noodles the rest of the sliced sausage, and a jar each of alfredo & Marinara sauce.  Just open and layer. Usually there's a recipe on the back of the box.

Sometimes instead of cooking up the chicken thighs, it's braised turkey breast or a pork roast slow-cooked on the stove until it becomes pulled pork.

I'd pick an Instapot over a crockpot, because you can use it like a crockpot, and it's a lot less heavy. Sometime to do long-slow cooks without  having to babysit is great. Curried lentils and rice are a great vegan dish, or stir-fry some tofu with green beans and add a little hoisin sauce.

Here are a few links; at least a few of the meals should appeal to you:

https://www.amazon.com/Food52-New-Way-Dinner-Strategies/dp/0399578005#c…

http://theeverygirl.com/20-dinners-you-can-meal-prep-on-sunday-7/

https://www.tablespoon.com/meals/dinner/the-ultimate-weekend-meal-prep-…

http://theeverygirl.com/20-lunches-you-can-meal-prep-on-sunday/

https://greatist.com/eat/mason-jar-recipes

https://lexiscleankitchen.com/healthy-food-friday-spinach-mason-jar-lay…

https://wholefully.com/mason-jar-lunches/

Good luck & congrats again!

Look into Munchery.com, although their options for kids tend to be rather limited.  There are other services (I think BlueApron.com is one) that deliver the ingredients & recipes for meals that you put together yourself.  Maybe your husband would be amenable to something like that.  It takes a bit of work but not any ingenuity [or shopping].  :)

After my son was born we started using Thistle. I simply didn’t have time to cook and was starting to eat too many frozen meals. You pick the number of meals you want delivered and select choices from a menu each  week. The veggies are all organic and I really love all the interesting salads they offer. Best part is that they deliver it during the night and leave it by your door in a cooler bag. You can get two free meals from them using the code LIZA350.

Might a suggest Gobble (20 minutes to prepare), HelloFresh, and Blue Apron meal kit services. You can do that for a few nights per week, and the other nights could be from pre-prepped meals on Sunday or from frozen batches of dinners. I personally have used Gobble and Blue Apron and I liked them both.

My ideas for easy meals: 

Put meat in the crock pot in the morning. Done at dinner. Pork is great, but any meat will do. 

Frozen veggies. Just takes five minutes to heat up. Serve will a bit of butter. 

If you want more flavor, buy bottled sauces, like marinara, soy, curry, whatever you like. 

Make sure you have tortillas, bread, pasta, potatoes, quinoa, rice. 

It is not a contest. You don't need to impress anybody. You are just trying to get everybody fed. Keep it simple!