Ooooh but one thing I forgot - slow cooker!

You bung everything in in the morning and by 5ish it is ready to eat.

I buy bags of frozen chunky veg and add som new potatoes, half a cup of boullion or other stock, and pile a bag of frozen quorn pieces (again, veggie, but sure you could do the same with chicken etc) and leave it on all day. It's like a pot roast. Takes literally 5 mins to prepare and gives a really nice home cooked meal ready when you come home.

Slow cookers are genius - the only challenge is remembering to put them on in the morning!

I totally sympathise, I am a crap cook and have no aptitude for it at all. I'm just no good at getting organised enough to have all the ingredients in and the time to make it.

Tend not to think about tea until about 5pm

I know one mum who has a weekly meal planner so she knows exactly what to get when she goes shopping. Says it cuts her bills too. Keep meaning to try it.

I have one cook book that is brilliant - students veggie cookbook by carolyn humphries. It is full of easy, cheap, stock-cupboard meals that are healthy too. Instead of complicated recipes full of weird ingredients that you just don't keep in, they are simple, good meals that take almost no time.

I'm not a foody, so I just wish I could by bags of dried food that is 100% nutritionally balanced like you can for cats! That would suit me fine...

p.s. just to stress, I don't 'manage it' (any of what you describe!) but I aspire to it... <dreams>

I'm not a supermum by any stretch of the imagination! Also totally struggling with this particular problem, but for slightly different reasons:
DH works away, and I work ft with a 14mo. I pick him up, and have a couple of hours in which to play or prepare an elaborate and impressive meal for both of us. I prefer to spend the time playing, so he gets <whispered> a lot of jarred food. Plus he's usually whingey if I'm preparing food and he's hungry. But as with blueshoes he does get decent homecooked food at nursery or my Mum's house.

I do sometimes do batches of things and cook in advance etc, but I might have the answer for you, hobnob!

The Kitchen Revolution. Ta daaaaa!

A friend swears by it, and I'm dying for it...but only when they do a vegetarian version! They plan your menu for a week, but re-use stuff and you don't have to buy random expensive items (eg spices) to use once then moulder in the cupboard. Sounds perfect for me because I'm not a creative cook, and basically need the prescribed method. I'm also quite OCD and that really appeals to that side of me!

Who looks after your dd during the day? Does she eat well?

I only ask because my ds 2.3 months attends full day nursery which has fresh hot lunches cooked on site with a tea in the afternoon. I can tell from his contact book that he eats well. At home, I just give him a cut down version of what dh and I eat eg plain rice with sausage or pasta or bread, just so he has something to eat at the table. He may or may not eat it.

In other words, we don't cook specially for him.

Hi ,

I also batch cook as does my dh on our days off and have cottage pie,fish pie,fishcakes,vegetable lasagne,moussaka,chilli,home made pizza bases in the freezer which I get out the night before when working.

My youngest ds is 2 and likes all of these.We never make just one of these dishes but always cook double with one to eat and one for the freezer.

Also do chicken thigh/breast roasted in a hot oven for 25 minutes with rosemary and garlic and olive oil and griddled salmon with spaghetti and peas with lemon juice.Stir frys quick as well with egg fried rice and mix of fresh and frozen veg.

Jacket potato in the microwave with cheese or beans,omlette for us and eggy bread for ds,sausages and mash are quick meals.We have pasta with pesto and peppers or with cheese grated in with some bacon and peas added.

We also have risotto quite alot (butternut squash,asparagus ,chicken and pea)- although it does take 20/25 mins to cook it is easy just stirring and is a good comfort food.

We eat together by doing this and probably eat more 'nursery type' food than dh and I would do by ourselves but we have Friday nights as our eating alone later 'grown up meal night' .

I think we eat well and I work full time but it definately needs time just to sit down and menu plan to ensure it is varied with red meat,chicken,mince,fish and vegetarian meals.You also need to do a few weeks at a time to make sure you aren't just eating the same things all the time and getting bored.

Meal planning makes you look at the weekly food to ensure it looks balanced and helps me do a quick online shop and it does make it easier during the week.It makes sure you have very little waste.

The 'Dinner Lady' cook book is good for basic food recipes which children like.

Doing grand thanks Christiana, although just got AF back and having weird pains. Other than that we are all fine.

DD really needs food before 5:30, so at the moment I heat up individual portions of frozen bolognaise as you suggested, egg soldiers & veg, or whatever else I can think of /have prepared. But it's not that varied, and heavily reliant on frozen veg. DH and I eat later - he cooks while I do bath & bed. We are both generally shattered when we get in, but DD obviously wants her mummy and daddy time and is quite demanding. We would much rather zonk on the sofa with a cup of tea for half an hour's down time before thinking about the kitchen. We want to get into a routine where DH's cook time is actually for the next day, and we can eat together when we get in which may help to perk us up a bit, as well as give us energy for the bedtime routine which can be a real physical trial (not because DD is a nightmare, just in terms of finding an ounce of energy to enjoy it).

hi hobnob how you doing?

i batch cook meals and freeze them, things like bolognese sauce. you can then take them out of the freezer in the morning and heat up when you get home, at same time as boiling some pasta.

i keep individual frozen salmon fillets in freezer too, take one out and fry for food in seconds, with that a abowl of couscouse (simply put couscous in a bowl, add a pinch of marigold stock and boiled water and nob of butter). with that some peas/ chopped peppers/ baby corn.

same with chicken breast, take out of freezer. cut in cubes once defrosted. fry in a little butter/ olive oil for a couple of minutes, add a bit of stock (or water and stock concentrate) plus some cream, cook together, is GORGEOUS. gnocchi takes two minutes to boil and is VERY good with this.

once a week roast a chicken. DD loves a chicken leg... use breast meat for sandwiches. save bones in a plastic bag in freezer, when am having a kitchen session, boil up remains of two or three carcasses with onion, carrot, leek etc and make fantastic stock. fantastic for soups.

if you make one really good 'proper' meal, i think you can get away with the other big meal being more snacky, maybe tuna salad, hummous and carrot sticks/ pitta bread, toast and soup, pasta pesto... that kind of thing.

and the odd fish finger is FINE too.

i just broadly try to think of getting white meat, red meat, oily fish and white fish into her at least once a week...

i keep a LOT of leftovers to recyle. yesterday's salmon mixed with mashed potato to make little fishcakes today for example.

At risk of outing myself as a slovenly mother, I really need your help...
We are a working family. I have to bring work home in the evenings too. We do struggle generally with being imaginitive with meals and have a tendency to eat the same things for a couple of days on the trot if portions allow, to give us a night off cooking. And the same things week in, week out.

I've just bought a new toddler recipe book to give me inspiration for inclusive family meals and am balking at the meal planner. I thought it was just an Annabel Karmel phenomenon that one is meant to spend all day every day shopping for fresh ingredients and cooking up gourmet delights, but this book (which is written by dieticians and has much more achievable recipes in general) still has loads of recipes which can take an hour or more to prepare, and with such a wide variety of ingredients over the week.

Am I alone in feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to ensure my toddler has a snowball's chance of eating a properly balanced diet? Does everyone else except me have time to make up a mammoth weekly shopping list tailored to specific meals and have brain space left to think about what the leftovers may be and what to do with them so that it all doesn't turn into an expensive waste of food? Do all the other toddlers out there get wonderfully lavish diets?

I'm looking for sympathy, I suppose - that, or an almighty kick up the arse (but please tell me how you manage it!). And ideas on how to do a family tea as soon after 5pm as possible, when we get in the door at 4:50 would be gratefully received!