Sorta Not LGBT related: Getting off the "we can't cook" track

CageyMack · October 2014

Hi Folks!

I don't know where to talk about this, but I like y'all best, so I'm putting it here.

This morning on our local public radio station there was a little piece about how families can't/don't cook meals at home anymore. Reasons included not enough time, too expensive, too hard to wrangle kids, etc. I wanted to holler at the radio, "You can do it! Really!"

We just recently made a major change to our food lives, and if it helps some folks, I want to share. Living in Hawaii, food is quite expensive. Also, our house has no air conditioning, and it is not unusual for our kitchen to be 85-90 degrees right now. We were spending close to $1000 a month on food (groceries and eating out/take out), but we were cooking a LOT, so most of it was food made at home. I suffered a great deal from the stress of choosing meals, cooking meals in the time I had (after work or after day-time efforts), and cooking in the heat. It was miserable!

So we made a major change, and I think it could work for other families, too. Basically, we now have a set menu, and everything has to cook fast/be simple. I think most Americans are spoiled with the idea that they need variety, and I had a nutritionist friend who stated that "variety" is one of the major causes of over-eating: we eat more because it is "new" and "special." So we set about creating a balanced menu that got us a lot of food for our buck and caused minimal stress.

Breakfast: Choice of Cheerios and organic milk, fruit, eggs and toast, Costco croissant (splurge), yogurt (plain, greek, cheep kind) and/or local honey.

Lunch: 11 year old makes own lunch which is a PB&J, fruit, or cheese and lettuce sandwich. Takes water. Also, we have occasional gift cookies around and she takes those. We take leftovers or a lunch like hers. Granola bar of whatever was nutritionally best and on sale.

Dinner: These are the killers. Here are the options: soup and grilled cheese, salad and chicken (either Caesar style or just broiled and next-to), rice and chicken stir-fry, rice and egg stir-fry, burritos (our big fun night!), pasta with pesto (from our garden).

DW made a double batch of tomato bisque (so, so good!) and we divided into dinner for that night and then three containers, which we froze.

I can't tell you how easy it is to shop now. We went once for all the dry-goods and now I go to the store weekly for the perishables. Previously, I was going almost daily. We make sure to get eggs so that we can have a frittata or fried egg if we need/want. Shopping list is no-frills. Fruit is our steady splurge--always apples, bananas, and then usually grapes and nectarines . Veggies include good salad greens (but not fancy ones), carrots, cucumbers, a pepper, onions, potatoes, and I bought tomatoes this week! I admit to buying frozen stir-fry veggies which I supplement with onion.

Each meal is predicable and takes almost no time to make. From the basic ingredients (bread, tortillas, cheddar cheese, veggies, eggs), we can make many fast meals.

Anyway, I don't know if this matters to anyone, but I just wanted to share with folks the idea of getting away from the idea of making a fancy meal every night, without going to a "pre-made" meal; there is an in-between. We will be altering the menu every month (new soup for the month, and perhaps salmon as our splurge). And generally, we buy organic/local if it makes sense, which has some different factors than non-Hawaii folks. We get Dave's Killer Bread, and organic whole milk, but free-range non-local eggs.

We started this the second week of September, and I'm already sold. There is no reason for me to spend so much time worrying about making "new" or "interesting" meals for my family. Yes, we will cook like foodies again, but now is not the time. For now, no carnitas or roasts or steaming hot pots of boiling potatoes. No roast chicken, no grilled veggies, no kebabs. No homemade lasagnas, no pancakes for dinner, no asparagus soup. No real thinking.

It is awesome!

We have purchased take-out a couple times, but we approached it differently, and I have to say I could no way finish the portion I had. In fact, I got two meals out of just the left-overs. One Friday we wanted a treat and got this amazing local grilled steak and put it over salad for a nice low-carb option (we acknowledge our diet is pretty wheat/carb heavy, so we try to balance it out with some low carb nights).

Anyway, just some food for thought for those who have kids and are all kinds of wiped out.

I'll post back with our grocery bill for the month once I'm done, if folks are interested.

mallory4284 · October 2014

Lol my mom and I were just talking about our diet! We've been working out since March and neither one of us has real visible progress.... Mainly because of our diet.

J is no help because she doesn't care about losing weight (basically clothes shopping is depressing for her but she won't do anything about it). She's supportive of me and will eat "healthy" good that I make, but I know it's not what she wants.... And I'm bad because I hate cooking, so I'm more than okay with letting her cook, but that means pasta or some sort of unnecessary carb!

Your idea sounds so great, but I feel like J would get sick of eating the same stuff everyday and then end up eating crap (fast food) for lunches instead of taking a lunch.... I could probably eat the same thing everyday if it meant less thought/time in the kitchen!

ATXmommas · October 2014

We cook a LOT! And while I have a few staple recipes, I do like to try new things regularly. It does take up a lot if time and money, though. I'm curious to hear how much money you are saving I'm sure as our family grows, something's gotta give and I'm going to need to adopt a simpler strategy as well!

Jazibel · October 2014

I love this concept - thanks for sharing!! We've had a week of no/light cooking so I'm excited to get back to making meals at home. I also would really love to make primarily fast healthy (and cheap) meals with maybe a splurge a week or so. I can't wait to see how much you saved. :-)

KH826 · October 2014

I have been cooking a lot as well. At least 5 nights a week, and usually some pre-cooking over the weekend for things that are easy to grab. I too will be very interested to see what your monthly savings will be with your new simplified plan. I have commented in other threads that I am frustrated about spending an arm and a leg at the grocery store every week, and I have been trying to find ways to save... unfortunately for me, I find that eating healthy means spending more money at the grocery store, but obviously that is a savings on eating out, so I guess it evens out.

Like @ATXMommas, I like to try new things, and I aim for some variety also to keep my wife happy. She gets bored with the same things over and over and she will be tempted to eat junk if I am not filling her up with healthy home-cooked dinners that she likes

I am sure that it will get harder when we have more than one kiddo, but right now we seem to find the time/motivation to cook about 5ish nights out of 7. Usually Friday and Sunday nights are our no cook nights, and we do something simple that we picked up ready made or we eat out. The key for us is meals that take 30 mins or less to prep and cook. Our routine right now is that I get home from work around 5:30pm, we give Will a bath together, then my wife feeds him his next bottle while I start prepping dinner. Then, if the stars align, they come into the kitchen and Will sits in his high chair with some toys and plays, and my wife hangs out with us while I finish cooking. It works for us most nights right now.

Here is what our dinners have been so far this week (in case any of you are interested):

*Flat bread pizzas with spinach and mushrooms; sautéed broccoli

*Baked salmon; sautéed green beans and cauliflower

*Veggie burgers (no bun); sautéed asparagus; baked sweet potato

Tonight I am planning to make a veggie stir fry with broccoli, carrots, snap peas and peppers, served with brown rice.

I have been spending about $150-$175 a week on groceries (most of which is fresh produce, fish, eggs, cheese, etc.), but if we were eating out a few times a week, I am sure the overall cost would be about the same, and this way we are eating healthy home-cooked meals. It's all a balancing act in my opinion, and I always like to hear about what others are doing if it is working for them.

Thanks for sharing and starting this thread!

JGY · October 2014

We've been doing a version of this for a while, and I think one of the keys to making it work is to ensure that you're not eating the same thing 2 days in a row. You'd be surprised at the difference that makes in terms of getting bored with your meals. Having the same thing once every week is a lot easier to tolerate, than having it meal after meal.

We typically sit down and chat on Sundays, and set our menu for the week. We have a lot of go-to meals that are quick and easy, but we very rarely use pre-made ingredients. We almost always cook. We have a CSA share for our veggies, so that really pushes us to branch out a little bit (since you never know exactly what you'll get).

Because we have a crazy food-obsessed toddler, and we both work full time, we don't really have the option of making anything too elaborate during the week. When he and I get home in the evenings, he basically runs right over to his high-chair and starts yelling "Eat, eat eat!" So most of our meals have a prep/cook time of 10-15 minutes and S gets them going as soon as she gets home. For anything that takes longer (enchiladas are a staple for us, and we do some crock pot stuff), we get it all prepped and cooked and ready to be re-heated the night before. It really helps to have a few super-flavorful, but very quick dishes in your back pocket (for example, a nice side dish of fresh oregano added to simple cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a bit of feta knocks me out of the park - total time investment, about 5 minutes).

Since I really do like to cook and be creative, we'll often do more involved meals on the weekends. That fulfills my desire to putter in the kitchen and definitely keeps us from getting too bored. Also, we allow ourselves to be flexible and order pizza on an evening when we're feeling particularly overwhelmed. Dining out isn't really a viable option for us right now with the stage the G is currently in.

Nutrition is a really big deal in our house and that's one of the things that keeps us so motivated to cook and use fresh ingredients. Don't get me wrong, we've certainly gone on bad runs in the past where we weren't disciplined about it, but we're in a good pattern now.

I will say the #1 thing that helps to keep us on track, is having a plan. As @Cageymack described, having to come up with a new meal day after day is exhausting. Setting out the plan for the week and knowing exactly what you have to do each day really reinforces being able to get that done.

I'm no help on $$ savings because we splurge on our CSA share, and often buy organic meat from a farm (in the 1/4 cow or 1/4 pig type of amounts ...). Also, we spend a lot of money on booze. But I feel good about feeding my family healthy and nutritious meals without totally breaking the banks (both $$ and personal energy banks).

Great thread!

2MamazInSeattle · October 2014

Great thread, thanks @CageyMack‌ !! It's funny as I feel like I just came out of the new baby fog and made a recipe-based meal the other night and it felt so refreshing to cook again, yet since Simone was born we've eaten grilled cheese for many meals with no complaints and lots of not thinking/ease.

I was thinking during my SAHM time I'd get back to making a menu and shopping twice a week. Grocery cost isn't our first priority (one of our relationship agreements early on is that we don't skimp on food quality and eating healthy) but I think, especially she I go back to work, having a version of your plan would be very centering mentally

. And, I do have a budget that I need to stick to now with a daycare bill coming out way, whereas before if I went "over" I had a lot more wiggle room.

Also I'm lucky in that J is super easy to please and is not picky really other than she doesn't want to get fat so generally eats a lower (but not "low") carb diet. She's not a cook, so anything we have pretty much delights her so long as I cook it. And generally I love to cook, so we're winning.

Definitely interested to see your savings! As I'm about to embark on losing my TTC weight, I do struggle with staying in my fairly generous grocery budget when carbs are (literally) off the table. Meat, veggies, dairy and fruit all add up fast...

redrockmama · October 2014

Oh man, we aren't even making it to the grocery store and have eaten out an embarrassing number of times in the last few weeks. I need to get my shit together

I am definitely making a meal plan and going shopping this weekend, I expect you all to hold me to it

KH826 · October 2014

@redrockmama - I find that you can focus on one thing and commit to rocking at it, and the rest just has to wait. This is so true for me as a working mom these days. Right now I am rocking at the cooking b/c I need to be good about budgeting since we are now on one income and I am TRYING to lose some darn weight. So cooking healthy meals at home is a focus for me right now.

With that being said, I am embarrassed about how NOT clean my house is. Last Friday night I literally scrubbed the shower in between making dinner b/c I decided I couldn't actually stand to shower in it one more time until I cleaned it. I am NOT rocking it in the housekeeping department. One thing at a time...

Anyway, I know you are rocking it in other areas. I am sure! BUT, we will hold you accountable for grocery shopping and cooking if you so desire, b/c that is what we are all here for! Just cut yourself some slack, Mama!

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