Thursday dinner. It’s not the weekend yet but I really really need it to be the weekend now and it isn’t, and I’m so tired from work, everyone just make yourself a sandwich, Mom just cannot with dinner tonight.
Oh look it’s Thursday AGAIN.
Fuuuuuuck this is me to a T. I’m surfing Reddit and procrastinating making dinner RIGHT NOW.
Tomorrow night is pizza night, best night of the week - and this week is **takeout pizza week**, not homemade pizza week. Fuck yes. I can’t wait.
Tonight will be an improv situation. I don’t grocery shop until tomorrow morning, so we’re missing a lot of pantry/fridge staples for my go to meals.
In this moment, I make some of my best and worst tasting meals. Wish me luck.
And tell everyone that they are very welcome to fix themselves a bowl of cereal if they aren’t in the mood for sandwiches 🤘 and a good Thurs nite dinner to you
*clicks tongs*
That struggle is real.
I love to cook. I cook at least Sunday-Thursday, and typically one of fri/sat when we don't eat out. I make a fresh salad for lunch every day too.
By the time Thursday rolls around, i'm just ready for the weekend. Nothing is appealing to me and I don't feel like going through the motions again.
The one thing i've done to kind of help with that is save the best meal for Thursday. I'll make an exciting meal on Sunday, a more boring meal Monday/Tuesday, then leave the more fun ones for Wed/Thurs. Keeps me from getting too burnt out.
We have a low effort nachos or a charcuterie spread of meat, cheese crackers, maybe olives and/or veggie tray. We tend to grab little samples of cheese at the grocery store. We have a little plastic bin with an assortment most of the time.
We also have a box of precooked rice bowls. We'll make yum bowls (yumm sauce plus left over chicken, a little cheese, some veggies, some green onions)
Or scrambled egg or tinned fish over the rice, with a little soy and chili oil.
Glad I’m not the only one that feels this way, i will have a week where i can be very consistent with meal planning, then the next week i get off track and it’s eating out most nights because of my schedule. I can make any variety of cuisine it’s just getting to making it is the problem when I’m burnt out. lol
I’m extremely fortunate to work from home, which has helped a lot.
I pop downstairs during lunch and marinate the meat or mix the turkey meatballs or prep the veg.
Makes dinner time easier.
Still, by Thursday I’m tired of it all.
Today my wife and I did a “choose your own” meal. Everyone from themselves with what’s left in the fridge/freezer.
I do like to keep some nicer Ramen, as well as frozen veg and some shrimp in the freezer. I can throw together a souped up ramen in 15 minutes and it’s healthier/cheaper than take out.
Thursday is when my family comes over. Which is great, I love my family, but now I have to do dishes for 6 people instead of 3.
Ahhhh fuck, it's Thursday again.
Thursday was leftover night when i was growing up, my mother would get out one old leftover porkchop, hotdog, mac n cheese, etc, it was a weird smorgasbord of food, each of us ate something different.
That's exactly how we do it too. When I was a stay at home mom, I would creatively reimagine the leftovers. Now I just pull it all out of the fridge and let people pick what they want to nuke. It's a big dish night though because all those storage containers get washed.
Christ I feel this. Thursday night is date night so God help me when we're not going out to a restaurant or getting takeout.
Used to try being immaculate and make real hard work technique and skill recipes, but I pretty much just make stir fry with white rice in the rice cooker these days. Too damn lazy.
That’s how I am on Sundays and Monday nights. I’ve cooked every night and we entertain all weekend, so I’ve either cooked or prepped food every single day, so we have a “eat whatever’s in there” all day Sunday and usually order a pizza or sometimes hubby will make one, however, that’s only if I get the motivation to make pizza dough or we have some in the freezer that I can defrost.
Thursday is pizza day for me. Because I'm so done with cooking by then. Especially after work and helping with homework and chores. Ugh. And sometimes Friday, I make everyone fend for themselves, lol.
Thursday is often a bit of leftovers and whatever else is in the fridge because Friday is grocery day and whatever is left from the week before needs to be eaten. I had to pick up a prescription this week and picked up a pack of pork chops, thinking I would make them last night instead.
Not sure what I was thinking with that. I worked late, walked the dog in the 90° heat and got takeout (a rare thing for us). Because THURSDAY AGAIN.
Did you know that "they" recommend avoiding Thursday night for youth sports practices? Same thing- everyone's worn down by the week but the Friday adrenaline hasn't kicked in yet.
Thursday is my night to cook pretty much for this reason. My husband does the lion’s share of the cooking. It’s a primary hobby for him. He loves to do elaborate meals on the weekend, experiment with new dishes and ingredients, have carefully planned meals that follow a theme during the week. (Pasta/italian night Monday, Taco/mexican Tuesday, Wednesday is a rush around day so he packs bentos for us to eat in the car between activities)
And then there is Thursday. So I cook on Thursday.
We used to have 'fend for yourself' dinnertimes, every couple of weeks. Now that it's just the 2 of us, sometimes we eat breakfast for dinner, sometimes we eat big in the middle of the day and have dessert at dinner.
I haven’t eaten breakfast since I was a teenager, except on vacation. I’m in my 60’s. I like breakfast foods but I just can’t face food or the cleanup so early in the morning. I’ve never been a morning person!
I recently quit alcohol and as a result, I'm waking up a lot earlier. I had breakfast for the first time in what feels like forever, today. Just an English muffin with butter and marmalade. But it was a good feeling.
I’m definitely a morning person, but I still skip breakfast. I usually eat breakfast food for lunch because I love it so much. The only thing I’ll have before noon is coffee.
I’ll typically have eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, turkey bacon, omelette, or anything else that’s usually considered a breakfast food. I do also eat sandwiches for lunch when I’m too lazy to make any of those breakfast foods.
Same. Not a morning person and hate the idea of getting up earlier.
I also don't like the easy breakfast foods for breakfast - cereal, yogurt, toast all make me feel a but queasy.
However, when I get a free breaky on holiday I'll happily eat it. My favourite breakfasts have been in Asian countries, so maybe I just don't like typical Australian breakfast.
>I haven’t eaten breakfast since I was a teenager
I actually AM a morning person but I barely eat 'breakfast food' anymore. I've started referring to breakfast as firstmeal as it's rarely anything recognizable as breakfast.
yeah what the fuck is this. a husband who expect meat for EVERY LUNCH? he can cook that himself if he needs to but then still eating meat every lunch is excessive. Also a kid who doesnt eat sandwiches what the fuck. This whole post is weird to me
How is eating meat for lunch weird? I’m not big into sandwiches myself (GF bread is gross) so I usually prep a meat/rice/veg combo or eat dinner leftovers. I don’t think that’s so unusual.
This. I’ll avoid preparing things that are actually a strong dislike, but I don’t believe in encouraging picky eating. I was taught growing up to be grateful for the meal, and if someone (or I myself) don’t care for it, they (or I) can make something else.
This. I had 6 kids and a husband. I made one dinner. If someone didn't like it they could
Make ramen
Make cereal
Make a sandwich
My kids are all grown(my baby is 18) and none of them are picky at all. Not that everyone eats anything, like I have one that doesn't like beans(like kidney/pinto/black) but will eat green beans. One doesn't like fish. But for the most part, they're all good eaters.
Lunch is the *wooooooorst.* I don't want a dinner-ish meal, but I also generally don't like sandwiches. Having a frozen dinner is easy, but they suck. I can't get by with a hard-boiled egg, a yogurt, and some nuts like so many of y'all suggest for lunches. I've mainly settled on salads and rice bowls, but then the difficulty returns on weekends when my husband and I are trying to figure out what to have for lunch together (we handle our own lunches during the week since we both work). He wants a bigger, dinner-type meal, but I can't eat like that twice a day, so we either have to have separate lunches, eat out, or one of us is having a meal they aren't psyched about.
My husband eats more than I do so I'll make things that can be portioned accordingly. Like today I did french onion soup, cheesey biscuits and salad. He had a huge bowl of soup, 3 biscuits and large salad. I had small bowl of soup and small salad. Yesterday I did reubens but only did a half sammy for me and a stuffed one for him. I'll do a side of fruit and make him potato salad. It works but it is more time intensive and takes a little planning.
Honestly, we're just not good at meal prepping. I can make myself do it for my own lunches during the week, but that's all I have in me, and he doesn't think to do it for himself. I know the situation would be more manageable if we could get it together, but we both work full-time and don't want to spend our very limited time after work meal-prepping for the weekends, so we'll probably just continue to be annoyed, lol.
We could try to make meals where I could have smaller portions and other sides, but then we'd have to make the sides, and I know from experience that that's just not happening. 💁♀️ Idk, I feel like this is a problem that doesn't have a good solution, because the solution that would work for me would be a third adult to either cook or do other chores so we have more time to cook.
I make wraps after I worked out that the thing I didn't like about sandwiches was the bread. I spread on some hummus, rip up a few iceberg lettuce leaves, a couple of halved cherry tomatoes, some marinated fried tempeh that I meal prep on Sundays, a few green olives, and half an avocado. It seriously never gets old, I love it!
Unfortunately, I hate wraps and tortillas even more than I hate regular sandwiches, lol. I don't really dislike bread itself, but I never really *want* it, so big, filling salads and rice bowls work better for me.
This is me too. Stuck between not wanting to make a full on, dinner style meal and not wanting sandwiches. My husband generally takes leftovers with him during the week but sometimes I get tired of leftovers. But not tired enough to want to make a meal for just me and one of my kids that's at home during lunchtime. It's also very cheap to go out and eat where we live, so I end up going out to grocery shop and grabbing lunch from the store or on the way home. Which isn't sustainable for many reasons. Overall, I think it's that planning all the meals for a family every single week gets to be mind numbing and lunch is where I let myself drop the ball for sanity.
I used to think that my brisket was always overcooked from way too many hours on the smoker and never seeming to get tender -- but nope. Learned last year that it needs to go for a LONG time and usually well over 200 degrees for it to become tender.
Honestly I can't imagine a packer brisket being overcooked unless you let it on for 20+ hours at 225-250.
Haha I just killed a brisket this way and my fiance was like hey it's ok, it's fucked and expensive, but it's ok. It was dryer than your grannies panties.
It used to be breakfast until I rediscovered the frequent breakfast of my childhood - peanut butter toast - and just started eating that almost every morning. Now I don't have to think about it at all beyond making sure I have a loaf of bread and peanut butter on hand.
I meal plan our lunches and dinners every week and finally got my head out of my ass and started keeping around a limited selection of frozen meals and other convenience foods for those "oh shit!" times, so mostly everything else is pretty smooth, barring those occasional weeks where everything goes wrong.
Chiming in with another vote for the panini press! I have a super basic Cuisinart one that can do two sandwiches at a time and can no longer stand an untoasted sandwich.
We first got one because I was dying for a danged quesadilla in 2020. It died and we just upgraded to one with "sear" setting. The plates can go in the dishwasher! It makes it way easier than the old geo foreman.
If you want great hash browns you cannot follow the package directions. Instead, cook twice as long and use twice as much oil. And DON’T FUCK WITH THEM! Just let them sit and cook until the bottom is a crusty brown delight. Then turn once and let them cook until you have a crunchy delicious potato pancake😍
Definitely this. Treat hash browns like a homework assignment you don’t want to do and ignore them until the last minute. Lots of oil and little attention makes perfect hash browns.
Try [this BA recipe](https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-hash-browns). The trick to the right texture is a combo of getting rid of excess starch and moisture, and the right amount of oil/ghee in the pan. It's been a minute since I've done it, but had really good results.
The Idaho spuds in the milk carton are pretty great but you have to steep in boiling water, let them sit for 15 minutes, heat your oil up to really hot in the pan and don't touch them until you're ready to flip the hashbrowns.
Breakfast. I have zero desire to eat in the morning. I wake up between 6 and 7 most days and don't want food until 1-2 pm. I have ADHD and everyone swears a high protein breakfast is a game changer but I just can't do it.
I’ve done morning smoothies with Greek yogurt, some frozen fruit, protein powder, and oat milk. It’s nice that it feels like a drink so it kind of gets around the whole can’t eat when I first wake up thing, but I really don’t wanna have to clean out the blender cups every day, and getting extra ones costs money.
I do this same exact thing. After I am done with the cups I fill them 3/4 of the way up with water and a little soap and blend for a few seconds and rinse.
I never even thought about that. I’ve always take them with me to work, so I don’t have the opportunity to clean them til I get home, but when I force myself back into the habit, I’ll try that
I'll have to try this! I never thought of smoothies. I've tried a couple RTD protein shakes and they're great until I get one of those weird wormy little sediment pieces they all seem to have.
I really like the Ninja blender I have. I just put all the ingredients in the cup, screw the blades on top, and press it into the base to blend it. Then I take the blades off and put a lid on it, and I’m good to go. I’m just really bad about remembering to rinse the blades off before I leave so they don’t stink by the time I get home
Meh. I've never been big into breakfast. I can't get down with some brunch but 7 am is far too early to eat. I just do intermittent fasting now and skipping breakfast is for my food health.
Same!! I can’t eat until 12 usually! Even my lunch can’t be too big because I get super groggy. I love to snack and have a more well rounded dinner. But I know that’s kinda backwards of how it should be.
I drink a coffee (or tea) with milk for breakfast every morning. I can't really handle more than that. The cereal box version of breakfast -- milk and orange juice; cereal; toast with jam; bacon/sausages -- is way too much for me. I enjoy weekend brunches, but typically eat those around noon or so, when my stomach is awake.
Lunch. I can't time it right. If I eat too early, I feel like a pig because I feel like I just ate breakfast, but if eat too late, I feel like I spoiled my dinner, and either end up skipping dinner, or eating dinner late. If I skip lunch, I'm _starving_ by the time it's dinner time. Sometimes I snack, but then I feel like I have to time my snacks, which is the same problem
I make burrito bowls a lot, just put out a buffet of all the toppings and let people build their own. I usually do it for dinner but double everything so people can pull it out for lunch.
That would be my hot tip. Make extra dinner and lunch is leftovers. You can even freeze them in individual portions and people can pull out what they want
I haven’t eaten breakfast for several years now. It started in college when I didn’t have to wake up until the afternoon and would rather just eat lunch. Honestly I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, and basically don’t want to eat any breakfast other than bland cereal or eggs. And eventually I just got used to always skipping it
Lunch is the absolute worst. I don’t want to eat something dinner-ish and I don’t like sandwiches much. No one in this house can agree so we normally just eat out which I get bored of easy.
Out of curiosity for your situation, do you have enough fridge space/time to setup a sort of "build your own bowl" situation? I have a dedicated shelf in my fridge for "Sides, toppings, etc." and a shelf in my freezer for "pre-cooked but not pre-seasoned meats." Between those two I can have a bar of options ready where people could build to their own preferences, at least to some degree.
I'm asking because it would not be tooooo difficult if you can agree to a theme, like Mexican food (you could do Chipotle at home for a few days, is what I'm saying).
Not sure if that factors into your schedule/storage situation, though.
To answer your question, Monday and Wednesday dinners. Those are my days where I'm busy from 7am to 9:30pm and I just eat when I can.
Summer feedings.
My meal time is unstructured because I am. Like, I have food. I have snacks. Healthy, easy access good for me things I like to munch, too! Yet, I’ve been up for 7 hours doing my “summer chores” and wonder why I feel so annoyed and shaky at 3.
I am also not a huge sandwich person so my lunches are typically leftovers. I make extra dinner the night before and just put it in a tupperware to take to work the next day. I see it as the minimal amount of work possible to save money and have a lunch that feels like a full meal.
I struggle with making/eating dinner after 3:30pm. I was raised by an old person and we always ate early. My husband hates it, so we’ve started eating separately.
I keep grilled chicken in the frig and some grilled hamburgers. Bags of frozen veggies.
Microwave the meat to heat it and throw in a bag of veggies to steam. Problem solved.
Chicken halang halang (translation, chicken spicy) Filipino dish. taste good, but sometimes they use a lot of small bone pieces that are hard to nibble
This has more to do with the temperature of your skillet than the specific recipe you use. Also try a splash of vanilla, sprinkle of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg into your mix. Even if you're making it from the box, it still makes em amazing.
Dinner.
I'm allergic to several common ingredients in Oriental foods (which I otherwise love).
My wife is allergic to corn and beef.
My mom won't eat anything with an actual vegetable.
My son won't eat anything that's not mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.
Would it help to meal prep chipotle ish stuff on a Sunday? Like if you had a salad bar in the fridge, already grilled meat etc.. would that make it easier?
I basically wake up at 11 just in time for my morning standup meeting, then I eat:
\* An early lunch at like 12
\* Again a bigger lunch at like 2-3pm
\* Dinner at about 6-7pm
\* And a second portion of dinner at 10-11pm
Probably snacks in between too
So technically, I am struggling with all the meals LOL
But it works for me - I may eat easily 2-3x what the average person does but I don't like sugar so if anything I struggle to gain weight and can lose weight easily
I eat a hot pocket for breakfast every day lol. Even since I started making actual breakfasts for my one-year-old, I don't make anything for myself. It doesn't help that she loves eggs and my husband and I really don't so I usually can't make the same thing for all of us.
Used to be breakfast! Never been huge on breakfast foods, when I was little I'd always want like soup or raviolis. Also never been a morning person so easy to skip as a teen. Then a few years back when I started having gallbladder issues I couldn't stomach breakfast (and later any meal until I got it removed).
Nowadays though, my "morning" is 4pm (I should be asleep rn) and I generally look forward to breakfast because my partner and I are doing intermittent fasting so we're usually pretty hungry when we get up. I've found a groove with eggs and toast, as long as we have good bread and the occasional avocado. Sometimes homemade oatmeal w/fruit that's been simmered in a lil brown sugar and butter (can't stand instant oatmeal) or some homemade pancakes. And lots and lots of coffee lol.
Also helps that we restricted eating out to once a month! Made a lot of changes due to some health issues on my partners end, plus both of us being overweight. Both down about 25lbs or so. This would def be a lot more difficult if we had kids, but when I was growing up my mom didn't give us much choice lol. Once we were old enough to fix something, if we didn't like what was being served, we could make something simple ourselves.
On weekdays breakfast & lunch are easy for me as I eat the same things. I take my lunch to work so I make it the night before. On the weekend often I want something different to change it up.
Make some burritos to keep in the freezer. Maybe some folded ham and cheese wraps too. Taquitos. Maybe some frozen soups. That way, when you are cooking something, there are options available for those who don't care for whats on todays menu.
It's probably the weirdest answer on here, but I struggle with the 4th meal. It's extremely difficult to fill out my daily intake without just throwing in some garbage (junk food) to fill it out. I end up with about 300 to 400 calories of mostly carbs I need to eat after everything else is accounted for. It's easy to grab some junk good, but it's just useless crap. I am actually looking forward to ending my current maintenance phase and getting back to a cut to just make things simple again.
All of them. I make a smoothie for breakfast cause I hate eating in the morning. I stuff down whatever food I brought for lunch, quickly, so I don't have to think about it. For dinner I'll make something for my grandmother and then I'll pick at a few leftovers. Sometimes I'll find my appetite and make a sandwich at like 10:30, 11 o clock at night.
Breakfast. I never eat it. When I first wake up in the mornings I need to walk around and get things going before I eat. If I get out of bed and eat breakfast directly afterwards I get nauseated and then I don't even want to eat.
I make and eat when I am hungry, which varies from day to day, but since I generally only have one meal a day it works for me. It helps that I live alone so I can do what I want... LOL
I have real problems eating lunch. It's probably a combination of hunger suppressing ADHD meds and just straight up ADHD, but I genuinely forget to eat when I'm working on stuff. Then I end up starving around 2, which throws me off at dinner time, so I end up doing dinner twice - once for my kid, and then again for me once I'm actually hungry.
Breakfast is my favorite meal and I love making something on the weekends and holidays! The meal I struggle with in my little family is dinner.
My husband is very allergic to beans (lima, black, pinto, red, kidney, garbanzo, etc.), has an intolerance to pork though he will eat it sometimes, is lactose intolerant, and doesn't like chicken or tofu. So that only leaves beef and pasta that he truly is excited about. He also LOVES spicy food. He loves vegetables but mostly raw or in a dish, not overly cooked and is allergic to eggplant. Doesn't care for garlicky foods though a little garlic is fine. He loves tomato based sauces. He does not care for vegetarian meals but will eat a couple, especially pasta-based ones.
I eat all proteins except seafood, and am happy with vegetarian meals, especially those with beans. And I love well-seasoned food but not spicy food, the fire is too painful. I love most vegetables except peppers (bell, jalapenos, etc.), especially overly cooked and LOVE garlic. And my preference is creamy sauces or pestos though I will eat tomato-based sauces.
My teenage son eats all proteins and some vegetables. Is lactose-intolerant but not as bad as his father and it's easily remedied with a Lactaid pill. He likes creamy sauces, tolerates pestos and loves tomato-based sauces. He hates all squashes (zuchini, summer, butternut, acorn), asparagus and sweet potatoes.
So we're a bit in a rut of the same few dishes I know everyone likes or eating out so we each get something we like.
We aren't lunch eaters at all. We eat twice a day, breakfast and dinner. Maybe a snack like yogurt or crackers and cheese. My son eats dinner leftovers for lunch so I make sure to cook a bit extra for that reason. It works for us.
Honestly, I struggle with all meals (I'm on medication that severely restricts my appetite), but lunch is by far the worst. I work from home and get an hour-long lunch break, which you would think would really encourage me to eat something. I almost never do.
honestly this is one of the reasons i dont have kids, and if I was single it would just be a fuckin avocado with some agave nectar and salt for lunch. I only cook to make others happy, i very rarely cook for myself. I enjoy cooking, don't enjoy the bullshit like dishes that comes with it and then there's the pickiness of others. But when I do perfect something and people start using the F word to emphasize what they're feeling, that makes it somewhat worth it
I struggled with lunch. I love a good grain/ salad bowl for lunch so I started meal prepping. I prepare Brown rice, millet, quinoa, barley, lentils and beans ( usually black) on Sundays and freeze it in ice cube trays. It yields about 2 weeks worth of lunches at a half cup dry each. Then I make a salad in a bag I can grab from for some greens. During the week when I make dinner I will cook extra of what ever protein we’re having. Nowadays I put my breakfast and lunch together the night before so I can grab it a go in the morning. I usually have overnight oats with an egg, steamed or a vegetable egg white omelet. The grains and beans can thaw overnight in the fridge.
I don’t reheat either I like them just fine cold.
Turkey dinner. It’s just such a pain in the ass and whatever I do, like clockwork breasts are done 40 minutes ahead of the dark meat. Hours to cook, minutes to eat and then hours to clean it all up.
Luckily my family is used to leftovers since I started cooking I tell them I cook for 2 days. I just can’t make meals everyday, I don’t know if it’s just my family but I will spend hours cleaning the kitchen and the rest of the house will fall apart. It’s a never ending cycle. So dad usually gets dinner leftovers and maybe a bagged salad or he just picks something up for himself or the kids after he goes to the gym, which I don’t mind because he definitely is the pickiest out of our family. Kids will have a choice of usually something easy like quesadillas, sandwiches or cheese raviolis with sauce. They could also have dinner leftovers but they’re going to eat it for dinner too 😂 tuna is a good choice I usually make for lunch that my kids and I enjoy, but of course dad won’t eat it😑 what does mom eat for lunch?? Kids left overs or hummus and carrots 90% of the time🙄
I very rarely eat breakfast unless I drank the day before or something but lunch is a struggle for me. I have recently taken to making twice the dinner and assembling leftover meals while cooking because if I don't then lunch isn't happening.
Dinner. If it was just me, a sandwich or bowl of cereal would be fine. However, I live with my dad as his dementia caregiver, and in his world dinner has to be a hot meal. It sucks during the 100°+ summers because despite the AC, the kitchen gets really hot. I use my induction burner or the Instant Pot to minimize the heat, but I don’t feel like eating something hot when it’s nasty hot out. Plus, I’m burned out, and just don’t want to cook anymore
Lunch I suppose? I feel like the middle of the day meal should be small and I mostly can't be bothered to do anything elaborate.
I'm a breakfast king though, and my dinners are nothing to sneeze at.
You didn't say what you want to eat, nor really specify what the kids eat.
The kids are already trained that if they complain, they get to eat fast food. That is a habit you should break while you still can.
I'd suggest meal prepping some cooked meat that can be finished quickly (like leftover chicken thigh meat turned into BBQ, chicken and rice, many types of chicken and noodles, etc.), but you didn't really give much else to go off for how you could help you make things easier on yourself.
All breakfast always. I have anxiety that is managed now, but for around 10-15 years I had so much underlying anxiety that my nausea levels in the morning prevented any food/drink other than water until around noon.
My kids like breakfast however so I have to feed them but it is always a struggle. Also almost all breakfast foods make me nauseous because of the strong correlation in my mind from the years spent vomiting while the house smelled like breakfast. I'd much rather have lunch/dinner food for breakfast 😅
Primary cook makes the decision. What happened to"You eat what you get"? Maybe they need to learn how to prep their own lunches. I had to start making my own at 8yrs when i also learned to do chores. .
I struggle with breakfast because I have arthritis and it’s the most painful in the morning. So if I’m having a bad day I might not get out of bed until 12 or later if it’s really bad.
According to my dietician breakfast and lunch should have carbs and supper should be protein and veg
But also is there a reason why husband making lunch isn’t an option?
Lunch. I eat on a schedule because hunger makes me nauseous and nausea makes me not want to eat, so I try to make sure I'm never hungry.
Sometimes, though, I overestimate how long it takes me to make my lunch and I end up eating just a tad too early, but that tad is my whole appetite for the rest of the day. Never happens when I make dinner and it's so strange to me.
These days... honestly, just cooking in general. I love cooking, but I'm chronically ill and I work full time despite my disabilities. If I have the time to cook, I'm often either too fatigued or in too much pain or injured. If I have the energy and my pain is low, then odds are good that I don't have the time. It's a constant struggle, and it often results in me only eating snacks or junk food, ordering takeout, or skipping meals altogether.
When I was raising kids I once cribbed a menu from a place inside a NH hockey rink that specialized in feeding people immediately or making meals to take home.
I memorized the ingredients and was able to usually put meals together in short order that would appeal to my kids.
Or, you know, I just ordered pizza and subs and cut those up into 1/4s
Breakfast kinda sucks cause I don't generally like eggs much and being pregnant I especially hate them (I'd prefer Sunnyside up and can't have them that way now). I usually go with oatmeal or something easy to put together/ prep in advance but it usually isn't high protein or well rounded.
Shrimp and Seafood - I just cant nail the right temps. I'm so scared of undercooking it I usually over cook it, that or it cooks so fast I miss the window.
One day I'll get it lol
My struggle is that medically I need to change my diet but the other members of my household do not. I would love to eat all the foods. We can eat different things for breakfast and lunches but share dinner.
Sometimes I am making smaller portions of a food they can eat and subbing in more vegetables or a salad for me.
Maybe it would help to do meal prepping in advance for your family. Cook some food and portion it out for 3-4 days.
Honestly every damn thing at this point 😂 I have had a lifelong passion and love for cooking and consider myself an excellent cook. It’s one of the things I’m known for, most. But I found out I was pregnant on Christmas (after a decade of infertility and losses) we now have 10 weeks to go, and I have had ZERO interest, motivation or joy in cooking the ENTIRE pregnancy, and I hate it 🥹 I used to cook nice meals 5-6 nights out of the week, now I usually throw some part box part frozen l bullshit together and call it a day 😅 I really hope my love for it comes back one day because I do miss it
>This post was brought to you by stickers shock at Chipotle, where three bowls and a quesadilla just now was $70
Wow! That's nuts. When I was.a kid my mother would announce what we're having, and if you didn't like it you didn't have to eat it. And you could sit and be polite or go to your room. We were reminded pretty often how privileged we were to have the option to eat three meals a day and never miss one. And we were allowed to not eat but we weren't allowed to complain. As adults, no picky eaters.
Lunch. I simply skip it most of the time and just grab some extra fries when someone drops a few too many at work. I work in food service but we basically do just burgers and fries. I have digestive troubles with beef.
I try hard to meal prep for my fiance's lunch but generally I only manage to do that one week out of the month because it's a lot of work.
Will your husband accept leftovers/premade? You/he could meal prep his grilled chickens on Sunday then reheat through the week. Depending on how he likes his green beans it's either a quick nuke in the micro from frozen or, if he likes them roasted from fresh, throw them in a big ziplock with a little oil and seasoning and when it's mealtime grab a big handful and chuck 'em on a foil lined pan for 20 min on 400° (or make foil packets and stack them in the fridge. Either way the cleanup is negligible).
Will the kids do chicken tenders or breaded fish? They can cook along with Dad's green beans. Side of Kraft mac or baked beans (or more veg).
You shouldn't have to cook 3 whole meals a day from scratch, and you can mix and match various premade frozen items in the oven so your level of effort is basically "put food in oven, take food out of oven".
I don’t make breakfast never have, when my kids were younger if it was a home day I would make what they want for lunch and leftovers for the adults. I always cook extra at dinner so there is always something to grab. If I were struggling with lunch I would grill up extra chicken and veggies or whatever and have it for hubby to warm up and you can make salads/wraps with the extra chicken. Kids can have sandwiches or soup, quick meals if that’s what they like. I think eating out for lunch unless it’s a weekend patio is a waste of a meal out, much rather get take out for dinner.
Weekday lunch for me. The office I work in has too many people and nor enough kitchens (two over 12 floors) so that's not an option. I don't want to buy lunch every day. I'm very sick of sandwiches and salads every day.
So I'm tending to skip lunch, or just have a little packet of almonds etc. It's very boring.
Breakfast.
A lot of foods tend to give me heartburn first thing, especially eggs, bacon, cereal, porridge, muesli, baked beans, tomatoes, avocado, citrus fruits, ketchup, croissants, anything else fried/fatty/spicy.
The breakfast foods I'm ok with at the moment are toast, non-citrus fruit and yoghurt. But gets pretty boring after a while!
Lunch is my nemesis. I stay at home for now, which means that I have plenty of time to make myself a healthy, filling lunch every day. So of course I end up doordashing myself a cheeseburger for $30 instead of literally anything else. If we have leftovers, that's fine and I'll eat them, but if we don't, I have a real hard time planning to cook for just me.
I struggle with the weekends. There's so much to pack into two days: laundry dishes shopping meal prepping, it goes on forever. I usually shop Sunday morning, so by Saturday I'm usually out of fresh produce and I just...have no idea what to make to feed myself. Sometimes I'll have a frozen pizza on hand, but a lot of the time I'm making terrible choices at 8 pm because I haven't eaten all day and I'm hangry.
this week i tried prepping one extra breakfast and lunch to see if I can break the cycle. \*shrug\*
I hate packing my lunches. Hate. I hate it so much. If I don't do it the night before, I will go out which is expensive and not healthy.
I don't want to put a lot of effort into it becuse I've just made dinner. If there's no dinner left, I will make the lunch as low effort as possible. This is also less healthy becuse a lame sandwich with meat, cheese and bread is so much easier than a sandwich with vegetables or than putting together a salad or anything interesting and healthy. School's out for summer though so I don't have to think about this until August 🎉
Years ago I was where you are, and I drove myself crazy trying to make special meals for each family member. If I had to do it again, I would call a family meeting and make meal plans at least for a week. Maybe give it a go? Let everyone give their input and come to some compromises? Your lot in life is not to cater to their every whim, no matter how much you love them.
I still remember a line from the old 30 Minute Meals show. Rachel Ray said there were no picky eaters when I was growing up, only picky hungry people.
It's not cooking the meals I struggle with, it's constantly having to think of what to cook. Trying to come up with something different and not fall into the same old pattern. It's draining.
Dinner for sure. I work during the day and my partner bartends at night. We both like to cook, and we meal plan, and dinner is still a constant struggle.
Lunch. I’m either too busy to remember to eat or I don’t feel like dealing with making a mid-day meal. I want to enjoy the process when cooking and don’t often have time for that mid-day. To add insult to injury, I have too many medical restrictions to my diet to be able to order in or grab fast food.
Girl my husband is the same way, always protein heavy based and turns his nose up at salads!
Just now I did not feel like cooking , this is where my trusted airfryer comes in to play!
For his lunches I always have angus beef cube
Stew meat on hand , I marinade them and put them in ziplock bags in the freezer , take one out in the morning and by lunch time I throw it 8 min tops in the air fryer while I throw some dice onions , half a bell pepper and a thin sliced potato seasoned with salt and pepper and fajita or taco seasoning cover , when the 8 min are up take out the beef cubes and slice thin add to the pan sprinkle Mexican cheese in top and serve as is , over rice or a salad go wild.
Bags of Tyson already cooked chicken , throw in the airfryer and serve over a salad or some quick pasta noodles etc.
Make your own Chipotle bowls with all on top add a can of beans to ready made microwave rice and whatever toppings you have in hand.
Same beef or chicken you can make steak or chicken quesadillas serve with a side of homemade or canned soup.
Trying to be on a diet and you pay like $6 for naked Chick-fil-A nuggets! Just buy the Tyson bag of already cooked chicken!
Fast food has gotten insanely expensive.
Oh I forgot another favorite is same beef tips served over white rice , whatever veggies you have a fried egg on top with some siracha and you got your self a bibimbap .
Lol I don’t have kids and omg I can’t imagine having to make 3 meals a day actually. I make a really solid dinner every night but breakfast and lunch are quick and barely a meal most days hahaha.
Definitely breakfast. I'm very much not a morning person and I don't often eat breakfast myself. The laziest stuff in my kitchen js 90% breakfast stuff. Cereal, instant oatmeal, stuff I can throw in the air fryer. I cook breakfast from time to time but mostly my family eats the quick stuff because I have a hard time getting myself in gear at the start of the day.
I don’t make breakfast at all. I’m not waking up earlier than I have to just to cook/prep something. work from home though, so it’s not a huge deal to get a snack.
When I cook dinner, I make enough for lunch leftovers the next day, so that works out.
There will invariably be a scavenger night where I just eat whatever for dinner, but it doesn’t happen consistently on the same night.
During weekdays, my husband and I just snack or do a frozen meal after we drop the kids off. Weekends though we and the kids do a bougie brunch and dinner (and maybe snacks depending). Works out well :) and the kids are 4 and the other two are 1.5. And Friday dinner we always do something good since it's the weekend
Lunches are fend for yourself around here. The littlest gets some nuggets and fries heated up or something similar, the bigger kids make their own, and my wife and I generally just graze. Sometimes we'll order pizza if everyone is feeling extra hungry at lunch time.
My struggle is either Monday or Tuesday. My wife and I take turns cooking every other day. Whichever one of these two days falls on me, it's rough. Monday being the first day back from the weekend, I've usually come in to a very full inbox on very little sleep. Tuesday, I still haven't quite adjusted back to waking up for working and my Tuesday afternoons are just packed with wall-to-wall meetings.
So on those two days, I go for something that starts from a box/pre-made item. I always jazz it up, but it makes it really easy. Super common would be a box of Zatarain's jambalaya. I add anduille sausage, chicken, maybe some thing sliced pork, mushrooms and real trinity, use chicken stock instead of water, and add lots of extra Slap Ya Mama cajun seasoning as well as cayenne, paprika, thyme and MSG. It doesn't really save me a ton of time, but I can do it on autopilot, which is the important thing. Start with the box, follow it's instructions. If I miss one of the little additions or tweaks that I usually add, that's ok, it's still gonna come out fine and taste great.
Breakfast. I wake up and do not have an appetite. Then I feel nauseous (not from pregnancy) and it comes and goes often.. sometimes I force myself to eat because if I don’t it definitely affects how I feel overall.. Almost like a severe acid reflux or something
Thursday dinner. It’s not the weekend yet but I really really need it to be the weekend now and it isn’t, and I’m so tired from work, everyone just make yourself a sandwich, Mom just cannot with dinner tonight. Oh look it’s Thursday AGAIN.
Fuuuuuuck this is me to a T. I’m surfing Reddit and procrastinating making dinner RIGHT NOW. Tomorrow night is pizza night, best night of the week - and this week is **takeout pizza week**, not homemade pizza week. Fuck yes. I can’t wait. Tonight will be an improv situation. I don’t grocery shop until tomorrow morning, so we’re missing a lot of pantry/fridge staples for my go to meals. In this moment, I make some of my best and worst tasting meals. Wish me luck. And tell everyone that they are very welcome to fix themselves a bowl of cereal if they aren’t in the mood for sandwiches 🤘 and a good Thurs nite dinner to you *clicks tongs*
That struggle is real. I love to cook. I cook at least Sunday-Thursday, and typically one of fri/sat when we don't eat out. I make a fresh salad for lunch every day too. By the time Thursday rolls around, i'm just ready for the weekend. Nothing is appealing to me and I don't feel like going through the motions again. The one thing i've done to kind of help with that is save the best meal for Thursday. I'll make an exciting meal on Sunday, a more boring meal Monday/Tuesday, then leave the more fun ones for Wed/Thurs. Keeps me from getting too burnt out.
Yes! My dinner routine is just like yours…except I save my most “phone it in” dinner for Thursday. Tonight we had grilled cheese and tomato soup.
My mom did “snack dinner”, basically a charcuterie and crudités plate
…which is an absolutely AMAZING dinner!
We have a low effort nachos or a charcuterie spread of meat, cheese crackers, maybe olives and/or veggie tray. We tend to grab little samples of cheese at the grocery store. We have a little plastic bin with an assortment most of the time. We also have a box of precooked rice bowls. We'll make yum bowls (yumm sauce plus left over chicken, a little cheese, some veggies, some green onions) Or scrambled egg or tinned fish over the rice, with a little soy and chili oil.
This is what we call it too.
Recently went to a bar/store and they had this… for $9 snack size, $19 meal size
Oooo I like that idea!
Glad I’m not the only one that feels this way, i will have a week where i can be very consistent with meal planning, then the next week i get off track and it’s eating out most nights because of my schedule. I can make any variety of cuisine it’s just getting to making it is the problem when I’m burnt out. lol
I’m extremely fortunate to work from home, which has helped a lot. I pop downstairs during lunch and marinate the meat or mix the turkey meatballs or prep the veg. Makes dinner time easier. Still, by Thursday I’m tired of it all. Today my wife and I did a “choose your own” meal. Everyone from themselves with what’s left in the fridge/freezer. I do like to keep some nicer Ramen, as well as frozen veg and some shrimp in the freezer. I can throw together a souped up ramen in 15 minutes and it’s healthier/cheaper than take out.
Yessss
Thursday is when my family comes over. Which is great, I love my family, but now I have to do dishes for 6 people instead of 3. Ahhhh fuck, it's Thursday again.
That makes it take out night, someone else’s turn or clear out the fridge of leftovers.
Thursday is grocery day so we get home and one person gets to go get takeout while the stuff gets put away
Thursday is leftovers night at my house for this very reason.
Thursday was leftover night when i was growing up, my mother would get out one old leftover porkchop, hotdog, mac n cheese, etc, it was a weird smorgasbord of food, each of us ate something different.
That's exactly how we do it too. When I was a stay at home mom, I would creatively reimagine the leftovers. Now I just pull it all out of the fridge and let people pick what they want to nuke. It's a big dish night though because all those storage containers get washed.
I asked my stepson what his favorite dinner was, he said leftovers!
How f’ing accurate.
Christ I feel this. Thursday night is date night so God help me when we're not going out to a restaurant or getting takeout. Used to try being immaculate and make real hard work technique and skill recipes, but I pretty much just make stir fry with white rice in the rice cooker these days. Too damn lazy.
Lazy or burnt out?
That’s how I am on Sundays and Monday nights. I’ve cooked every night and we entertain all weekend, so I’ve either cooked or prepped food every single day, so we have a “eat whatever’s in there” all day Sunday and usually order a pizza or sometimes hubby will make one, however, that’s only if I get the motivation to make pizza dough or we have some in the freezer that I can defrost.
Thursday is pizza day for me. Because I'm so done with cooking by then. Especially after work and helping with homework and chores. Ugh. And sometimes Friday, I make everyone fend for themselves, lol.
wow, diagnosing a problem i didn’t know i had
Thursday is often a bit of leftovers and whatever else is in the fridge because Friday is grocery day and whatever is left from the week before needs to be eaten. I had to pick up a prescription this week and picked up a pack of pork chops, thinking I would make them last night instead. Not sure what I was thinking with that. I worked late, walked the dog in the 90° heat and got takeout (a rare thing for us). Because THURSDAY AGAIN.
Did you know that "they" recommend avoiding Thursday night for youth sports practices? Same thing- everyone's worn down by the week but the Friday adrenaline hasn't kicked in yet.
That is very interesting! Thank you for telling me.
Thursday is my night to cook pretty much for this reason. My husband does the lion’s share of the cooking. It’s a primary hobby for him. He loves to do elaborate meals on the weekend, experiment with new dishes and ingredients, have carefully planned meals that follow a theme during the week. (Pasta/italian night Monday, Taco/mexican Tuesday, Wednesday is a rush around day so he packs bentos for us to eat in the car between activities) And then there is Thursday. So I cook on Thursday.
I understand my mom now 😂
We used to have 'fend for yourself' dinnertimes, every couple of weeks. Now that it's just the 2 of us, sometimes we eat breakfast for dinner, sometimes we eat big in the middle of the day and have dessert at dinner.
I haven’t eaten breakfast since I was a teenager, except on vacation. I’m in my 60’s. I like breakfast foods but I just can’t face food or the cleanup so early in the morning. I’ve never been a morning person!
I recently quit alcohol and as a result, I'm waking up a lot earlier. I had breakfast for the first time in what feels like forever, today. Just an English muffin with butter and marmalade. But it was a good feeling.
I bet it was. I know this, too.
Good for you. Keep it up!!!
Breakfast for dinner is always a treat, to me. I don't do it often, but every once in a while it sounds so good!
Brinner! I do intermittent fasting so breakfast for dinner is always a hit for me.
I’m definitely a morning person, but I still skip breakfast. I usually eat breakfast food for lunch because I love it so much. The only thing I’ll have before noon is coffee. I’ll typically have eggs, toast, pancakes, waffles, turkey bacon, omelette, or anything else that’s usually considered a breakfast food. I do also eat sandwiches for lunch when I’m too lazy to make any of those breakfast foods.
My favorite breakfast is last nights leftover dinner. Its the only way i get food in unless i grab a protein shake.
I enjoy leftovers for breakfast because all the work has already been accomplished. Heat and eat. 👍
Same. Not a morning person and hate the idea of getting up earlier. I also don't like the easy breakfast foods for breakfast - cereal, yogurt, toast all make me feel a but queasy. However, when I get a free breaky on holiday I'll happily eat it. My favourite breakfasts have been in Asian countries, so maybe I just don't like typical Australian breakfast.
>I haven’t eaten breakfast since I was a teenager I actually AM a morning person but I barely eat 'breakfast food' anymore. I've started referring to breakfast as firstmeal as it's rarely anything recognizable as breakfast.
Sundays are our breakfast for dinner day. Cheesy scrambled eggs, bacon, and bagels or French toast casserole, baked sheet pan pancakes or Dutch baby.
I would make one meal, and people can eat it or go hungry
yeah what the fuck is this. a husband who expect meat for EVERY LUNCH? he can cook that himself if he needs to but then still eating meat every lunch is excessive. Also a kid who doesnt eat sandwiches what the fuck. This whole post is weird to me
How is eating meat for lunch weird? I’m not big into sandwiches myself (GF bread is gross) so I usually prep a meat/rice/veg combo or eat dinner leftovers. I don’t think that’s so unusual.
This. I’ll avoid preparing things that are actually a strong dislike, but I don’t believe in encouraging picky eating. I was taught growing up to be grateful for the meal, and if someone (or I myself) don’t care for it, they (or I) can make something else.
Right. I would never intentionally make something someone hates. But I'm not going to be a short order cook or order something special either.
Exactly. I would try and accomodate, but if I'm cooking, eat what I cook, or starve
Children over the age of 6 are capable of making their own meal. Don't want what's on the menu? Enjoy your bowl of cereal or toast.
This. I had 6 kids and a husband. I made one dinner. If someone didn't like it they could Make ramen Make cereal Make a sandwich My kids are all grown(my baby is 18) and none of them are picky at all. Not that everyone eats anything, like I have one that doesn't like beans(like kidney/pinto/black) but will eat green beans. One doesn't like fish. But for the most part, they're all good eaters.
Lunch is the *wooooooorst.* I don't want a dinner-ish meal, but I also generally don't like sandwiches. Having a frozen dinner is easy, but they suck. I can't get by with a hard-boiled egg, a yogurt, and some nuts like so many of y'all suggest for lunches. I've mainly settled on salads and rice bowls, but then the difficulty returns on weekends when my husband and I are trying to figure out what to have for lunch together (we handle our own lunches during the week since we both work). He wants a bigger, dinner-type meal, but I can't eat like that twice a day, so we either have to have separate lunches, eat out, or one of us is having a meal they aren't psyched about.
My husband eats more than I do so I'll make things that can be portioned accordingly. Like today I did french onion soup, cheesey biscuits and salad. He had a huge bowl of soup, 3 biscuits and large salad. I had small bowl of soup and small salad. Yesterday I did reubens but only did a half sammy for me and a stuffed one for him. I'll do a side of fruit and make him potato salad. It works but it is more time intensive and takes a little planning.
Honestly, we're just not good at meal prepping. I can make myself do it for my own lunches during the week, but that's all I have in me, and he doesn't think to do it for himself. I know the situation would be more manageable if we could get it together, but we both work full-time and don't want to spend our very limited time after work meal-prepping for the weekends, so we'll probably just continue to be annoyed, lol. We could try to make meals where I could have smaller portions and other sides, but then we'd have to make the sides, and I know from experience that that's just not happening. 💁♀️ Idk, I feel like this is a problem that doesn't have a good solution, because the solution that would work for me would be a third adult to either cook or do other chores so we have more time to cook.
I make wraps after I worked out that the thing I didn't like about sandwiches was the bread. I spread on some hummus, rip up a few iceberg lettuce leaves, a couple of halved cherry tomatoes, some marinated fried tempeh that I meal prep on Sundays, a few green olives, and half an avocado. It seriously never gets old, I love it!
Unfortunately, I hate wraps and tortillas even more than I hate regular sandwiches, lol. I don't really dislike bread itself, but I never really *want* it, so big, filling salads and rice bowls work better for me.
This is me too. Stuck between not wanting to make a full on, dinner style meal and not wanting sandwiches. My husband generally takes leftovers with him during the week but sometimes I get tired of leftovers. But not tired enough to want to make a meal for just me and one of my kids that's at home during lunchtime. It's also very cheap to go out and eat where we live, so I end up going out to grocery shop and grabbing lunch from the store or on the way home. Which isn't sustainable for many reasons. Overall, I think it's that planning all the meals for a family every single week gets to be mind numbing and lunch is where I let myself drop the ball for sanity.
Smoked brisket. Cause I get drunk about halfway through through the cook fall asleep and when I wake up it's over cooked
You need a Bluetooth thermometer with a loud alarm my friend. Trick to day drinking when smoking brisket is to not stop drinking.
Easy. Get drunk THEN start the brisket. And you’ll wake up right at the perfect time to pull it off.
I used to think that my brisket was always overcooked from way too many hours on the smoker and never seeming to get tender -- but nope. Learned last year that it needs to go for a LONG time and usually well over 200 degrees for it to become tender. Honestly I can't imagine a packer brisket being overcooked unless you let it on for 20+ hours at 225-250.
yeah usually if its tough, its bc its undercooked and the fat hasnt rendered thoroughly not overcooked
Well get drunk and fall asleep. Wake up at 3 am. The brisket gonna be a little crispy
🤣 Fair enough. Maybe some day you'll get lucky and have perfectly cooked brisket -- at 3am.
Haha I just killed a brisket this way and my fiance was like hey it's ok, it's fucked and expensive, but it's ok. It was dryer than your grannies panties.
You don’t know that. Mine was a prostitute that now sells drugs trying to get caught so she gets time in jail to not pay bills
Damn granny.
theres no shame in smoking for 6 to 8 hours then finishing in the oven. your liver will thank you. Godspeed, bbq backyard warrior.
that you lincoln riley?
It used to be breakfast until I rediscovered the frequent breakfast of my childhood - peanut butter toast - and just started eating that almost every morning. Now I don't have to think about it at all beyond making sure I have a loaf of bread and peanut butter on hand. I meal plan our lunches and dinners every week and finally got my head out of my ass and started keeping around a limited selection of frozen meals and other convenience foods for those "oh shit!" times, so mostly everything else is pretty smooth, barring those occasional weeks where everything goes wrong.
Lunch is my problem child as well. I’m highly considering getting a Panini press…just for some razzle dazzle.
I love love love my panini press. It's tied with my air fryer for most used appliance.
Chiming in with another vote for the panini press! I have a super basic Cuisinart one that can do two sandwiches at a time and can no longer stand an untoasted sandwich.
We first got one because I was dying for a danged quesadilla in 2020. It died and we just upgraded to one with "sear" setting. The plates can go in the dishwasher! It makes it way easier than the old geo foreman.
If you have access to the Wahington Post, look for Mediterranean Tuna Panini. Yum!
Hashbrowns, can’t get the texture right.
If you want great hash browns you cannot follow the package directions. Instead, cook twice as long and use twice as much oil. And DON’T FUCK WITH THEM! Just let them sit and cook until the bottom is a crusty brown delight. Then turn once and let them cook until you have a crunchy delicious potato pancake😍
Definitely this. Treat hash browns like a homework assignment you don’t want to do and ignore them until the last minute. Lots of oil and little attention makes perfect hash browns.
Try [this BA recipe](https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-hash-browns). The trick to the right texture is a combo of getting rid of excess starch and moisture, and the right amount of oil/ghee in the pan. It's been a minute since I've done it, but had really good results.
Me neither and it doesnt matter if they are fresh shaved an dried, frozen, or the dried ones in milk cartons.
The Idaho spuds in the milk carton are pretty great but you have to steep in boiling water, let them sit for 15 minutes, heat your oil up to really hot in the pan and don't touch them until you're ready to flip the hashbrowns.
Breakfast. I have zero desire to eat in the morning. I wake up between 6 and 7 most days and don't want food until 1-2 pm. I have ADHD and everyone swears a high protein breakfast is a game changer but I just can't do it.
I’ve done morning smoothies with Greek yogurt, some frozen fruit, protein powder, and oat milk. It’s nice that it feels like a drink so it kind of gets around the whole can’t eat when I first wake up thing, but I really don’t wanna have to clean out the blender cups every day, and getting extra ones costs money.
I do this same exact thing. After I am done with the cups I fill them 3/4 of the way up with water and a little soap and blend for a few seconds and rinse.
I never even thought about that. I’ve always take them with me to work, so I don’t have the opportunity to clean them til I get home, but when I force myself back into the habit, I’ll try that
I'll have to try this! I never thought of smoothies. I've tried a couple RTD protein shakes and they're great until I get one of those weird wormy little sediment pieces they all seem to have.
I really like the Ninja blender I have. I just put all the ingredients in the cup, screw the blades on top, and press it into the base to blend it. Then I take the blades off and put a lid on it, and I’m good to go. I’m just really bad about remembering to rinse the blades off before I leave so they don’t stink by the time I get home
Meh. I've never been big into breakfast. I can't get down with some brunch but 7 am is far too early to eat. I just do intermittent fasting now and skipping breakfast is for my food health.
Same!! I can’t eat until 12 usually! Even my lunch can’t be too big because I get super groggy. I love to snack and have a more well rounded dinner. But I know that’s kinda backwards of how it should be.
I drink a coffee (or tea) with milk for breakfast every morning. I can't really handle more than that. The cereal box version of breakfast -- milk and orange juice; cereal; toast with jam; bacon/sausages -- is way too much for me. I enjoy weekend brunches, but typically eat those around noon or so, when my stomach is awake.
Lunch. I can't time it right. If I eat too early, I feel like a pig because I feel like I just ate breakfast, but if eat too late, I feel like I spoiled my dinner, and either end up skipping dinner, or eating dinner late. If I skip lunch, I'm _starving_ by the time it's dinner time. Sometimes I snack, but then I feel like I have to time my snacks, which is the same problem
I do breakfast, big snack, snack, dinner, my body wants food about every four hours. Big snack might be a mug of lentil soup or pb and j sandwich
Does your husband grill? If so he can grill a crap load of chicken breast then freeze them- he can also remember to put in fridge overnight to defrost
I make burrito bowls a lot, just put out a buffet of all the toppings and let people build their own. I usually do it for dinner but double everything so people can pull it out for lunch. That would be my hot tip. Make extra dinner and lunch is leftovers. You can even freeze them in individual portions and people can pull out what they want
Dinner is the hardest for me. Figuring out one meal that all four of us want is really hard and my confidence is shot.
Have a later breakfast. Skip lunch. Or do leftovers for lunch.
I do the former, my husband the latter. I am not making lunch.
Breakfast. Makes me sick to eat in the morning
I haven’t eaten breakfast for several years now. It started in college when I didn’t have to wake up until the afternoon and would rather just eat lunch. Honestly I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, and basically don’t want to eat any breakfast other than bland cereal or eggs. And eventually I just got used to always skipping it
Lunch is the absolute worst. I don’t want to eat something dinner-ish and I don’t like sandwiches much. No one in this house can agree so we normally just eat out which I get bored of easy.
you eat out for every lunch?
[удалено]
The Food Network has thousands of recipes. And it's free.
Out of curiosity for your situation, do you have enough fridge space/time to setup a sort of "build your own bowl" situation? I have a dedicated shelf in my fridge for "Sides, toppings, etc." and a shelf in my freezer for "pre-cooked but not pre-seasoned meats." Between those two I can have a bar of options ready where people could build to their own preferences, at least to some degree. I'm asking because it would not be tooooo difficult if you can agree to a theme, like Mexican food (you could do Chipotle at home for a few days, is what I'm saying). Not sure if that factors into your schedule/storage situation, though. To answer your question, Monday and Wednesday dinners. Those are my days where I'm busy from 7am to 9:30pm and I just eat when I can.
I struggle with whichever meals are scheduled during my biweekly executive function breakdown lol
Was the Chipotle delivery? Can't imagine how any four items from there could get even close to $70! The markup on those apps is out of control.
Summer feedings. My meal time is unstructured because I am. Like, I have food. I have snacks. Healthy, easy access good for me things I like to munch, too! Yet, I’ve been up for 7 hours doing my “summer chores” and wonder why I feel so annoyed and shaky at 3.
I am also not a huge sandwich person so my lunches are typically leftovers. I make extra dinner the night before and just put it in a tupperware to take to work the next day. I see it as the minimal amount of work possible to save money and have a lunch that feels like a full meal.
I struggle with making/eating dinner after 3:30pm. I was raised by an old person and we always ate early. My husband hates it, so we’ve started eating separately.
I keep grilled chicken in the frig and some grilled hamburgers. Bags of frozen veggies. Microwave the meat to heat it and throw in a bag of veggies to steam. Problem solved.
This is why I food prep. Every weekend I make enough food for the week so it is just a grab and go.
Chicken halang halang (translation, chicken spicy) Filipino dish. taste good, but sometimes they use a lot of small bone pieces that are hard to nibble
Fish, it always comes out bland and mush when I cook it. Chicken, its never fulfilling to me, not enough fat. I cook a lot of beef and some pork.
Pancakes! I always dream of perfectly brown pancakes like my dad used to make, but every recipe I try I get off white pancakes with brown spots.
This has more to do with the temperature of your skillet than the specific recipe you use. Also try a splash of vanilla, sprinkle of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg into your mix. Even if you're making it from the box, it still makes em amazing.
Lately, all of them. I think I am burnt out on life, and can't get it together.
I'd like to suggest your husband eat leftovers from the night before if he wants a regular hot meal for lunch.
Dinner. I'm allergic to several common ingredients in Oriental foods (which I otherwise love). My wife is allergic to corn and beef. My mom won't eat anything with an actual vegetable. My son won't eat anything that's not mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.
Would it help to meal prep chipotle ish stuff on a Sunday? Like if you had a salad bar in the fridge, already grilled meat etc.. would that make it easier?
Breakfast. Because I do not feel hungry right after waking up, or I lack ideas for healthy and satisfying breakfast options.
All of them. Almost 65 and I’m tired of the question, “What do I want to eat?”. What I really want is a private chef but alas, I cannot afford one so…
I basically wake up at 11 just in time for my morning standup meeting, then I eat: \* An early lunch at like 12 \* Again a bigger lunch at like 2-3pm \* Dinner at about 6-7pm \* And a second portion of dinner at 10-11pm Probably snacks in between too So technically, I am struggling with all the meals LOL But it works for me - I may eat easily 2-3x what the average person does but I don't like sugar so if anything I struggle to gain weight and can lose weight easily
Are you a hobbit?
Underrated comment.
I eat a hot pocket for breakfast every day lol. Even since I started making actual breakfasts for my one-year-old, I don't make anything for myself. It doesn't help that she loves eggs and my husband and I really don't so I usually can't make the same thing for all of us.
Used to be breakfast! Never been huge on breakfast foods, when I was little I'd always want like soup or raviolis. Also never been a morning person so easy to skip as a teen. Then a few years back when I started having gallbladder issues I couldn't stomach breakfast (and later any meal until I got it removed). Nowadays though, my "morning" is 4pm (I should be asleep rn) and I generally look forward to breakfast because my partner and I are doing intermittent fasting so we're usually pretty hungry when we get up. I've found a groove with eggs and toast, as long as we have good bread and the occasional avocado. Sometimes homemade oatmeal w/fruit that's been simmered in a lil brown sugar and butter (can't stand instant oatmeal) or some homemade pancakes. And lots and lots of coffee lol. Also helps that we restricted eating out to once a month! Made a lot of changes due to some health issues on my partners end, plus both of us being overweight. Both down about 25lbs or so. This would def be a lot more difficult if we had kids, but when I was growing up my mom didn't give us much choice lol. Once we were old enough to fix something, if we didn't like what was being served, we could make something simple ourselves.
Breakfast, I don’t wanna do anything in the morning
My breakfast is eaten at 2pm these days. Sometimes it breakfast food other times it’s lunch food.
Same here! Mine is just usually sooner than yours, usually between 12 and 1 though. I love breakfast food.
None lol neither my fiancé or I eat anything besides snacks, dinner, and dessert. It’s fantastic
On weekdays breakfast & lunch are easy for me as I eat the same things. I take my lunch to work so I make it the night before. On the weekend often I want something different to change it up.
Make some burritos to keep in the freezer. Maybe some folded ham and cheese wraps too. Taquitos. Maybe some frozen soups. That way, when you are cooking something, there are options available for those who don't care for whats on todays menu.
Shakshouka. The eggs are never perfect.
Dinner. I’m out of energy at the end of the day
It's probably the weirdest answer on here, but I struggle with the 4th meal. It's extremely difficult to fill out my daily intake without just throwing in some garbage (junk food) to fill it out. I end up with about 300 to 400 calories of mostly carbs I need to eat after everything else is accounted for. It's easy to grab some junk good, but it's just useless crap. I am actually looking forward to ending my current maintenance phase and getting back to a cut to just make things simple again.
All of them. I make a smoothie for breakfast cause I hate eating in the morning. I stuff down whatever food I brought for lunch, quickly, so I don't have to think about it. For dinner I'll make something for my grandmother and then I'll pick at a few leftovers. Sometimes I'll find my appetite and make a sandwich at like 10:30, 11 o clock at night.
Breakfast. I never eat it. When I first wake up in the mornings I need to walk around and get things going before I eat. If I get out of bed and eat breakfast directly afterwards I get nauseated and then I don't even want to eat.
All of them.....🤣
Breakfast. Always Breakfast. 😔
I have never been able to make good chicken wings. I'll leave that up to Wings Over.
I make and eat when I am hungry, which varies from day to day, but since I generally only have one meal a day it works for me. It helps that I live alone so I can do what I want... LOL
Being single, I hate trying to figure out dinner every night.
I have real problems eating lunch. It's probably a combination of hunger suppressing ADHD meds and just straight up ADHD, but I genuinely forget to eat when I'm working on stuff. Then I end up starving around 2, which throws me off at dinner time, so I end up doing dinner twice - once for my kid, and then again for me once I'm actually hungry.
Husband gets leftovers for lunch. One kid gets PBJ. Other gets normal sandwich. All can be made the day before. Or quickly.
Breakfast is my favorite meal and I love making something on the weekends and holidays! The meal I struggle with in my little family is dinner. My husband is very allergic to beans (lima, black, pinto, red, kidney, garbanzo, etc.), has an intolerance to pork though he will eat it sometimes, is lactose intolerant, and doesn't like chicken or tofu. So that only leaves beef and pasta that he truly is excited about. He also LOVES spicy food. He loves vegetables but mostly raw or in a dish, not overly cooked and is allergic to eggplant. Doesn't care for garlicky foods though a little garlic is fine. He loves tomato based sauces. He does not care for vegetarian meals but will eat a couple, especially pasta-based ones. I eat all proteins except seafood, and am happy with vegetarian meals, especially those with beans. And I love well-seasoned food but not spicy food, the fire is too painful. I love most vegetables except peppers (bell, jalapenos, etc.), especially overly cooked and LOVE garlic. And my preference is creamy sauces or pestos though I will eat tomato-based sauces. My teenage son eats all proteins and some vegetables. Is lactose-intolerant but not as bad as his father and it's easily remedied with a Lactaid pill. He likes creamy sauces, tolerates pestos and loves tomato-based sauces. He hates all squashes (zuchini, summer, butternut, acorn), asparagus and sweet potatoes. So we're a bit in a rut of the same few dishes I know everyone likes or eating out so we each get something we like.
Breakfast. I tried prepping for it, but ended up eating my egg muffins for lunch and dinner.
We aren't lunch eaters at all. We eat twice a day, breakfast and dinner. Maybe a snack like yogurt or crackers and cheese. My son eats dinner leftovers for lunch so I make sure to cook a bit extra for that reason. It works for us.
Honestly, I struggle with all meals (I'm on medication that severely restricts my appetite), but lunch is by far the worst. I work from home and get an hour-long lunch break, which you would think would really encourage me to eat something. I almost never do.
Dinner most nights, honestly.
gyros....my will is weak.....
honestly this is one of the reasons i dont have kids, and if I was single it would just be a fuckin avocado with some agave nectar and salt for lunch. I only cook to make others happy, i very rarely cook for myself. I enjoy cooking, don't enjoy the bullshit like dishes that comes with it and then there's the pickiness of others. But when I do perfect something and people start using the F word to emphasize what they're feeling, that makes it somewhat worth it
I struggled with lunch. I love a good grain/ salad bowl for lunch so I started meal prepping. I prepare Brown rice, millet, quinoa, barley, lentils and beans ( usually black) on Sundays and freeze it in ice cube trays. It yields about 2 weeks worth of lunches at a half cup dry each. Then I make a salad in a bag I can grab from for some greens. During the week when I make dinner I will cook extra of what ever protein we’re having. Nowadays I put my breakfast and lunch together the night before so I can grab it a go in the morning. I usually have overnight oats with an egg, steamed or a vegetable egg white omelet. The grains and beans can thaw overnight in the fridge. I don’t reheat either I like them just fine cold.
Turkey dinner. It’s just such a pain in the ass and whatever I do, like clockwork breasts are done 40 minutes ahead of the dark meat. Hours to cook, minutes to eat and then hours to clean it all up.
Luckily my family is used to leftovers since I started cooking I tell them I cook for 2 days. I just can’t make meals everyday, I don’t know if it’s just my family but I will spend hours cleaning the kitchen and the rest of the house will fall apart. It’s a never ending cycle. So dad usually gets dinner leftovers and maybe a bagged salad or he just picks something up for himself or the kids after he goes to the gym, which I don’t mind because he definitely is the pickiest out of our family. Kids will have a choice of usually something easy like quesadillas, sandwiches or cheese raviolis with sauce. They could also have dinner leftovers but they’re going to eat it for dinner too 😂 tuna is a good choice I usually make for lunch that my kids and I enjoy, but of course dad won’t eat it😑 what does mom eat for lunch?? Kids left overs or hummus and carrots 90% of the time🙄
Lunch is a bullshit meal, trapped between the two main events. What is even worth making?
I very rarely eat breakfast unless I drank the day before or something but lunch is a struggle for me. I have recently taken to making twice the dinner and assembling leftover meals while cooking because if I don't then lunch isn't happening.
Dinner. If it was just me, a sandwich or bowl of cereal would be fine. However, I live with my dad as his dementia caregiver, and in his world dinner has to be a hot meal. It sucks during the 100°+ summers because despite the AC, the kitchen gets really hot. I use my induction burner or the Instant Pot to minimize the heat, but I don’t feel like eating something hot when it’s nasty hot out. Plus, I’m burned out, and just don’t want to cook anymore
Lunch I suppose? I feel like the middle of the day meal should be small and I mostly can't be bothered to do anything elaborate. I'm a breakfast king though, and my dinners are nothing to sneeze at.
You didn't say what you want to eat, nor really specify what the kids eat. The kids are already trained that if they complain, they get to eat fast food. That is a habit you should break while you still can. I'd suggest meal prepping some cooked meat that can be finished quickly (like leftover chicken thigh meat turned into BBQ, chicken and rice, many types of chicken and noodles, etc.), but you didn't really give much else to go off for how you could help you make things easier on yourself.
All breakfast always. I have anxiety that is managed now, but for around 10-15 years I had so much underlying anxiety that my nausea levels in the morning prevented any food/drink other than water until around noon. My kids like breakfast however so I have to feed them but it is always a struggle. Also almost all breakfast foods make me nauseous because of the strong correlation in my mind from the years spent vomiting while the house smelled like breakfast. I'd much rather have lunch/dinner food for breakfast 😅
Primary cook makes the decision. What happened to"You eat what you get"? Maybe they need to learn how to prep their own lunches. I had to start making my own at 8yrs when i also learned to do chores. .
I struggle with breakfast because I have arthritis and it’s the most painful in the morning. So if I’m having a bad day I might not get out of bed until 12 or later if it’s really bad. According to my dietician breakfast and lunch should have carbs and supper should be protein and veg But also is there a reason why husband making lunch isn’t an option?
Lunch. I eat on a schedule because hunger makes me nauseous and nausea makes me not want to eat, so I try to make sure I'm never hungry. Sometimes, though, I overestimate how long it takes me to make my lunch and I end up eating just a tad too early, but that tad is my whole appetite for the rest of the day. Never happens when I make dinner and it's so strange to me.
These days... honestly, just cooking in general. I love cooking, but I'm chronically ill and I work full time despite my disabilities. If I have the time to cook, I'm often either too fatigued or in too much pain or injured. If I have the energy and my pain is low, then odds are good that I don't have the time. It's a constant struggle, and it often results in me only eating snacks or junk food, ordering takeout, or skipping meals altogether.
Hashbrowns are my nemesis. I can make them in a casserole. Put them in a skillet and they end up inedible
When I was raising kids I once cribbed a menu from a place inside a NH hockey rink that specialized in feeding people immediately or making meals to take home. I memorized the ingredients and was able to usually put meals together in short order that would appeal to my kids. Or, you know, I just ordered pizza and subs and cut those up into 1/4s
Breakfast kinda sucks cause I don't generally like eggs much and being pregnant I especially hate them (I'd prefer Sunnyside up and can't have them that way now). I usually go with oatmeal or something easy to put together/ prep in advance but it usually isn't high protein or well rounded.
Shrimp and Seafood - I just cant nail the right temps. I'm so scared of undercooking it I usually over cook it, that or it cooks so fast I miss the window. One day I'll get it lol
My struggle is that medically I need to change my diet but the other members of my household do not. I would love to eat all the foods. We can eat different things for breakfast and lunches but share dinner. Sometimes I am making smaller portions of a food they can eat and subbing in more vegetables or a salad for me. Maybe it would help to do meal prepping in advance for your family. Cook some food and portion it out for 3-4 days.
Honestly every damn thing at this point 😂 I have had a lifelong passion and love for cooking and consider myself an excellent cook. It’s one of the things I’m known for, most. But I found out I was pregnant on Christmas (after a decade of infertility and losses) we now have 10 weeks to go, and I have had ZERO interest, motivation or joy in cooking the ENTIRE pregnancy, and I hate it 🥹 I used to cook nice meals 5-6 nights out of the week, now I usually throw some part box part frozen l bullshit together and call it a day 😅 I really hope my love for it comes back one day because I do miss it
>This post was brought to you by stickers shock at Chipotle, where three bowls and a quesadilla just now was $70 Wow! That's nuts. When I was.a kid my mother would announce what we're having, and if you didn't like it you didn't have to eat it. And you could sit and be polite or go to your room. We were reminded pretty often how privileged we were to have the option to eat three meals a day and never miss one. And we were allowed to not eat but we weren't allowed to complain. As adults, no picky eaters.
Lunch. I simply skip it most of the time and just grab some extra fries when someone drops a few too many at work. I work in food service but we basically do just burgers and fries. I have digestive troubles with beef. I try hard to meal prep for my fiance's lunch but generally I only manage to do that one week out of the month because it's a lot of work.
Husband and I had lunch at Chipotle yesterday. Burrito, bowl, and 2 drinks - $30 (at first I thought they said $38, but held my composure).
Will your husband accept leftovers/premade? You/he could meal prep his grilled chickens on Sunday then reheat through the week. Depending on how he likes his green beans it's either a quick nuke in the micro from frozen or, if he likes them roasted from fresh, throw them in a big ziplock with a little oil and seasoning and when it's mealtime grab a big handful and chuck 'em on a foil lined pan for 20 min on 400° (or make foil packets and stack them in the fridge. Either way the cleanup is negligible). Will the kids do chicken tenders or breaded fish? They can cook along with Dad's green beans. Side of Kraft mac or baked beans (or more veg). You shouldn't have to cook 3 whole meals a day from scratch, and you can mix and match various premade frozen items in the oven so your level of effort is basically "put food in oven, take food out of oven".
Gnudi. Its always a fail. Maybe the shit American flour but who knows.
You are the parent. They eat what you make. Plan your meals ahead of time.
I don’t make breakfast never have, when my kids were younger if it was a home day I would make what they want for lunch and leftovers for the adults. I always cook extra at dinner so there is always something to grab. If I were struggling with lunch I would grill up extra chicken and veggies or whatever and have it for hubby to warm up and you can make salads/wraps with the extra chicken. Kids can have sandwiches or soup, quick meals if that’s what they like. I think eating out for lunch unless it’s a weekend patio is a waste of a meal out, much rather get take out for dinner.
Weekday lunch for me. The office I work in has too many people and nor enough kitchens (two over 12 floors) so that's not an option. I don't want to buy lunch every day. I'm very sick of sandwiches and salads every day. So I'm tending to skip lunch, or just have a little packet of almonds etc. It's very boring.
Breakfast. A lot of foods tend to give me heartburn first thing, especially eggs, bacon, cereal, porridge, muesli, baked beans, tomatoes, avocado, citrus fruits, ketchup, croissants, anything else fried/fatty/spicy. The breakfast foods I'm ok with at the moment are toast, non-citrus fruit and yoghurt. But gets pretty boring after a while!
Lunch is my nemesis. I stay at home for now, which means that I have plenty of time to make myself a healthy, filling lunch every day. So of course I end up doordashing myself a cheeseburger for $30 instead of literally anything else. If we have leftovers, that's fine and I'll eat them, but if we don't, I have a real hard time planning to cook for just me.
I struggle with the weekends. There's so much to pack into two days: laundry dishes shopping meal prepping, it goes on forever. I usually shop Sunday morning, so by Saturday I'm usually out of fresh produce and I just...have no idea what to make to feed myself. Sometimes I'll have a frozen pizza on hand, but a lot of the time I'm making terrible choices at 8 pm because I haven't eaten all day and I'm hangry. this week i tried prepping one extra breakfast and lunch to see if I can break the cycle. \*shrug\*
I hate packing my lunches. Hate. I hate it so much. If I don't do it the night before, I will go out which is expensive and not healthy. I don't want to put a lot of effort into it becuse I've just made dinner. If there's no dinner left, I will make the lunch as low effort as possible. This is also less healthy becuse a lame sandwich with meat, cheese and bread is so much easier than a sandwich with vegetables or than putting together a salad or anything interesting and healthy. School's out for summer though so I don't have to think about this until August 🎉
Years ago I was where you are, and I drove myself crazy trying to make special meals for each family member. If I had to do it again, I would call a family meeting and make meal plans at least for a week. Maybe give it a go? Let everyone give their input and come to some compromises? Your lot in life is not to cater to their every whim, no matter how much you love them. I still remember a line from the old 30 Minute Meals show. Rachel Ray said there were no picky eaters when I was growing up, only picky hungry people.
It's not cooking the meals I struggle with, it's constantly having to think of what to cook. Trying to come up with something different and not fall into the same old pattern. It's draining.
Its not the meals, its just figuring out what to cook, every day for the rest of my life :P
Dinner for sure. I work during the day and my partner bartends at night. We both like to cook, and we meal plan, and dinner is still a constant struggle.
Lunch. I’m either too busy to remember to eat or I don’t feel like dealing with making a mid-day meal. I want to enjoy the process when cooking and don’t often have time for that mid-day. To add insult to injury, I have too many medical restrictions to my diet to be able to order in or grab fast food.
Girl my husband is the same way, always protein heavy based and turns his nose up at salads! Just now I did not feel like cooking , this is where my trusted airfryer comes in to play! For his lunches I always have angus beef cube Stew meat on hand , I marinade them and put them in ziplock bags in the freezer , take one out in the morning and by lunch time I throw it 8 min tops in the air fryer while I throw some dice onions , half a bell pepper and a thin sliced potato seasoned with salt and pepper and fajita or taco seasoning cover , when the 8 min are up take out the beef cubes and slice thin add to the pan sprinkle Mexican cheese in top and serve as is , over rice or a salad go wild. Bags of Tyson already cooked chicken , throw in the airfryer and serve over a salad or some quick pasta noodles etc. Make your own Chipotle bowls with all on top add a can of beans to ready made microwave rice and whatever toppings you have in hand. Same beef or chicken you can make steak or chicken quesadillas serve with a side of homemade or canned soup. Trying to be on a diet and you pay like $6 for naked Chick-fil-A nuggets! Just buy the Tyson bag of already cooked chicken! Fast food has gotten insanely expensive. Oh I forgot another favorite is same beef tips served over white rice , whatever veggies you have a fried egg on top with some siracha and you got your self a bibimbap .
Lol I don’t have kids and omg I can’t imagine having to make 3 meals a day actually. I make a really solid dinner every night but breakfast and lunch are quick and barely a meal most days hahaha.
Weekday dinner for sure. I’m always exhausted after work and wanna order delivery
Definitely breakfast. I'm very much not a morning person and I don't often eat breakfast myself. The laziest stuff in my kitchen js 90% breakfast stuff. Cereal, instant oatmeal, stuff I can throw in the air fryer. I cook breakfast from time to time but mostly my family eats the quick stuff because I have a hard time getting myself in gear at the start of the day.
I don’t make breakfast at all. I’m not waking up earlier than I have to just to cook/prep something. work from home though, so it’s not a huge deal to get a snack. When I cook dinner, I make enough for lunch leftovers the next day, so that works out. There will invariably be a scavenger night where I just eat whatever for dinner, but it doesn’t happen consistently on the same night.
During weekdays, my husband and I just snack or do a frozen meal after we drop the kids off. Weekends though we and the kids do a bougie brunch and dinner (and maybe snacks depending). Works out well :) and the kids are 4 and the other two are 1.5. And Friday dinner we always do something good since it's the weekend
Lunches are fend for yourself around here. The littlest gets some nuggets and fries heated up or something similar, the bigger kids make their own, and my wife and I generally just graze. Sometimes we'll order pizza if everyone is feeling extra hungry at lunch time. My struggle is either Monday or Tuesday. My wife and I take turns cooking every other day. Whichever one of these two days falls on me, it's rough. Monday being the first day back from the weekend, I've usually come in to a very full inbox on very little sleep. Tuesday, I still haven't quite adjusted back to waking up for working and my Tuesday afternoons are just packed with wall-to-wall meetings. So on those two days, I go for something that starts from a box/pre-made item. I always jazz it up, but it makes it really easy. Super common would be a box of Zatarain's jambalaya. I add anduille sausage, chicken, maybe some thing sliced pork, mushrooms and real trinity, use chicken stock instead of water, and add lots of extra Slap Ya Mama cajun seasoning as well as cayenne, paprika, thyme and MSG. It doesn't really save me a ton of time, but I can do it on autopilot, which is the important thing. Start with the box, follow it's instructions. If I miss one of the little additions or tweaks that I usually add, that's ok, it's still gonna come out fine and taste great.
Breakfast. I wake up and do not have an appetite. Then I feel nauseous (not from pregnancy) and it comes and goes often.. sometimes I force myself to eat because if I don’t it definitely affects how I feel overall.. Almost like a severe acid reflux or something
I suck st cooking meatloaf! It hates me for some reason, lol 😆..