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Those of you with very young children...

1K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  Juise 
#1 ·
...do you cook like you used to? How? Most the time, if I am thinking about ingredients it is because I am covering the food groups, not because I'm making something very complicated. We eat pretty basic things for the most part now, and while I don't really feel like it is unhealthy, it's not exactly exciting or fulfilling.

I think part of the problem is that I spent so long on meals before, I can't / won't take several hours on dinner now. My kids are 11 months and 3 years. Even if I could manage it, I don't think I would want to use so much of my time for cooking instead of paying attention to them. My 3 y/o loves helping to cook, and I was able to start stepping things up a bit more before #2 was born, but not anymore.

I think I need more meal ideas that are a bit more complicated, but not so time consuming. Even the recipes marked in the Veganomicon marked 45 minutes always take me a lot longer than that. Many of them don't include things you need to prepare to use in the recipe, and so on.
 
#2 ·
I do. I love to cook, and I find it very relaxing. If I don't get time in the kitchen I get crabby. It is an agreement DH and I have. I cook dinner, or what not, and he spends that time with the kids. So they still get attention but I get to go create in the kitchen. When DH is working the kids and I bake something. Every Saturday morning. They love to "help" and lick bowls. When mine were younger, they are 2 and 4.5, they would play in the kitchen in the drawers while I cooked. It;s a priority for me, so I made time. It might not be like that for most people. That said, one of my kids eats almost nothing I cook. Luckily the little one eats anything.
 
#3 ·
Are you home during the day?

I add prep to my other times in the kitchen. At breakfast I might put some beans in the crockpot. At lunch I might prep some veggies or make bread dough.

At dinner, I might put beans to soak, cook extra pasta for a sald the next day, start some ice tea.
 
#4 ·
Life gets easier, I promise. Right now for you it's a good day if everyone is alive without stitches at bedtime.

My youngest will be 3 in August and I am just now occasionally thinking, "This was an easy day." On rare occasions. However, I am experimenting more with healthier foods. Actually, I'm amazed how much time I now have for that. Here are some tips that might help:

Get some good cookbooks and look for recipes that might work for you. I REALLY, REALLY like the weight watchers cookbooks. The food is really healthy and very yummy. Many recipes are simple to make.

As you find more recipes that work for you, keep a list of dinners that you want to do again. I lost my handwritten list so now have it on the computer on excel. Some day I may include ingredients to facilitate some use I can't think of at this time.

Shop once a week. Make a menu for the week, shop for ingredients you need to make the menu, and post the menu on your fridge. If you know one day is really busy, you can plan a simpler meal (say bean and rice tacos) for that night. On days without plans, consider a recipe that you can start in the morning.

Start making dinner in the morning if the recipe allows it.

Don't get too fixated on the food groups at each meal. Think about over the course of the week.

Do try and eat "a rainbow of colors" at each meal. Serving fresh fruit with a meal helps the rainbow.

Try crockpot recipes. For awhile I was mixing the non-liquid ingredients after the kids went to bed, putting it in the fridge, adding the liquid in the morning, and serving for dinner.

Go gluten free. We tried a gf diet with our daughter who has a speech delay. Three weeks later he speech took off. We don't know if there's a relationship or if it's just a lucky coincidence. We decided to stay gluten free because it's pretty easy for us and it's a really healthy way to eat (as long as you don't buy gluten free substitutes like pretzels, muffins, breads, etc.) Automatically I had to stop buying drive-thru french fries because they are all coated in flour. We switched from whole wheat pasta to TInkyada brand rice pasta which tastes so much better and is still a whole grain. This may be a bit complicated for you now, but going gf forced me to start making my own veggie broth. (I freeze it in ice cube trays then ziplock brand bags which are BPA free.) Gluten free eating (without using substitute gf products) just forces you to eat healthier, but really doesn't take any more time.

Learn to use your freezer. When we have leftover brown rice or tinkyada pasta, I put wax paper on a cookie sheet, spread out the pasta or rice on the sheet and freeze. Once frozen I put it in ziplock bags. For a quick meal for the kids, I microwave rice (add some frozen veggies, a scrambled egg, tamari and sesame oil and they have fried rice.) The pasta goes in a bowl with a bit of water, microwaved, and there's a quick pasta lunch. I make my own pesto (Trader Joe's brand has black pepper--a family sensitivity.) I freeze leftover pesto in ice cube trays, transfer to ziplock bag, then microwave portion size when I need it. Same with red pepper and basil sauce. (I actually need to take mine out of the trays tonight.) I made up a batch of beans in the crockpot, dried on the wax paper covered cookie sheet, froze after dried, measured into ziplock bags, then put back in the freezer. When we have tacos (a quick meal) or cheese crisps, we can just take out how much beans we want for dinner and put the rest back in the freezer. Here's a thread I started on freezing foods: http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1313694/what-foods-do-you-freeze

So, you will have more time to cook more interesting foods some day. My 5 year old is already becoming an excellent cook and my 2 year old is starting to cut mushrooms with a butter knife. Spending some of your precious free time finding simple, but tasty, recipes is probably your best plan right now.

Red Pepper and Basil Pasta Sauce (my adaptation of a weight watchers recipe.) This is my 5 year old's favorite pasta sauce.

Chop 1 onion and 1 red pepper and saute in olive oil. When soft add one clove garlic and at least a cup (more is better) of fresh basil. Saute for a minute. Add 3/4 cup veggie broth. Simmer 10 minutes. Add 1/4 cup milk. Place in blender (an immersion blender didn't work for me.) Serve over pasta with parmesan cheese.
 
#5 ·
Hmm, kind of sounds like I need a crock pot
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I have to admit, I have not been very interested in crock pot meals, to be honest, it sounds gross to me. I have heard a lot of people talk about how nice and easy it is, though. We bought a neat one for my MIL and FIL a couple years ago that they talk about almost every time we visit still. And they only live up the road, so we visit pretty often.
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I will have to give it a try.

We are vegan, and I do find it harder to make tasty, complete meals on the fly than when we were veg. We are raising a handful of chickens now, though, so in a few months we will be adding eggs to our diet, which will be an easy protein. Still sounds like
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to me but I am hoping I will adjust. The littlest one I know won't have any problems, she'll eat anything, but we'll see what my 3 y/o thinks.

Askew, that is definitely part of my problem, I don't have DH here to help. He is gone 12 hours every day, and most the time he is here is sleep time. He might be up for a couple hours when he gets home, but that is at 2am and I am either already asleep or too exhausted to do anything but say hi. He's only working 6 days of the week right now, but soon it will be 7
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I love cooking, but I just can't make enough time, I have a very difficult time right now simply trying to stay on top of things, and I normally don't succeed.

SundayCrepes, precious free time, what's that?
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Seriously, though. I don't have any. Once in a blue moon I might be able to stay up a little bit later than the kids to try to finish something. DD1 doesn't nap, though, and DD2 doesn't nap well. DD1 is becoming a little less high needs as she gets older, but DD2 is crazy high needs. I was hoping she would get a little more independent when she started crawling, but that didn't happen, and she started walking a little over a month ago, and still that has not changed anything. Anyway, I would like to try GF sometime, hopefully sooner than later, but right now I feel too fried to start figuring that all out.
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Does anyone have any other vegan cookbooks they especially like to suggest? Aside from Veganomicon and Vegan with a Vengeance.
 
#6 ·
Here's a crockpot recipe. We wrap the lentils in tortillas (or did before we went gluten free. Now we'd use mung bean tortillas instead.)

Sloppy Lentils
Adapted from: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson
Robin Robertson writes "Meaty lentils are featured in this vegetarian version of Sloppy
Joes. Serve on toasted rolls with a fresh batch of coleslaw."
1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
1 small red or green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 cups dried brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
One 14.5-ounce can crushed tomatoes
3 cups water
2 tablespoons tamari or other soy sauce
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon light brown sugar or a natural sweetener
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Heata medium-sized non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and bell
pepper, cover, and cook until softened, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Add the chili
powder, stirring to coat.
Transfer the onion mixture to a 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker. Add the lentils, tomatoes,
water, tamari, mustard, brown sugar, salt, and pepper to taste and stir to combine.
Cover and cook on Low for 8 hours.
Serves: 4 to 6
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#7 ·
SundayCrĂŞpes, thank you, I've been craving sloppy joes lately (I'm 40wks + 1) and have two packages of brown lentils in my cabinet that now have a destination! Merci beaucoup!

I just made a recipe inspired and DD (17mos) and I are enjoying it: cooked WW penne, a jar of tomato pasta sauce, some chopped raw Italian veg, baked with mozzerella and topped with more mozzerella in the last ten minutes. It baked at 180C/350F for 50 minutes. I would have made it with ricotta and mozzerella on top but had none on hand. It would be excellent with veg 'sausage' too. We are eating it with a side salad of purple cabbage and golden raisins prepared with salt, vinegar and sugar. I love that this is a low-GI meal and will help shed the baby weight in the PP period!
 
#9 ·
I totally know where you are coming from. I have a turning 5y old(next week
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) & a 2.5y old & Im 27w pregnant....& dh works 7 days a week+gigs+AA responsibilities. So when it comes to meals its me all me all the time. I figured my "guilt" over having to prepare amazing meals came from looking back on how I was fed as a child. Boxes boxes boxes take out take out take out & lots of cereal nights...granted I dont want to feed my kids like that BUT I also dont want them sensing mommy getting tired and cranky having to prep dinner byherself...especially since between 4-8 is the kids CRAZY time.

I realized that I needed to let myself go a bit about it. It's nice to prepare fancy meals BUT nothing is wrong with a picnic on the floor of hummus,raw veggies,pita and fruit. If anything THOSE are the meals your kids will prob remember. Not oh remember that wed when mom pulled off the 5 course masterpiece? And dh loves getting a text photo of the kids sitting & eating and coming home to a plate of freshnesss leftover for him.

I also do prep thru-out the day if I can. Soak beans overnight. Cook them while making breakfast. If I need an onion @ breakfast(for potatoes or something) I dice another for dinner. Little things like that do help

I do allow the kids a lot of choice in meals. And they've never said I WANT COOKIES FOR DINNER. I do get more then the occasional asking of veggie dogs and homemade sweet potato fries though
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. I also try and work around their fave veggies and they know they have to have 1 bite of veggies they dont care for...they might love them if they do. So if ds wants beets for dinner this week I pick that nights dinner for other oven stuff(potatoes,cauliflower, maybe a lentil loaf ect) Makes prep & cleanup easier. 1 or 2 casserole dishes instead of casserole dishes,pots,pans ect.

And BUY A SLOW COOKER!!!!!! Honestly. I dont use mine nearly enough and Im an advocate to anyone who will listen that a slowcooker must have been invented by a crazy busy mom b-c its the most amazing invention EVER
 
#10 ·
BrusselSprouts - Would it help if I told you that I could perfectly envision the scenario while reading your last post? It looked like this: 3 y/o and 1 y/o both sitting in a pile of crunched up rice cakes that the 1 y/o "explored" while 3 y/o sobs because 1 y/o is tearing out the colouring book pages and eating her crayons. Meanwhile, 1 y/o is howling with anger because for some explicable reason 3 y/o is trying to prevent her from eating all the pretty crayons.
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Okay. So, even in the short time it has been since I started this thread, it has already gotten a bit better, and that has been a huge relief. I'm not looking to make a 5 course masterpiece every night (caiesmommy I loved that
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) but it was killing me not being able to actually cook anything more complicated than noodles.

DD1 has started to accept eating things with more than 1 ingredient again (YAY!!!
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) and DD2 still eats anything you put in front of her, up to and including crayons
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. I still have to really convince her to take that first bite on something new, but she always will and will always admit that she likes it even if she didn't think she would, and eat it. We had crepes with a saucy sweet potato onion filling for lunch today.
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I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to be able to make and eat some "real" food again, even if it is not every meal or even every day. DD2 is just starting to get a little more independent so that she will actually play with DD1 for short spans of time without me being right next to her. There main play area is and has been right next to the kitchen, they connect and there is no wall or anything, but that wasn't close enough for her before.

Caiesmommy - I found what you said about being guilted into wanting to prepare amazing meals because of the way you ate as a kid really interesting, because I think a big part of the reason I feel so bad about it is also because of the meals my mom cooked for us, expect that she was always somehow making delicious, real, homemade food and not to mention always coming up with new activities, crafts, and projects for us to do. I have no idea how she did it now!
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Anyway, it is amazing how overwhelmed, desperate, and depressed you can get over things like this while it is going on even though you know it will change and you know things will get easier. It's only been about a month and a half since I first posted this, and I remember how incredibly upset and flustered I was feeling about it when I did. That already seems pretty... well.. silly.
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Thank you everyone for your help and support, even if it was because I was silly.
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