I have breakfast, lunch and snacks under control. Please help me with dinners!

I need to come home from work, feed the kids what they will eat, and fix something low-cal for myself. The twist is I can't cook.

Help!

What are you having for the rest of the day? I usually need lunch and snack ideas that are easy to throw together.

I can't really cook either, but you can probably make brown rice on the stove easily, microwave veggies, bake chicken or tofu. A stir fry is easy to make. Salads are easy and no cook. I haven't tried making my own soups yet, that will be a next experiment for me but they look like they can be easy to as well. Start off with simple recipes that don't require much prep or ingredients and try to have some leftovers for the next day or 2 so you don't have to cook everyday.

Get the Weight Watcher's Cook Book, it has hundreds of easy low calorie (and low point) recipes in it. I got it at a used bookstore for $3.00

Also Google "low calorie simple recipes" and you will get thousands of hits.

I can't cook either but I have made an effort to learn how to make easy low cal dishes that are not overly complicated or have too many ingrediants.

Make some salad, that's low-kal, and cooking chicken soup, that's easy to do it.

I am a huge pan of two pot meals - something that goes on top of something. Stir fry over rice, sauce over pasta, etc. Most of my dinners involve very little cooking, but a lot of chopping.

And I'm not a parent, so I do bow to your parental knowledge, but why wouldn't you fix your kids the same healthy meals you want to eat? For example, one of the things I like to make is quesadillas. I can put more cheese on my boyfriend's, so he likes it better, but it's basically the same quesdilla I'm eating.

Easy dinners:

Baked fish -- Just brush both sides of the fish with a little olive oil or butter, (optional: sprinkle on minced onion or black pepper or panko bread crumbs), and stick it in a 425 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

Baked sweet potatoes -- wash, prick with a fork, roll in aluminum foil, and put in a 400 degree oven for about an hour

Any kind of veggies -- broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, etc -- put in a microwavable dish with a little bit of water for 5 minutes (depending on how crisp you like your veggies).

Grilled chicken -- do you have a forman grill? Throw the chicken on the grill, and they'll be done in 10 minutes.

Cooking is actually not hard at all. It's just following directions. There are lots of recipes you can get online. If you go to allrecipes.com there is a "quick and easy" tab on the side that has some great ideas.

do I look fat?, what do your kids eat normally? I have the same quandry you do..what will my kids eat..what I try to do is make a balanced meal for my family (they aren't overweight) and then I selectively make my plate from the meal..

for instance, I might make Turkey meatballs with sauce, a salad, and a baguette. I will eat 3 meatballs and the salad and leave the bread alone. I will sometimes make seperate meals when my hubby and I want something the kids will not touch but in general, I try to keep it simple for myself. I also make fish sticks (roll in egg white and whole wheat panko crumbs) for my kids and my hubby and I will eat filets instead. It doesn't take much to change it up to make everyone happy. The fish sticks and the meatballs are definitely something you can prepare LOTS of and put into the freezer. That way when you come in from work, you are ready to roll.

Another idea too is to serve the already cooked grilled chicken breast with mac 'n' cheese or rice or whatever for the kids. You can have your chicken on top of a bed of spinach (the bagged already washed kinds)--maybe sprinkled with a few black olives, red onions, parmasean, whatever.

As far as not being able to cook, you really should learn some easy dishes to do up in a hurry. I eat mostly whole foods, the beauty of them is they are usually very easy to prepare--few ingredients and quick to make. You could always google "easy whole food recipes" and see what pops up.

When the kids were still at home, I made meat, veg, salad and potatoes. I just didn't eat the potatoes.

Barbequing is great. Grill something, throw potatoes in the mike and make a salad. Would that work for your family?

Steaming bags have saved me! Throw some frozen veggies in a steaming bag and microwave.

I do what most of these chicks do. I try to make one family meal and then avoid the food that is not on my plan. Sometimes I eat exactly the same things they all eat. Because my kids each so many carby snacks I often don't serve rice or bread at dinner. But I will never rule out the ever easiest pasta.
examples:
1. whole wheat pasta with red sauce and parm cheese, boca burgers, low fat creamed spinach
2. my own chicken fingers with steamed broc.
3. steak and salad
4. salmon and salad with steamed veg. in cheese sauce
5. turkey meatloaf, salad or steamed broc.
6. turkey chili (made with beans and corn and roasted tomatoes) with shredded cheese, salsa, low fat sour cream
7. crock pot chicken/ pork on whole wheat tortillas, side veg

I see now you don't cook. These things are very easy to make. I can go into detail if you want. you can let me know..

Thanks for the ideas!

Cooking for me and the kids is very difficult.

12 y.o- most anything, but no beans, veggies or fish. Very reluctant to try new things.

9 y/o- very picky. No cheese, veggies, or fish. Won't even eat spaghetti sauce because the little spices in it look like veggies. Will try new things, but usually hates it.

What they usually eat are separate meals. One will eat Spaghetti o's, the other a bean burrito. Both will eat chicken nuggets and Top Ramon Noodles. What I do make quite a bit is macaroni noodles w/ V8 juice. It's a family favorite!

I am very weak by the end of the day. If I don't have anything planned for me to eat, I'm eating the kid's chicken nuggets by the handful. Not good.

I'm not a good plan a header, which is my downfall. Plans change so quickly, things come up so suddenly that I've had to throw away a lot of food that has gone bad in the refrigerator because I didn't have time to use it. Also, I don't like to eat leftovers more than 1 day. (I had food poisoning once and now I'm a freak about freshness!)

Add to this my inability to cook and most days I'll just eat a frozen waffle with peanut butter on top for dinner because it's the only thing that looks easy to make. *sigh*

I will do some googling to see what other ideas I can find. Thanks again!

Heidi

Here's an easy dinner with very little cooking skill required. Buy a Purdue Oven Stuffer Roaster, rinse it off, put it in the oven at the temperature on the packaging. Wait for the little "done indicator" to pop up. Carve and serve with salad. It may need to be more of a weekend meal since cooking the chicken takes 2+ hours. But things don't get any easier than that!

My kids like to be picky, but frankly, I don't have the time or patience for that. Most nights, unless I'm making something really exotic, they (ages 7 & 9) eat what I make or they wait until breakfast the next morning to catch up..

That said, if I know something is iffy, like the tilapia I made last week, then I make sure I make them an extra big side salad, serve with rice (which I don't eat), and maybe even give them applesauce on the side.

Good luck, from one Heidi to another!

-- Heidi

PS: when we are in a rush out the door, a quick meal is grilled cheese sandwiches on whole wheat bread with a salad on the side. My kids also like oatmeal (the real stuff that you actually cook in a pot) for dinner.

I may be kicked out of the mom club for this, but you are in charge of meals. Your kids are learning their eating habits from you. I have a very large 9 year old called my 41 year old husband. I used to come home from work and make 3 meals. One for him, one for me, and one for our toddler. I finally looked at him and said "you know what? I'm not doing it anymore. I will make one meal, and if you don't want it, I will juts make sure you have something for sandwiches in the fridge." Believe it or not, after about a month of sandwiches, he decided he would try some of the meals I cooked.
I do agree to try and make meals you feel like you can eat with them, and there is nothing wrong with accomodating what they want to eat sometimes, but at the same time eating healthier is good for the entire family. My rule now is "You don't have to like it, but you do have to try it, and if you don't like it, you know where the bread is." In other words, if you don't like what I cooked, make it yourself.
Healthy meals are not that hard. I love my George Foreman grill, chicken tenders take minutes, and you can play around with spices, serve that with a bag of ceaser salad and you have a meal. Or you can do a lot of make ahead meals. I brown my ground turkey when I get home from the market and put it in individual storage containers. If hubby wants burritos, then I make mine from turkey, his from beef. I buy a lot of bagged veggies and make stirfry and the minute brown rice with some grilled chicken.
You can do it, you just have to stand firm.

Iheartsushi418, you can be in my Mom's club.

*drags soapbox out of closet for big speech*

My kitchen is not Burger King, you get it my way or you don't get it at all.

That being said, I obviously never cooked food I knew for sure they weren't gonna eat. DH and I like liver now and then, but the kids were not partial to it, so I just fixed them hot dogs. 99% of the time though, what I put on the table is what you eat.


Put your foot down, you might be surprised how well they respond. Especially when they get hungry enough. Besides, the foods you described that they will eat are not all that healthy and they are not getting all the vitamins and minerals they need. As parents, it is up to us to teach them GOOD habits.

My boys are good eaters, love fruit and veggies, try new things often and are good cooks. They are also married and out of the house. But I insisted they eat a variety, and try new things when they were kids.

Their dad was a bigger PITA when it came to eating. His mother fried everything in solid Crisco and drowned it in gravy, veggies were almost non existent and fruit? What's fruit? He is much better now. His 2 choices were eat what I cook or do it yourself. He's learned to like things not dripping in grease and actually likes fresh veggies and fruit.

I've always worked and never had time for that picky nonsense anyway. I'm the Mom and that's the only reason I've ever needed.

*gets off soapbox and drags it back to closet*

Luckily there are things I cook that my daughter and I share that are considered "healthy", but with my son, it's a little more trickier.

When he was younger, he had allergic reactions to a lot of foods. Milk and eggs were the biggest. I was reluctant to let him eat most things and he was on a strict diet. Sometimes he'd have reactions and I had no clue what they came from. He's now 9 and I'm still afraid to let him try eggs, milk, nuts, ect. because he might get a reaction. Once, though, I did have him try cow milk (he drinks rice milk) and he hated it. Same with a little bit of eggs. I'm still not letting him near nuts, just in case. As he gets older, he'll probably try these things on his own. He probably is over the allergies, but he won't go near a scrambled egg, or cheese. He thinks they are gross. I don't blame him, and I never force him to eat foods he doesn't want to try. He's my special case.

Heidi