Busy Parent's Cooking Hacks

I try to cook from scratch for my family most of the week, but with work, various family activities and let’s face it, the challenges of every-day family life thrown in, some days it doesn’t happen and we reach for freezer favourites or order in.

As it’s a universal issue and I’ve realised that in my guise of ‘working Mum’, I have a few tricks and tips in my armoury to help make midweek meals easier to produce when time and energy supplies are dwindling.

Be a smug batch cooker
Family life is hectic, and aside from the uber organised, not everyone has a stash of pre-prepared, labelled and homemade meals in the freezer. But actually, most of us cook the family classic dishes, the crowd-pleasers on a regular basis, so why not cook an extra-large batch, and portion up to freeze? Meals that lend themselves well to this include Bolognese or meat ragu, chilli, curries, casseroles and homemade pasta sauces that double up as a quick pizza sauce too. It is honestly such a great feeling coming home from work, or a busy day out with the kids to a home-cooked meal ready and waiting for you to warm up at home.

Slow Cooked Beef and Lentil Curry

Greek Chicken One-Pot Casserole

Multiple meals
When batch-cooking, you need not feel restricted to constantly having the same meals time and time again, I mean, I get bored easily, let alone my kids, so I make things that work in a multiple of ways. A Bolognese doubles up as a lasagna filling, chilli makes a mean burrito or enchilada filling, and a casserole such as chicken and mushroom makes for a banging pot-pie filling.

Perfect the leftover dinner
Transform your leftover roast dinner meat into a variety of delicious dinners; the possibilities are honestly endless. Make a mean noodle soup with any meat, stock, ginger, garlic, spring onions and chilli, sliced greens or lettuce, soy, a dash of fish sauce and sesame oil and a handful of beansprouts and coriander at the end. Other ideas are to serve the leftover meat with herby couscous, salad and a yoghurt dip, rehydrate in a BBQ sauce and serve in wraps with sour cream and salad or make a quick potato-topped pie.

Pork Noodle Soup

Leftover Roast Chicken & Mushroom Pie

The beauty of a sandwich
After a heavy day at work or school a simple sandwich might not cut it, but if you elevate it to a club sandwich (3 layers baby), with all of your family’s favourite fillings, think roast chicken, deli meats, cheeses, pickles and salad and throw a skewer in the top, this is a lot more exciting. Serve with a few oven chips, or dare I say it, crisps. It might not be the most nutritional thing they eat that week, but it will be fun.

Throw it in a bun
So, so, so many things can be served in bread rolls, ciabatta, brioche buns or my personal favourite stand-by, part-baked baguettes. This is great for when patience, time or energy is lacking for peeling potatoes or cooking up rice or pasta. I’m not just talking about burgers and sausages (though these work too), but any kind of meat works here with coleslaw and salad as would fish fingers. You could really mix it up and serve chilli or Bolognese in a bun too (hello sloppy Joe).

Quicky pizzas
These pizzas are such a standby fail-safe meal in our home, popular with all. The base can be anything from tortilla wraps, naan bread or even pitta. A simple tomato sauce (defrosted from the freezer) is smeared over the top and then add any fillings you like and that you have in stock. Peppers, onions, mushrooms, sweetcorn, sliced meat, olives; the options are endless, and you know what, just throwing on some grated cheese works too.

Pitta Pizza

Eggs is eggs
My Mum always said ‘you can always make a meal out of eggs’ and this is a rule to remember. You can serve eggs a whole heap of ways on toast, but the good old fashioned omelette or frittata is another winning meal you can prepare in five, and have on the table in another five using simple ingredients you have in your vegetable rack. Another egg-concoction that can be savoury and goes down a storm with kids is crepes or pancakes. Easy, cheap and quick – winner!

Crepes

Base bags
OK so this might be taking kitchen organisation a step too far, but if you are truly time-poor, it’s a great shortcut midweek, when resources are minimal. Get a ton of onions, garlic, celery and carrots and finely dice and equally distribute between a few bags for the ‘base’ of many a meal. These work as the start of many stews, pasta sauces, ragus, soups and loads more. They freeze well and are super useful when you’re in a hurry.

Flavour saviours
As cheesy as it sounds, having a few additional ingredients to hand at any given time in the kitchen, can rescue the bland, enhance the mundane and generally improve meals in a mere moment. As well as your usual olive oils and balsamic vinegars, I’m talking about flavoured oils such as chilli, garlic and truffle to drizzle over pasta, soups, stews or even pizza. Spicy sauces are another way of injecting a quick-fire hit of heat into any dish, sriracha and hot pepper are my favourites.

Baby Bites Pitta Pizza

This is a really great finger food and one that the whole family can enjoy way beyond the weaning process – they are delicious. The pizza sauce is super easy to make and whilst it takes a little time, it makes a big batch that you can freeze into an ice tray for each time you want to make these pizzas.

Have fun with the toppings and as little one gets older you can encourage her to choose from a selection and place them on herself – I recently made these for my friend’s ten year old and he was a big fan of popping on as much sweetcorn as the pitta could carry!

This works equally well on wraps too or even naan breads.

The below makes enough for one child and one parent, for lunch, with a little side salad.

Here’s how:

• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 jar passata or chopped tomatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 pitta breads
• Toppings of your choice – we used sliced mushrooms and peppers plus tinned sweetcorn
• Few strips of mozzarella

Firstly you need to make your sauce. Add the olive oil to a non-stick pan and place onto a low heat to slowly warm through.

In the meantime, finely dice the onion and mince the garlic and add to the pan to soften.

Once soft and translucent, add the tomatoes or passata.

Peel and finely grate the carrot and add to the sauce mixture (this is a sneaky way of getting extra fibre into children’s diets too if they’re not fond of vegetables).

Add the pepper and oregano and allow to slowly cook for, about thirty minutes, then remove from the heat and portion up accordingly. If you are putting some in the fridge or freezer till a later date, then make sure you allow it to fully cool before placing into the chiller.

Now place your oven on at around 180 degrees.

Now get your pittas onto a baking tray and put a 1-2 tablespoons full of the pizza sauce onto each and spread roughly.

Add the toppings of your choice and then the mozzarella cheese.

Place into the oven where they should cook in about ten minutes – you know they are cooked enough once the cheese is oozing and melted and then remove from the oven.

Cut into fingers for your little one and allow to cool enough for them to handle. Enjoy!