abroad mommies with toddler. .

You can cook in bulk and freeze. That would free up a lot more time. Make foods simpler and more wholesome. Make idlis instead of dosa; stuffed paratas with raitha instead of rotis and subji etc. introduce sandwiches, local foods, salads and soups to your child so that you could have a meal outside.

Run things on a schedule - one of it could be that you need to leave the house between 10 and 1; you will figure out how to manage it. Another could be to allot 20 min every few hours to exclusively play (/ read to/ sing with) with your child. The. Stick to the schedule.

You house should be clean and hygienic but leave it be if it not neat and tidy.

Chores like drying clothes/ loading dishwasher/ washing vessels etc etc can be done while your husband is home so you can share the load.

Use sites like flylady to get tips and get motivated.

 

I used (when my kids were small) go out with them after breakfast. Playing outside for a couple of hours made them sleep at nap time better. It was also nice to see other people. Used to make food in bulk so I cooked only a few times per week. There are no lunch cafeteria in your dh:s office?

 

@BuviVishal, Cooking for the week never really worked for me in the last 3 years. I mean, when I tried, my whole sunday I used to spend in kitchen leaving me exhausted and the next day I need to go back to work. So, I might as well spend 30 mins everyday to cook and keep the sunday free for me and DD.

What really helped me is write down a meal plan a week in advance and then shop for groceries accordingly.

For us, usually breakfast is cold breakfast. Either toast or cereal or oatmeal. That takes about 2 mins to get it ready.

For the longest time, I have made same thing for lunch and dinner. If I am making chicken curry, I make it to last for lunch and dinner. make rice. Mostly I dont do 2 or 3 dishes during the weekdays. If I am making sambar, I generally boil an egg or make an omelet to make it a complete meal. Another thing is making a one-pot-meal like veg fried rice with raita or stuffed parathas with raita. Since you plan a week in advance, you dont open the fridge and start thinking "what shall i make today"?

Things like pulikachal (paste for puli saadam) can be made in advance and stored in the fridge. just mix the paste and powder with rice and add some papad to make it a meal. Things like coconut milk rice can be easily whipped up in 5 mins using the can coconut milk. Same thing with veg fried rice. Vangi bath, tomato rice etc are another easy to whip up items in the kitchen.

Now, what I do is, I make salads when I make any rice items like coconut milk rice/ pulisadam etc to get the veggie intake for the day. It could be simple garden salad or couscous salad or kale salad or carrot salad etc. use the seasonal veggies. My dressings are super simple. olive oil+salt+pepper or some vinegar dressing etc.

Another excellent and easy to make dishes is pasta with some sauce. Just boil the pasta and add the sauce! I usually put meat or veggies in it but you the point right? Less than 30 mins you are done.

I reserve elaborate cooking during weekends when I make subji, sambar, rasam, rice, pickle etc. I make it a point to make something elaborate on weekends.

 

I agree with @Rakhii, cooking for the week did not work for me. So I make simpler but wholesome meals as I have a 3.5 year old and 1 year old and I am concerned about their nutrition. What worked for me is like Rakhi mentioned - planning. I plan the menu - breakfast, lunch and dinner for the week and do the needed prep work over the weekend - like grinding, making chutney, making batter or dough. I wake up around 5:30 AM and cook breakfast & dinner for the day by 7:30 AM. Breakfast is usually some upma (rava/semiya/poha/millets) with frozen veggies or idli with chutney prepared over the weekend. Dinner is roti or dosa/adai or pasta & soup or salad & taco etc. So morning, all my burners will be working - I will make upma on one side, dal & subzi on the other and boil egg for the kids evening snack. Evening as soon as I come home with the kids, give them the egg or sundal or whatever homemade snack is available and make roti or dosa or boil pasta or blend soup while chatting/playing with them. So I hardly spend 20 minutes in the evening cooking and spend a lot of time with the kids. We take the dal & subzi with rice & salad for lunch to work the next day. Frozen chopped veggies, cutting and freezing veggies & masala pastes over the weekend is what helped me.

@hrasto post on timemanagement (http://www.indusladies.com/forums/recipe-central/260874-morning-multitasking-whole-days-cooking.html) and updates by different ladies on this post http://www.indusladies.com/forums/s...ime-management-cooking-cleaning-exercise.html was my inspiration. When I felt completely overwhelmed and intimidated to manage 2 young kids, work and home - these ladies helped instill the confidence in me (I send my mental thanks to them almost everyday). I do have to give a lot of credit to my husband for helping out with cleaning, getting the kids ready and other things around the house, since food & nutrition is important to me, I take the lead on those. Also, there is no separate cooking for anyone, kids eat what we eat, we eat medium spicy or less spicy so that kids can handle it. I would definitely recommend those 2 posts for inspiration and ideas.