Ep 2. Do you feel overwhelm in the kitchen?

00:16 Sam

Hey it’s Sam, thanks for joining me as I share ideas on how to flourish and not flounder with food.

I’m aiming to build a community of like minded busy people who feel stuck in a rut with the meals they are providing for the family. You can get in touch with me if you have a question about the things I discuss or if you have a great tip you would like to share you can email the show at notpastaagain@hotmail.com I’m also on facebook and instagram. The facebook group is also building to be a great community alongside the podcast. Also if you like the podcast or know someone else who might the please share the link to the podcast with them.

So what’s the chat in this episode? I thought I would explore more around the overwhelm that putting food on the table can bring and share some knowledge on how to overcome it plus the pressure to cook healthy, tasty meals the whole family will enjoy.

Overwhelm in the kitchen may seem like quite a drastic way of putting it but through what I do know and what I have previously done when I worked in consumer research, I’ve consistently seen a pattern of stress, overwhelm, dislike, feelings of inadequacy however you want to express it, when I speak to mum’s and their role as meal provider.

I guess I’ll start by saying that we can feel overwhelm in a few different ways, and because we’re all different we might all experience it differently, and often it’s an accumulation of several factors at play. And I think importantly its good to note that it might not be something we actually identify in this way, particularly when you’re in the ‘thick of things’ and daily life

Let me paint you a picture and I’d be interested to know if you resonate with any of it. You’re a busy working mum, you might have children who are also busy doing different after school and weekend activities. If you have a partner they’re probably working too, and might even work away from home a few nights a week. Your day is full on from when you get up – and ensure everyone else does to. Everyone needs to shower, have breakfast, get their bags ready, maybe get a packed lunch together and children might then be taken to school.

You then rush off to work, crack on with your working day until school pick up/home time where it’s a battle to get uniforms off, hung up, snacks given, that don’t spoil dinner.

You might then be back in the car to take a child to an afterschool activity, where you might stay and watch or decide to quickly go and do some grocery shopping because you need to feed everyone dinner.

And what are you having for dinner? It can be this moment when you first think about it. what have you got in the cupboard? What will everyone like? You contemplate these thing fleetingly decide that there’s not much time so you grab a few things, maybe a pre-made pizza, chips, burgers or who knows you might decide on pasta again. Shopping accomplished you rush to pick up your child, get home, everyone’s starving and falling out you get food in the oven/on the stove top, everyone eats and the household is a little calmer. Obviously your activities probably haven’t finished at this point – there might be washing, ironing, admin to catch up on. At around 9pm after the bedtime fights you eventually sit down and relax.

OK. So maybe I’ve painted an extreme picture here but I know that I’ve experienced one if not all of these things at one time or another in my role as a parent for me it’s a picture that shows that food, no matter how integral to our lives, can be an afterthought.

So let’s revisit that notion of overwhelm bearing in mind some of the situations I’ve described how might we experience overwhelm when it comes to putting food on the table?

Maybe it is a lack of inspiration of what to cook – quite simply feeling like you repeatedly hit a brick wall when it comes to ideas of what you can put on the table. Not knowing what else to cook, and relying on some stock standard, quite liked meals for the family is commonplace in many households. Remembering in the last episode that the median number of meals we know how to cook is just 7. In the past I know I was very aware that I kept cooking the same things on rotation. I knew it was boring but I didn’t know what else to make or how to change it, so I didn’t. So, what did I do? I quashed those feelings of inadequacy - of not being able to introduce a varied diet to my children and did the best I could.

Maybe the overwhelm stems from always needing to meet the needs of, or cater for, a fussy eater or two! This tends to be really quite restrictive as they reject even the slightest variation from the usual food they ‘enjoy’. Believe me, I’ve been there with my youngest – watching him try and pick out the bits he doesn’t like, or trying to convince him I haven’t added mushroom, when clearly I have! He’s wholeheartedly a beige eater at heart and I used to find myself only ever making things that he would eat to the detriment of everyone else in the house. And yes you guessed it pasta is his favourite. So not only was I frustrated I felt guilty that we weren’t eating a varied diet. And then you have households where multiple meals are made to cater for the different eaters in the household. I can’t imagine how time-consuming that would be. I’d love to hear from you if this is your mealtime scenario – how do you cope!?

I’ve met a lot of people where their overwhelm is driven by a lack of personal confidence in their cooking ability – that feeling of you can’t cook, and repeatedly telling yourself that you really can’t cook, feeling embarrassed when you serve dinner because you ‘know’ people think it tastes rubbish. These kinds of scenarios and self-talk just perpetuate the situation and when you couple it with a probably lack of time, as a busy mum, you don’t feel as if you can change the situation. So in this situation you can feel embarrassed and/or inadequate again in your role as meal provider. But you do what you can as everyone needs to eat!

And time. We can’t forget how the constant feeling of having no time/being rushed just adds to the stress and overwhelm mealtimes can create. There rarely feels like there’s enough time to actually make what you’d really like to make, or time to learn some new recipes, or the time to engage with the fussy eater so perhaps they’d be less fussy. So you compromise make the recipes you know, maybe buy in pre-made food, perhaps try meal kits – you do whatever you can do!

And finally there’s that feeling of guilt that can linger in the back of your mind that perhaps you’re not quite meeting the nutritional needs of your family in the way that you’d like to. For me the feeling of guilt is an accumulation of everything I’ve touched on so far. No inspiration, no time, no confidence, no variety it can feel like a vicious circle

My god – who’d want to be a mum with all this responsibility.

So how can we remove or at least reduce these feelings? Flip them on their head so we feel a little bit better about mealtimes and food prep?

I’ve learnt that Meal planning really can ease some of these feelings. It took me a little bit of time to get used to this because finding the time to do it seemed difficult. But it’s definitely worked out for me that if I sit down for around 30 minutes at the weekend and work out what we will eat, saves me so much panic and stress during the week. Knowing what we’re going to eat day to day means we eat well and that I make good choices!

So in the first instance I would really encourage you to make time to meal prep, even create an appointment in your diary once a week that is when you do this. Or when you’re sat watching a child at one of their many activities. Or when you’re walking the dog … whatever, just working out a time that gives you this opportunity. Having done the planning takes a weight off your shoulders – its just sourcing the ingredients that you need to worry about then – not the compound effect of what am I making and have I got the ingredients.

If meal planning isn’t your thing then maybe another option would be to do a weekly online shop and just get in some groceries, ingredients that you tend to use. At least in that way you have fresh produce in the house so you can, on any given occasion, quickly grab ingredients needed for the meals you know how to cook. I’d say having a full fridge is more comforting than one that is dwindling at least it feels like you have options when you open the fridge door!

I also have friends who plan their meals as they are going round the supermarket and maybe this is you - you do your weekly shop whilst you’re walking round the supermarket, browsing the shelves. In this scenario, they talk about how seeing the food in front of them helps them make a decision about what to make - sausages monday night, stir fry tuesday night, fish wednesday night and then they will get all the other bits they’d need to have with it.

Interestingly, I suck at these suggested options. When I’ve done this in the past I’ve found it can lead to food waste. For whatever reason, I might not make the meals I thought I might. Plans change - We end up eating at a friend’s or if I’m lucky going out for food – whatever the reason, the ingredients that I got in end up going to waste. They creep closer to their expiry date and the levels of guilt creep up as I recognise I’m not going to use them! This can also become a costly exercise too.

Another option that many find helpful meal boxes that you can subscribe to, Gusto, Hello Fresh come to mind. For me, these have never been an option because as a single parent I didn’t find that they worked from a portion size perspective but also they weren’t really cost effective. They can add up – there are only so many promo codes you can use

However, I’m not knocking them because I do know that lots of people like them because of the ease they provide around meal planning. They offer greater variety to the normal meal repertoire that some has too. So, I know they can work

But for me, meal planning is my definite go to and this is made all the more easy because of my Thermomix and the recipe application that comes with it called Cookidoo

What is Cookidoo I hear you ask! Well its a library of around 90,000 recipes from around the world that I can browse and use to source meal ideas from. Think of it as a massive online cookery book. There’s a filtering system you can use to ensure recipes really meet your needs. So there are filters for type of dish you’re looking to make, starter, soup, vegetarian mains, snacks; you can type in ingredients you have in your fridge and want to use, just like on the converse you can exclude ingredients you don’t like as well. My favourite two filters relate to difficulty – I always choose easy recipes – and preparation time, which is how long do I want to be involved for. I tend to choose less than 15 minutes because I don’t have time and I’d rather be doing something else with my time right! You can also filter by total time, portion size and rating – 5 star through to 1 star recipes being available.

Not only do I have access to a massive library of recipes to choose from, I can plan my meals weekly, fortnightly, monthly and beyond – whatever I choose. Once those meals are planned for any given time period I can then create a shopping list for all the ingredients needed. It doesn’t stop there – I’m also then able to get those ingredients delivered – to my door – as the app links to 4 supermarkets.

Overwhelm? What overwhelm! I spend 30 minutes at the weekend planning and realistically shopping too! Its brilliant. My floundering no longer exists – my life in the kitchen has shifted to one where we all flourish. No stress. No guilt. No feelings of inadequacy.

To finish with today I thought I’d share one of my favourite mid-week recipes, and funnily enough it’s served with Pasta for the boys. I don’t eat Pasta any more so for me it’s always served with a chopped salad. It’s a Cookidoo Chunky Bolognese and whilst you might not have a Thermomix I’m sure you could replicate elements of it. In fact, I’m guessing Bolognese is maybe a staple in your household anyway! Let’s face it most children and people like Bolognese. The reason I like a bolognese, whether it’s a Thermomix one or not, is because you can hide lots of veggies in it – tricking those fussy eaters into eating their 5 a day. Which in turn makes me feel like a good mum for its hidden nutritional value.

Bolognese is also one of the few recipes I’ve been cooking for years. So even pre-Thermomix I was pretty confident doing one. Although, when I look back it was pretty labour intensive as I had to be involved with the process for over an hour or so. Not something I have the time for these days.

So my main reason for liking this Thermomix recipe is because I have minimal hands on involvement – the Thermomix does pretty much all of the ingredient chopping, stirring and cooking of course. Another plus is that it doesn’t have any complicated or difficult ingredients in it either – so I can always turn to it when in real need as I’ve usually always got all the ingredients in stock. The fact I can walk away during the main cooking part Is a godsend it gives me time to sort through whatever it is I need to sort through!

And once its done it washes itself clean too. I love that bit so much, such a simple luxury but very much appreciated!

I’ll link you through to the recipe so you can see how easy it is in the shownotes. You can also have a little nosey at some of the other recipes you have at your fingertips with Cookidoo too.

But also, please let me know some of your go to recipes and why they are this. What makes them work for you? Maybe we can inspire each other to try some new and different recipes.

So, that’s it for today’s episode. I hope some of the things I’ve shared resonate with you and give you some fresh ideas on how to handle potential mealtime overwhelm. Remember, it’s all about making small changes, building a plan that works for you, and taking a bit of pressure off your shoulders.

Whether it's planning your meals for the week, trying out something new, or even investing in tools like Cookidoo and Thermomix to simplify your routine, I believe we all deserve to feel confident and in control in the kitchen.

Thanks so much for listening! If you’ve got any tips, ideas, or experiences you want to share, feel free to get in touch. I’d love to hear from you. And don’t forget, if you’re enjoying the show, please share it with a friend or leave a review—it really helps!

In the next episode I am joined by Ellie Codling. I met Ellie recently at a networking event and she pretty quickly identified how useful a Thermomix would be for her as a busy working mum of 2. Join me next time to hear Ellie’s thoughts on how life has improved in the kitchen by having a Thermomix.

Until next time don’t feel overwhelmed in the kitchen because together we can flourish and not flounder with food.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube