Ask The Readers – Leaving My Husband For 30 Days
April 17, 2012
I just loved this email from reader Marty. I was not sure what to think at first when I read the first sentence of her email…”I am leaving my husband”. I was afraid of what was coming next–tee hee!
Instead Marty needs our help. Her husband will be solo for a month and she wants to make sure he has some food on hand for the time when she is gone. Check out Marty’s email and share some ideas to help her in her “30 days project”.
I am leaving my husband… for 30 days. I am a Euro, and the only one from my side of the family who lives in the US, so when I got a chance to visit my parents for a month, I grabbed it. I’m taking my two little sons and leaving my husband (and a Pug) behind for four weeks.
Deep down, I believe that my husband could be a great cook. He won me over with an awesome chicken salad once, and he leaves enough hot water in a kettle for me to make myself some coffee.
But seriously – I love cooking and typically don’t let him step a foot in the kitchen. I cook almost every night, and basically never buy ready meals. I also use coupons a lot (why else would I write to you?), and do all the grocery shopping.
There’s no doubt he would survive the 30 days alone, all by himself (ok, with the pug), on ramen noodles, but I was hoping you, or maybe the other iHeartPublix readers, could help me with some opinions on how to build a generous stash of microwavable meals. Which brands are yummy and healthy? Which will fill up a guys stomach? What is a good price (after coupons&promotions) for a single serving meal? Maybe you have some recipes I could make in advance and freeze for him?
i think that the boston market frozen dinners are amazing. Once heated up they taste just like the restraunt and are not to badly priced! My oldest son who loves Boston Market eats these as an after school snack sometimes! they are so delicious!
Check out once a month mom website. I have done several of these menus and they all taste good and easy to heat up either in the microwave or stove top. Check it out!!
http://onceamonthmom.com/
Hi! I am a busy stay at home mom of 3, and also a full time nursing student. So to save time cooking meals, while still trying to eat healthy, I cook in bulk on the weekends. I make large pots of homemade pasta sauce, along with a few packs of italian sausage and meatballs. The sauce freezes easily, and you can do some individual portions for while you’re away. Than all hubby will have to do is boil the pasta and heat up the sauce, meatballs and sausage.
I also use my crockpot to make a big portion of ground beef with taco seasoning, and freeze the leftovers. Homemade soups freeze well too.
Individual chicken breasts freeze well. Just season, cook and line on a baking pan to freeze so they don’t stick together. Then place them in freezer bags and your husband can take out one or two for dinner to reheat, or chop them up to put on top of a salad.
For actual frozen dinners, the Birds Eye Voila is pretty good (my kids love the chicken Alfredo) and they just heat up in a pan. Stouffer’s entrees are really good and there’s a lot of variety too.
I hope you have a wonderful vacation with your family, and that your husband survives your absence in one piece! Enjoy!
I agree with the Voila and Stouffer’s. They say they are a meal for two, however they are barely enough to feed my husband and I together. I think for one person, those are your best bet for filling him up. Even the Hungry Man meals won’t completely fill up…..a hungry man, lol. Plus I’m sure they are very high in sodium. Pasta sauce is definitely an easy fix to freeze for later. Cook the sauce all day long on low, just be sure to stir it often. I’m sure he can figure out how to boil the pasta when he decides to eat it for dinner
and the New York garlic toasts are 50% off this week coming up, grab some coupons and stock up on those for his pasta nights.
I am about to leave for a trip by myself, but it’s only for 4 days. My husband isn’t much of a cook, before I came along his specialty was fish sticks and mac-n-cheese. I’m planning on getting some frozen pizzas, frozen fish and french fries, and whatever else is a good deal. As for lunch, he’s easy to please with some cold cuts and bags of chips. And I’m sure he’ll go out to eat once, since he’ll have half of our kids (two) with him this weekend. Ah, Mommy Vacations are so nice!!
never thought of doing a huge batch of taco meat in the crock pot. putting this on my list of things to do! thanks for the tip
HeHe – My husband would not survive in the kitchen and I am afraid he would be breaking the budget with take out. But it is a good question . . . I am not a huge fan of microwave meals – but the voila meals are pretty good – they are skillet cook but really simple. Frozen pizza is not bad (not really healthy though). The little tubs of pulled pork – LLoyd’s makes some – are not bad and can be microwaved. Soup is microwavable and there are a lot of good ones. I also really like the “Fast Fixin” brand – they make microwave burgers, country fried steak and chicken – but they are usually pretty high priced – although sometimes they go BOGO. You might want to remind him that potatoes can be microwaved – for a semi-healthy side dish (baked potato). If he eats veggies there are a ton of microwave options for frozen veggies. If I were in your position – I would make a list of all my “main” dish meals in the freezer/pantry and a list of side dishes in the same. Then hope he will pick and choose for easy, healthy meals. I doubt my husband would spend more than 15 minutes making a meal at home.
We like to have some of the Bird’s Eye and/or Stouffer’s meals in the freezer. I don’t know how healthy they are but they’re both on sale this week (current ad). The are also some coupons for the Stouffer’s that were in a previous insert. I’m sure your husband will be fine with whatever you leave for him. Maybe some of your skills have rubbed off on him. Enjoy your visit.
Sounds like he could handle boiling pasta noodles. Freeze some spaghetti sauce in single serving containers for a few meals.
Kashi, Healthy Choice, Smart Ones, Lean Cuisine, Voila frozen meals are all great to have on hand. There are always sales on these too. And you can always find coupons for them as well. Also like the other ladies said, cook in bulk and then freeze individually. He can just grab reheat and eat. The easier it is for him to eat at home the less likely he will be heading for the drive-thru.
Hungry man & boston market are good but if he’s like mine prepare for him to eat two at a time!
I am not sure how much time you have before you leave but you can also just make extra dinner and freeze it.
At least 70% of my lunches each day are leftovers or modifications from dinner the night before! That extra half of a chicken breast can go on a salad or a sandwich and is just as good as the night before (just finished my sandwich about 5 minutes ago–tee hee!)
This is what I was going to suggest too. Since you are already cooking (and it sounds like you’re a good one!), you could just make a little more than normal and, when putting the leftovers away, separate them into single-serving portions that your hubby can just grab when he needs them. I would think it might take a week of this to get enough leftovers that would last him the month. He’ll still have to buy things like fresh veggies and milk, but he’ll get your home cooking the rest of the time!
My husband is pretty picky when it comes to frozen foods, but we really like the PJ’s Organics products. Their burritos, enchiladas, and taquitos are sooo yummy! I found them at Kroger really cheap on closeout.
Thank you! There are some great tips here. I did like one or two varieties of the BE Voila meals (have two bags stashed in the freezez), I also picked 4 single-serve Michelina’s meals from Kroger. I will definitelly grab a few Stoufers dishes – we had the lasagna the other night, and it was really good. Need to check the Boston Market, too!
I still need a big stash of ramen noodles, tho… I have a pretty neat grilled-cheese making toaster press, so I can leave it on the counter. I have a nice stash of canned soups (the beefy type) he likes, and they are microwavable too (ick, not a big fan of microwaving whole meals, but…).
I think I’ll follow the advice and prepare single serve chicken breasts – they’ll go nicely with the Alexia fries that that were on sale just now. I have a bunch of different cheese&breadcrumb mixes, just not sure how they freeze when cooked.
I do typically have a one-portion leftover from dinner, so I’ll start freezing those instead of eating them for lunch.
Thank you so much!
I think that if you love to cook why not make extra every night for the next few weeks and freeze them so he can warm up your home cooked meal instead of those crappy frozen dinners!
What about some easy dump and go crock pot meals. One that my husband loves just requires a pound of stew meat (can start it frozen), 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, 1 can of cream of chicken soup, 1 can of any type of french onion soup. Just let that cook all day and serve over rice or noodles. Those barber chicken breasts are great too and easy. You can leave him other quick meals like all the ingredients for tacos, homemade pizza, etc. If I left my guy with just a bunch of frozen microwave meals for sure he would end up spending a lot of money eating out while I was gone.
make sure you leave a list of what meals he can make and where to find everything!! we’ll do a frozen lean cusine for lunch in a pinch, but we had plenty of food in the house when me and my kids went away for a WEEK and my DH spent more than 1/2 my monthy grocery budget and still ate 5 meals out, all in 1 WEEK!! he said he coulnd’t find anything and didn’t know what to make….ummmmmm!!
This is a great idea! Maybe categorized by location or type of meal.
Another few suggestions: Lasagna and baked ziti freeze well in individual portions, as do mini meatloaves. There are also some great websites for make-ahead freezer meals and OAMC (Once a month cooking). And my DH loves the White Castle frozen burgers. They’re really easy to heat in the microwave and taste pretty good.
You also might want to get him a supply of paper plates and plastic cups. He may feel overwhelmed by having to clean up the dishes, so if you can make it a little easier on him, he might eat at home more rathter than eat out.
Marie Calendar’s frozen meals are very good, and filling as well.
I hope I can be as helpful as possible. As far as making meals and freezing them so he can just pop in the microwave…I would have to say lasagna, spaghetti/meat balls and soups stand up well for freezing and I have to agree that the marie calendar’s are great I also think that you can freeze enchiladas and all he would do is pop it in the oven for a short time and is done…I hope this helps! Have a great trip!
The Marie Calendar’s chicken pot pies are amazing!! Some times they are bogo for the 4 pack but when they aren’t and there are no coupons Walmart is cheaper.
I agree with the Lasagna suggestions – that makes a lot of portions. How about Chili? It can be served by itself, over rice or pasta or potatoes… or even as a salad topper
When I left my hubby for 2 1/2 weeks to go with my family to Europe (that’s where we’re from) I made a list to post on the fridge. At the top it said, “Hungry? What do you feel like having?” And, I’d have it split into categories. For breakfast there could be cereal, oatmeal, some sort of breakfast bar (I make strawberry streusel bars), mix (I make my homemade waffle mix that he loves and leave it in the fridge – it’s good for a week! Also could leave it dry and how much milk to add), etc. For lunch and dinner, there’s taquitos (he loves these frozen ones from Costco), I made chicken pot pie, spanish eggrolls (I made up a recipe), I forget what else. But, the point of this is that planning ahead is a good idea and he actually still had food leftover when I got back LOL
Another alternative that tastes divine!
Chicken Broccoli Supper from “Quick Cooking with Karin Calloway”
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2 T butter
3-4 cups cooked and chopped chicken
1 bunch broccoli, cut into florets and lightly steamed
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
8 oz spaghetti, cooked and drained
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
1 cup whipping cream
paprika (optional)
Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, saute green onions in butter. Reduce heat to low and add chicken, broccoli, salt, and pepper and cook 5 minutes. Place cooked spaghetti in a greased 3-qt baking dish and cover with 1 cup of the cheese. Pour cream over cheese. Spread chicken mixture over top, and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Sprinkle with paprika, if desired. Bake for 30 minutes. When done, toss or stir mixture to distribute ingredients. Makes 6-8 servings.
Her name is Marty or her husband’s name is Marty? Where in Europe is she from?
This is where you break out the slow cooker for a week or until you leave and then divide and pack every meal into individual servings, freeze and label.
Take a trip to Costco and buy all the ready to heat and eat frozen meals. They can even be split into a few dinners depending on the serving size.
I’ve discovered two things from the rare times when my husband has to fend for himself: he’s lazy, and he reverts to being ten years old if he has to eat alone–meaning that if it requires too much work, he won’t make it, and what he really wants is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while he watches tv. I would stock up on sandwich fixings–luncheon meat, bread. Throw in a few of the Birds Eye Voila meals, maybe a few boxes of mac and cheese, some Tyson chicken nuggets, and hope that he doesn’t weigh a million pounds when I come home
For men, you really do have to keep it as easy as possible, especially if they are used to being spoiled with dinner made for them every night.
And stock up on breakfast mixes and meats–for some reason that is the one meal that he can motivate himself to make.
Have a great trip!
I’m a guy so I feel like I should say something. I think if you spend money on a bunch of frozen meals, you might as well not even worry about how much you spend. If you really want to get the most value, I’d stay away from the frozen meals. If he can make Ramen, he can make simple pasta which as we all know is really easy to stock up on, and filling. Also pretty cheap, easy and filling is boxed macaroni. Then again, I think a bag of frozen chicken is pretty easy to make, too. He doesn’t have to do anything fancy with it; you just make sure it’s cooked thoroughly and throw it on bread or chop it up.
We are big fans of the Soutffer’s entrees for when we are too tired to cook. I always buy a few when they are on sale and keep them on hand for nights we are too tired to cook. They don’t have a ton of funky ingredients like some of the packaged meals do, and the whole family loves the lasagna. The family size would probably make enough for a few meals for a hungry guy.
I think if she has time she should make 30 dinners or so and freeze. Then she would feel happy that he is still getting healthy home cooked meals. Not sure if i can mention another mom blog but she has a freezer cooking day and does this for her family.
I agree with what lots of ladies have already mentioned – I don’t think it is as much of an issue of what you get (homemade vs. frozen meals) but how your organize and present it. A list of what you have for him and where would be a wise idea in my opinion.
I leave my husband a lot! I have grandchildren in N.C. and live in Florida, so I visit them a lot. I use Once a Month Mom, too. She has some great freeze ahead meals. And he is on a heart-healthy diet now, so that makes it a bit harder.
I make a lot of spaghetti sauce and freeze it in bags to have just enough for him to eat and take some to work. I make turkey meatloaf, turkey chili, baked ziti. I marinate some thin boneless chicken breasts in Italian dressing so he can grill them on George Foreman. I make sure he has some frozen veggies (my cookings or Green Giant/Bird’s Eye). I make a healthy chicken pot pie and you can freeze the whole thing or divide it into servings. You have to brush a mixed egg on the crust when you heat it up, but that’s easy to do. Jennie O has some great turkey burgers.
You can cook some egg dishes ahead of time and freeze them. Healthy muffins are easy to freeze. Banana breads, etc. are good. Meatballs are easy to heat up or cook and make meatball subs. Things like that. I put directions on the bag on what it is and how to heat it up. Good luck!
My family loves this recipe for spaghetti casserole. It makes a lot. I also add extra mushrooms. You can bake one now and freeze the other and maybe instead of an 8×8 pan for the one being frozen – use an even smaller pan and he could have for dinner two nights.. http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Spaghetti-Casserole
My mother-in-law lives alone and does not make the effort to cook (She is 85 and has done her share of cooking in life.). When I cook meals for us, I make extra and make her a homemade tv dinner to freeze. Ziplock and Rubbermaid have 2 and 3 section containers that work great. I use the 2 section to put chicken over rice and a veggie on the side. I freeze lasagna in individual containers, freeze speg. sauce and cook the pasta fresh. Also, leave him a selection of easy recipes where you have the pantry items on hand and maybe he only has to buy one or two fresh items. Freeze you meats so he can pull out single servings to cook. Leave a list of menu/meal suggestions.
The hormel ready entrees are good. We like the roast beef ones the best. I originally got them b/c they were on sale and I had a coupon. My fiancee made it in the oven, instead of microwave, and he made some instant mashed potatoes and a can of green beans to go with it. I work a lot of nights, so I try to get things he can make. On nights I work, we eat a lot of stouffers, viola, and banquet meals. I also make things in the crock pot. I wish I could freeze meals, but we dont have room in the freezer.
Good luck with the meal planning, and I hope you have a great trip!!
I am also getting ready to leave for a long vacation. My DH hasn’t made a meal in years. I started trying the different frozen meals/vegies to see which ones he likes and how easy they are to prepare. He rates the meal so I know if he will eat them while I’m gone. So far it is working well. I also have started making him decide what we will have for dinner the next night, so he will begin thinking about it (like we have to do before going to the store). I’ve also started taking him w/ me when I go to the grocery store on Saturday evening to ‘pick up a few things’. He is getting comfortable w/ going and where everything is. I’m also introducing him to the employees and letting them know he will be going this be himself soon. They have been great at making him feel comfortable. I’m also getting him to help pick out foods he would like to try and are on sale. I will cook what he picks out quickly so if he likes it I can go back to the store and more while they are still on sale.
I tried Birds Eye Viola and he hated all 5 varieties I tried.
He loves
-Stouffer’s lazagne (I get the smaller boxes) w/ garlic bread and a bagged salad
-Hormel entrees (roast beef, turkey breast and pork). We always have some of the meat left over. I serve it w/ a bagged salad, Ore-Ida frozen baked potatoes, apple sauce and rolls. The Hormel entrees will freeze and the box has the cooking directions for frozen or refrigerated.
-Tombstone pizza
-Corky’s frozen BBQ dinners, they contain pulled pork, baked beans and apples
-’chef salad’ using bagged salad w/ hillshire farms grilled essentials chicken breasts
-Edwards single serve frozen pies
-Marie’s single serve frozen pies
I hope this helps. Have a great vacation!!
Been there, done that. My husband would live off of cereal 3 times a day if he was desperate so I bought the Pillsbury biscuit scrambles and he loves those. I refuse to pay more than $1 for a box but they haven’t had great coupons out for those lately. Still it’s a heck of a lot better than paying for fast food.
One of my favorite sites is http://annies-eats.com/ She has great recipes and she even has a few posts on homemade freezer meals(http://annies-eats.com/2011/03/28/stocking-the-freezer-make-ahead-meals/). These are great because he doesn’t really have to do anything besides heat up the oven.
I’d also suggest writing up what you have for him and where it is in the freezer. My husband had a hard time finding things in the freezer and by the end of the month I couldn’t remember what I had for him and where it was.