Hi All,
Just wondering for women who work and say get home like 7/8pm. How do you cook? Do you cook on the weekends and freeze it? What about rice/roti? Do you make it that day? Do you get up early in the morning and cook before you leave? Also, what salans or other dishes freeze well?
Please let me how you women do it!
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
When I was working, I used to cook 2 salans and rice on the weekends. I used store bought pita bread.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
I work! Initially I use to cook 3 or 4 main dishes over the weekend and freeze them. Later I quite. Since this habit was never tasty nor healthy.
I reach home around 6:00, Cook fresh daily, No matter what. It can be rice, meat, Sabzi anything. but I cook fresh food on daily basis. It takes around 1 hour approx. for me to cook anything.
By 8:00pm normally we are done with the food. I do make fresh chapati’s daily at home tooo.
Time taking dishes: I leave it for weekend only.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
Do you do anything before hand? like chop up veggies or make koftas before actually cooking?
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
A lot of housewives i know make koftas,kababs etc before hand and freeze them
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
You can buy precooked desi meals…if you find near you.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
My friend works and she cooks on weekend. Only do rice or roti for the dinner. However you can store chopped onion, freeze tomatoes and veggies before cooking. Even I do whereas im housewife. Veggies like cauliflower, karela, zucchini and cabbage freeze well. Bhindi and potatoes are not good when frozen. Bhindis you can however cut and store for a day in fridge while potatoes can be cut same day. Kofats and kebab even freeze very well so that can be easily stored. I even store the pizza topping in freezer but i dont like frozen dough. You can store cooked Qeema or chicken boneless for noodles too. What the best in my opinion is that you can use light cooking like only cook noodles, daal or easy veggie on 2/3 days and then other days you can do the cooking that demands time and energy. Moreover if you dont want to freeze you can make 2 salans on sunday evening and they can be stored for 2 days and then you can cook. whatever suits you
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
When I was going to school, I would come home around 6…and cook fresh food every day. Like Hina said…I only cooked one hour meals during the weekday. Weekends were for time-consuming dishes. Generally veggie salans and basic chicken and meat dishes (using a pressure cooker) only take about one hour from start to finish. Rotis take another 10-15 maximum. Try to cook quick dishes and always have a go-to quick meal if you’re late from work or something. Shami kebabs freeze really well and I used to make shami kebab sandwiches for my husband and myself if I didn’t have time to cook a proper meal. AFayiz also made a great suggestion - if you cook 2 things on Sunday, they can be used for the next two days. Sometimes I just made enough salan to last 2 days and we had leftovers. It’s very doable.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
Actually bhindi freezes pretty well, you can also find precut frozen bhindi in supermarkets.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
I always felt like frozen food was more work and took up a lot of room in firdge so we cooked everyday.. I spent usually only an hour after coming home and made simple things like matar palao, quesadillas, noodles, burgers, aloo sabzi and at most we would have leftovers the next day but frozen food never worked for us. I made roti but then its just me and husband so 2-3 rotis took no time at all.
On weekends, I sometimes tried making haleem, nihari, yakhni for yakhni palao etc and froze them in ziploc bags or small containers to save it for rainy days.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
When I used to work I always made fresh food after coming from office. It took me an hour to finish with food.
And weekends were for lengthy cooking.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
Yes thats available and i did not say it cant be freeze but it is no where same even colour is change when fried so I personally dont like it and so gave suggestion
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
Yeah I do it for some dishes. Like I have plans to make Palak Gosht today. I have already boiled Palak and freezed it yesterday. Today I just need to make gosht masala and put Palak in it. We are only three members at home. Whatever I cook, I make sure the quantity in enough for a dinner meal only. I do not store leftover anymore. Its been two years I am regularly cooking. Issiey Liye mera andaza sahi hota hai normally. I make sure ke kuch bhi bachey na aur fridge me store na kiya jaye.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
When I worked about 4.5 years ago; used to get home exactly at 8pm each night; It was just hubby and I, didn’t have any children back then; now that I think back it was more laid back, I didn’t have to rush like I do these days, and it’s funny that I am at home too now, I guess being a mommy can change things a lot in order to frantically trying to get things quicker 
I would prepare ‘onion+tomatoe’ masala; pressure cook enough to last me for the enitre week, stored it in the fridge, and then add subzi, goshost or chicken each night whatever I felt like making, I would also defrost the meat in the fridge that morning of before leaving in the morning. Some nights I would make roti; again I would knead the atta on sunday night, but mostly it was naan bread or pita
We hardly ever ate out; we like having fresh meals everday, It is more work for me but that’s how I like to keep it around the house and alhamdulillah I am still managing fine with the kids around 
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
When I was living with inlaws and working and going to school, I used to cook easy stuff like simple salons and chawal. I would make rotis once a week and freeze them (but they didn’t taste as good after 3-4 days. I used to cut the onions before hand sometimes. I also froze some kabobs for when I didn’t want to cook. That is what I did this Ramadana nd mA it all worked out.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
working + school- I reach home around 10ish so I cook on weekends for the whole week and make rice on the same day.. no home made rotis for us :o
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
I used to cook fresh everyday but since a month before Ramadan, I started to cook
few salans over the weeken to last us from Mon-Fri
I get home around 6 so only have roti and salad to do now
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
I plan a weekly menu; cook the more difficult things on the weekends.
Also rotate cooking days.
Monday we’ll have leftovers from the weekend; Teus I’ll cook something light american usually, Wednesday we’ll make desi khana, thursday american or a soup or salad …
I find giving myself some flexibilty works for me.
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
I don’t go out to work but still like to be done cookng quick. A time saving tip for you if you don’t already do so is to peel chop and freeze large quantities of ginger garlic paste, it takes a few extra minutes to do it daily so save time. Chop fine in chopper and put into ice cube trays( keep for this purpose only as the trays smell of ginger garlic) and freeze, next day remove the g+g cubes into a large bag and just take out 1-2 cubes each time you cook. Freeze green chillies, chopped coriander, you can freeze bakes in foil trays at weekend( lasagnas and pasta bakes etc) take out in morning so its defrosted by evening just pop into oven. Hth
Re: For working women - how do you cook?
^ I do the exact same thing with green chilies or tomatoe paste, dhaniya/mint I like to use fresh! but yes you are right if lassan adrak is handy nearby…handi forun tiyaar 