I was reading on a friend's Facebook today about having to stock up on easy meals coming into winter with the amount of sport her children play and the various commitment they have as a result.
I was thinking - surely this can't be an issue for just one person? Surely there would be individuals in those sporting clubs that are in the same boat? Now I freely admit I come from what I like to call 'Country Stock' so what I think of as solutions may not be so workable in surburban environment.
I am used to sporting clubs having cooking facilities, I am used to weekends after events where the 'home' team 'put on a spread' (basically the men would be outside BBQ'ing and the ladies would be inside sorting out salad's etc) - this was done to accomodate ALL grades that played that day (I'm from South Australia so that would be AFL and Netball in Winter/Cricket and Tennis in Summer) and including all children/coaching staff etc - so as you can appreciate a quite sizeable amount of people (maybe that's where the seeds of cooking for large groups were sewn?). It may also have a great deal to do with the fact that you were travelling anywhere upwards and over 100km in any direction just to attend a sporting event so the thought of driving home and then having to cook wasn't all that appealing, and there wasn't a McDonalds/KFC/Hungry Jacks/Red Rooster to just 'pop into' on the way home (side note...growing up the closest established fast food chain was KFC and that was over 200km away).
Anyway I digress. I thought to myself - if you are in this situation, why not approach your local club and see if it's agreeable that you utilise their facilities (you may have to pay a token fee to the club to cover amenities) whilst your children are training during the week to do a bit of quick and easy big batch cooking? You may only have 3-4 in your group but that's still those nights of sport covered AND you strengthen bonds/develop friendships with other parents who are in the same boat as yourself - all you would need to do is the pre-prep (like cutting veg up) to make it a quicker process.
You could even extend this to dance studios as well - most studios have a BBQ that they use for fundraising sausage sizzle style events - you just need a couple of giant pots to cook in and all sorted :) Again I'd personally offer to pay for gas for the BBQ but that's just me :)
Just a little thinking outside the square to try to ease the burden :)
Amendment.....Another suggestion was made - the parents will get together whilst the kids are training, cook up a batch of soup/stew and hand it to the children as they leave training to sustain them (and warm them up - especially in cold/wet weather) - how brilliant of an idea is that??
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