I have a long commute and ordering pizza doesn't help my vegan household. The fact that I've 'spoiled' my family with hot meals & no left-overs for the past 20 years doesn't help my situation either.

My first grader and I walk in the door between 6:20 and 6:30--dinner MUST hit the table by 7:00. I do a lot of prep on the weekend (tonight, all I have to do is transfer butternut squash from the CrockPot to the blender for soup), so M-F I assemble dinner more than I actually cook it. On the weekend, it can take an hour. But I am almost always prepping something future while I'm making the current dinner.

I have a 45 minute commute and get home about at about 5:15. My boyfriend gets home at about 6:45, so I typically have plenty of time to fit in a work out and have dinner ready by around 7:00. Now, this all goes out the door when I have to stay late at work, I pick my boyfriend up from work, or I failed to read the recipe (slowcooker?! Marinate for 4 hours?! Missing an ingredient?!)

I teach and try to stay at school until 5pm with an hour-long commute, but other arrangements and laziness usually means getting home an hour early a day or two a week. Boyfriend is in around 6pm on Monday, Thursday and Friday and home after 9pm on Tues and Wed. I like cooking and neither of us is starving when we get in, so I usually take around 45 mins to an hour to cook. I have a stash of freezer food for when I'm really tired or it's just not happening, so we eat home cooked food every weeknight.

As a stay-at-home mom (I prefer to use the term 'flexible schedule') I usually have between 30-60 minutes to make dinner, but that includes the kids running around, a fussy baby, etc. Sometimes I just don't have any time to make dinner so I make sure to have a few quick pantry meals that are my go-to on days the kids are starving and we have already had pizza three times that week :) I did a video on one of my pantry meals: http://talesofaretromodernhousewife.blogspot.com/2012/06/cooking-with-glamorous-housewife-summer.html

Thanks doll,
The Glamorous Housewife

Cooking is what tends to ground me when I come home and right now I only have to cook for myself and my husband. I'd say all together I spend about 30-45 minutes from start to finish preparations. I like eating earlier so we have more time to spend together catching up and just relaxing so between cooking and eating, dinner is about an hour and 15 minutes!

I also plan the week and prep weekends. Sunday is my marathon cooking day. The nights my son has football practice, he's starving the minute he walks in the door. He doesn't even want to change and shower first.

As a working father of three, I try to get home while my kids get off of the bus if my schedule permits. I'm in technology so working remotely is transparent. While I am home, I ensure that they have a healthy snack such as cheese and crackers, or apple slices. I am then able to knock out dinner within 1 hour 30 minutes, the latest. The snack keep them comfortable until dinner is ready.

I forgot to add that I'm also a working mom with a full time job, an hour long commute and I'm taking graduate courses. As the former Cardinals manager Tony La Russa used to say, 'To stay ahead, you have to think ahead.'

The biggest obstacle I face is the amount of time it takes to do all of our dishes without a dishwasher. I find that for just my husband and myself, I spend about 30 - 45 minutes a night doing dishes. Sometimes facing a a full sink of dirty dishes before even starting the cooking means I'll suggest ordering out even if I have a good home-cooked meal planned.

With the start of a new job in September I am home and free by 5:15 at the latest during the week and I love it! My husband gets home from work by 7:00 and I like to try to eat right when he gets home so I have around 2 hours to get things ready. With my awesome new schedule I also have pockets of time throughout the week during the day so I try to do some prep work or get a head start those days. The slow cooker is my new favorite friend and with fall here I see using it a lot more and using that extra time at home for other projects.

I work full-time and try to leave every day at 5pm sharp so I can get home by 5:30pm (if I don't have to stop for groceries on the way home). My and my partner's appetites wane in the afternoon, so we don't mind having a later dinner around 7pm or so. That gives me a bit of time to relax before starting dinner. We also alternate making dinner plans every other week so planning the recipes and meals makes it pretty clear how long something's going to take, and then we decide upfront at the beginning of the week if it's worth spending extra time, or we try and find recipes that don't take more than one hour total. Also, since my partner works from home, he can start on parts of the meal if I don't want to make everything from scratch, and I can help when I get home if he's making dinner. :)

My husband and I are both freelancers with totally unpredictable schedules. Therefore, I can't do a lot of planning in advance and I frequently don't know if I'll be cooking for 2 or 1. Sometimes I have hours to make a meal and sometimes I have 5 minutes. I try stock my kitchen with ingredients to make quick, last minute meals for one. I also look for dishes that can be made in advance and reheat well or can be cooked in smaller portions, if necessary (pot pie in individual ramekins, for example).

I agree that my time issue is almost never how long it takes to make dinner, but how long it takes to do the dishes (especially if there are some left from breakfast and/or lunch). True, I'm not hungry while I do the dishes, but if dinner was late to begin with, I'm usually TIRED. When I'm planning on making dinner (i.e. not a special occasion) and I decide not to, it's almost always the thought of the dishes that stops me, not the cooking itself.

20 mins is usally my time line. I found that ordering something will take just as long and cost more $$ so I might as well just make what I have :) But I'm a single adult with no kids/pets/roommates to deal with!

About 40 minutes. Tonight, I made salmon en papillote with ginger and oyster mushrooms (5 mins prep, 29 mins in the oven), steamed basmati rice (15 mins whilst fish in the oven), and stir fried veg (5 mins prep, 5 mins cooking).

I normally get in the kitchen around 5 and dinner is on the table anytime between 6:30-7. I love being in the kitchen so I really drag my feet rereading recipes and even check emails. On nights when the kids have activities I do prep after the morning school run and put something in the crock pot early or make a double portion the night before so I spend no more than 30min. before we are seated at the table.

Dinner is whenever I'm done cooking! I have a 45 minute commute and often don't get out of work until 5:30, so when I get home at 6:30 I'm either ravenous or not hungry at all. Sometimes I swing by the grocery store on the way home, sometimes I don't. I generally cook "big" on the weekends (for me, Mondays and Tuesdays) so we can have leftovers for lunch and sometimes dinner throughout the week.

That being said, the past two days I was on top of things and crockpotted it up. French dip sandwiches on Sunday (workday) and white chicken chili (with dried pintos, leftovers from roasted chicken leg quarters, salsa verde, home-frozen sweet corn, and okra).

I'm so glad fall is back. It makes life so much easier when I can make soups and stews (whether quick-cooking or all-day affairs) and have lots of leftovers to eat up.

Depends on what I feel like making. We rarely eat until 9pm and I'm home most of the day so sometimes I cook stuff in the afternoon which we then heat up, like spag Bol, or chilli or whatever. Sometimes we have really quick pasta dishes, and sometimes its easy stuff like sausage and chips :-) I like to cook but I don't like to cook that late as I'm really tired by then so this way I can enjoy cooking, and just heat it up later.

I'm horrible at this. I'm a very slow cook. I can take a "30 minute meal" and easily turn it into an hour. I don't get home until around 7pm, and I usually start cooking around 7:30... so we often don't eat until 8:30 or 9. One saving grace is I meal plan and do all my grocery shopping once a week, I hate having to go to the store to get one thing during the week.

I rarely get dinner on the table in less than an hour. I do not feel like I pick particularly difficult to prepare recipes or dishes, but I lose so much time on prep work. If I have to chop up more than one or two vegetables, as well as slice meat (like a stir fry with fresh veggies), I can spend the better part of 45 minutes with my knife and cutting board. Maybe I'm just lacking with knife skills, but it can really put a damper on following through with my meal plan for the following night!