My husband and I both work full time and dinner can sometimes be a real chore. We do cheat quite frequently. I try to do a lot of slow cooking during the winter but stews and casseroles are never so appealing during the summer. We have a few back up plans for dinner on our lazy days:

Soup - We always have soup in the cupboard of various flavours. The 'big soups' are great for emergency dinners. Generally we would have tomato, vegetable or a 'big soup' of some variety.

Beans on Toast - Another great emergency dinner. It's cheap, easy to prepare and has a good amount of nutritional benefits.

Poached Eggs or Scrambled Eggs - I love eggs! They are so versatile and just taste fantastic. I'm lucky that my husband is very good at cooking a variety of different eggs. Me on the other hand...well I'm useless at cooking eggs. It is so quick to make and again there are some good nutritional benefits.

Pasta and Pesto - Pesto is a fantastic ingredient to keep in your cupboards! This dinner tastes great and will be ready in 10 minutes - or as long as the pasta takes. I personally prefer the red pesto. For a quick and easy solution, cook some pasta, drain the pasta, stir in a couple of spoons of pesto and grate a little cheese over the top. I do sometimes fancy this meal up by adding bacon or chicken or mushrooms or a bit of crème fresh to make it creamy.

Sandwiches - I am a real sucker for sandwiches. I love eating sandwiches and the different fillings you can put in them. Emergency dinner sandwiches are usually cheese, egg or ham and mustard.

Curry and Rice - Tinned beef curry and Uncle Bens express rice. This is the quickest and easiest meal to make but it's not really one of my favourites. The curry takes about 5 minutes in total to heat up on the hob and the rice takes 2 minutes in the microwave.

Ready meals - I keep a couple of ready meals in the freezer, mainly for myself to eat when my husband has to work away, but we do occasionally have ready meals for dinner as well. Most meals can go in the microwave for about 8-10 minutes. Another no hassle dinner!

Take away - When all else fails, we order in. Food can then be delivered straight to our door! This is a last resort due to the expense and how unhealthy take away can become.

Admittedly, most of the above is not very healthy but some days after a long day at work, cooking is the last thing I want to think about.