I agree, I would always prefer cooking a meal over ironing DHs shirts. He can do that. And he can also unload the dishwasher while you bath DD (or the other way around). You're both chipping in to bring home the bacon, so you can both chip in when it comes to running the house. You are not super-woman. You don't have to do it all and sing a song while doing it.

And putting a steak in the pan while boiling some veges seriously doesn't take any more time than putting fish fingers and chips in the oven. If you don't want to fuss with crumbing chicken strips, you could just put some lemon pepper (or my favourite, piri piri seasoning) on them and stick them under the grill or into your oven. They don't need to be crumbed.
I spend less than 15 minutes on about half of our meals during the week (the other meals are a little more time consuming, but it's rarely more than 1/2 hour. Pasta sauce is good, because it just bubbles away while you do other stuff. Same goes for stews. I know a lot of people who work full time and they just put stuff in the slow cooker in the morning and when they get home, the house smells like food!
And I also agree that just as with boxed convenience foods, you can make the freezer your best friend. I always cook for about 10 people (when making things like Pasta, Curries, Soups, Stews etc.). Most goes into individual containers for DH to take to work, but I also put about 2 dinners into our freezer to have over the next couple of weeks. So if I can't be bothered or am running out of time, I always have a TV dinner waiting for me. And as mentioned, freezing food for DD in ice cube trays makes it really easy to quickly reheat something for her. Actually much quicker than cooking chicken nuggets. Only takes a minute or 2 to reheat a few ice cubes worth, then add another couple of minutes for it to cool a little.
If she's so hungry when she gets home from day care, how about giving he a little snack? Or some milk to tie her over? I often give DD some fruit or a few cheese cubes in the afternoon. Not too much to spoil her dinner, but just enough to give her a little "entree". Or a handful of sultanas?
Cooking doesn't have to be time consuming, tedious and boring. Nobody expects gourmet 3 course dinners every night. And it doesn't have to be every night either. Maybe a couple of times a week to start with.
And you know what? You could even ask DH if he could cook one day a week.
It seriously saves soooo much money.

Sasa