to never cook dinner again?? **sort of lighthearted**

[tryhard]

I have a 5 year old & 2 year old, I try my best to think of meals which are nutritious, which we can afford & which I can cook on a weekly basis without spending all day in the kitchen. A favourite is Quorn meatballs with homemade pasta sauce & wholemeal spaghetti. I do the sauce in a massive batch at the weekends. & freeze it in portions. Anyway, DH comes home tonight, stares at it & says he can't eat Quorn meatballs anymore, he's bored of it, so goes out & buys himself a pizza! A fucking pizza! AIBU to put his portion that I lovingly set aside at 5pm & let him cook his own damn dinners from now on?!

[MoMoTy]

How often do you make this particular meal?

[AgentProvocateur]

I think I'd do the same as your DH if faced with quorn meatballs and wholemeal spaghetti - particularly if I was faced with it every week.

[IHaveBrilloHair]

That's really rude of him and a bad example to the dc.

[tryhard]

Once a week 😳 It's a good way of getting hidden veggies into the kids...& I figure we normally have a takeaway or special meal for just us on a Fri & Sat night so it's not all kiddie-focuses meals every day.

[CaptainCrunch]

"favourites" can quickly become "oh dear god not this again". I hate Quorn so am a bit biased.

Sometimes dh phones on the way home from work and asks "what's for tea", depending on the answer there is sometimes radio silence then a "fancy a takeaway". It's no big deal.

[CaptainCrunch]

And I couldn't face the same meal on a weekly basis no matter what it was.

[tryhard]

Looking at it written down now I guess it does sound a bit worthy...but honestly it is tastey! And I really do try to think of new meals to try each week but inevitably I do rely on 3 or 4 old reliable healthy meals which I can be fairly surely they'll all eat. Last night, however, there was no meal actually prepared for him when he came in from work because the kids had had tea out so I'd planned for him to have jacket pot & beans & he complained then that there wasn't any tea waiting for him when he came in from work! Feel like I can't win hence plans to go on strike!

[BlackeyedShepherdsbringsheep]

why doesn't he cook?

[tryhard]

He doesn't cook cos he comes home from work late often and starving hungry so he literally walks through the door & rummages around the kitchen to see what's there! CaptainCrunch how do you keep variety then? I feel like I cook the same things all the time but I do try!

[BabyGanoush]

Are you all veggie? I guess?

Most men I know (the non veggies) are happiest when it's steak/stew/chops/sausages etc

Or if veggie, to have the meal you described but with masses of melty mature cheddar

Basically something a bit calorific and fatty

Hence the pizza

I leave food for DH if he's late, and we eat the same thing but he prob eats more protein/fat/gravy/cheese.

Saying all that, I'd feel annoyed if my food was criticised!

[tryhard]

No actually not veggie, we have red meat probably twice a week, fish once a week, veggie or Quorn the rest. But like I say, DH & I normally have takeaway or special meal (steak) every Fri & Sat night so I don't feel like he's being deprived of meat.

[MoMoTy]

I think you should vary meals, having the same meal every week is quite ugh.
How about every two weeks? It's not hard to think of 20 meals and vary them. As you aren't even vegetarian it should be easy enough.

[tryhard]

drags self off to recipes board, tail between legs!

[CaptainCrunch]

Hi again op, we were in a rut with food a couple of years ago so for a few weeks tried out 3 or 4 new meals a week till we had about 30 go to dinners that we could chop and change with, not all were successful but most we still use, even then sometimes you just want a pizza!

[Artandco]

Yeah, I wouldn't want quorn meatballs every 7 days. Have you actually seen what's in quorn? I would be tempted to ditch quorn and use something else.

As some ideas. I have two small children, the last few days meals have been:

Tonight - salmon, with feta,mint and tomatoes. With rice and baby sweetcorn.

Last night - marinated steak brochettes. With beetroot, hallomi and mixed salad

Monday - roast veg couscous ( aubergine, courgettes, tomatoes, onions), green beans and tzaziki

Sunday - butternut squash and coconut soup. Bread.

Saturday - Pesto chicken, rice and various green veg.

All apart from the soup take 20mins or less to cook from start to eating. The soup and marinated steak were match made and frozen before also. ( so same as you do now).
I think we don't really have the same thing more than once a month.

What kind of things do your children like? Will they eat anything? Do you make kids and adult stuff or just decide what you want and give kids the same?

Can you get Dh to come up with a list of 50 meals/ recipes, and between you adapt according to what children like mostly also and what's seasonal/ on offer.

[tryhard]

Oh god no go on then what's actually in Quorn?!....

So our go to meals are salmon, veg & new pots....spag Bol (proper red meat)...chicken cous cous...nutty chicken curry....spag carbonara....then DC will have fish fingers or an on toast night while DH & I have a takeaway or special meal.

DC will eat anything really, or certainly try it, so we tried a Mexican kit last week, DH loved it, kids hated it 😜

[Cocothecat]

Ha ha. You could have been me 6 months ago.... Working 3 days a week, two preschoolers, and a picky arse husband. Finding meals that the DS's would eat/weren't allergic to/were reasonably nutrious became like a nightmare. My DH would come home late from work and sort of pick at what I had cooked, or order pizza or something. Some nights I just wanted to throw it at him! It was the source of considerable marital disharmony.

However, things seem to improved, for a couple of reasons - firstly my DP is less stressed at work (and therefore less of a grump), secondly I have started ordering a service we get in my part of the world called My Food Bag every other week - it is 5 x sets of ingredients for easy family meals that you just have to follow the instructions. They are a bit different to what I would otherwise make and mentally I feel like I can blame someone else if no one eats it....
And finally, I have been doing things like texting and offering him a choice from the available options before I start cooking some nights (eg do you fancy spag bol or chicken curry).

[NothingisForgotten]

My hubby is the same CaptainCrunch.
Particularly the radio silence and the takeaway-hence our low bank balance and my expanding waistline.
I think every week can be a bit much. Could you come up with 10 or so meals that could be rotated so it's not always x on a Tuesday. I have fallen into this trap until H said he couldn't face chilli again after 4 weeks in a row!

[Cotto]

Well Quorn is not actually even food so YABU.
It is beyond vile and I am violently allergic to it .

Look it up - you will never touch it again

[Artandco]

Well I don't know how bad quorn is but it's mainly mycoprotein which is a gmo food. So i wouldn't want to eat as often

I would be tempted to make something like a lentil bolgnaise and then just use turkey or beef mince for the meatballs.

A lentil lasagne is really nice and not as obvious as on just spaghetti for first tries

Can you just mix up with a few simple dinners like omelette or similar some nights

[tryhard]

Hang on hang on....the Mo-Bot tells me Quorn is practically a health-food....no?! Joking aside, I use it once a week so we don't have too much red meat, which isn't great to have too often either.

Yeah I think that's it, I feel like I've cracked our weekly shop being under £100 a week, kids aren't picky, I know like theyre getting a balanced diet overall & Fri & Sat nights are still interesting for DH....and now he tells me he's bored with it! It's like I've been personally criticised!

[x2boys]

My kids do eat an awful lot of spag bol it's the only meal I can guarantee they will eat dh also complains I need a new menu

[ElasticPants]

Last week I made a lovely Maroccan lamb with cous cous.Dh came in, turned up his nose and phoned his dad to arrange a trip to the pie and mash shop. The DC tripped up over each other running after him to ask if they could go too. bastards.

[TondelayaDellaVentamiglia]

buy a foodie mag of some sort and get some ideas, it's so easy to get stuck in a rut

I got a subscription to Olive....it was a couple of years back, but it wasn't too worthy, or full of toad farts and foie gras, lots of ideas, and also iirc had a nice section each month based on a weeks worth of meals, very easy to adapt.

I might do that again

and btw Quorn is basically mushroom shit....no wonder Mo Farah collapsed! health food my arse

[IHaveBrilloHair]

I react horribly to quorn, it gives me the wild shites, I don't think it's healthy, but if you enjoy it then fine.
I think you're probably stuck in a cooking/eating rut where everyone is just a bit bored with meals
There's a couple of meal planning threads on the food board, have a look and see what you might like.