Cooking help for my husband!

[Jourdain11]

Sorry for this exceptionally dull thread... I am wondering if anyone has any recipe / cooking suggestions for my husband, who is currently looking after our three DC solo.

Normally I do almost all of the cooking (he does other things, I'm not a put-upon wife!) and unfortunately, he really just doesn't know how to cook anything! He and DC are currently living on frozen pizzas and ready meals and while I'm sure it won't do them any harm, I'd quite like to think that they are getting some protein... vitamins... etc.

Does anyone have any recipe book recommendations? Or websites? Nothing too complicated and nothing with weird ingredients, since if we don't have it in the house he'll just assume that he can't make the recipe (since he won't know what ingredient he could replace it with!).

I've made suggestions like "give them some pasta and pesto with a bit of salad on the side" but it's apparently too much fuss!

Urgh, I really sound like a nightmare... or like he's utterly hopeless... or both! But the problem is that I am a very "make it up as you go along" cook and, as he knows this, i don't think he has much confidence in my suggestions!

TIA

My goodness, what a convenient hang up to have. Poor lamb can’t use the internet or google either I assume ? If you have 3 children I’m guessing one of them is old enough to show him.

The Roasting Tin cookbooks are simple and not too many ingredients. If he finds it stressful, could you (or one of the children?) help to do a simple week’s meal plan and then shop to that so he knows he has all the stuff he needs?

Though I echo earlier posters that if he won’t do pasta pesto you might be out of luck.

Gousto boxes have taught my husband to cook

Gousto boxes have taught ME to cook!

This might appeal - it is a recipe strip by Len Deighton

Not sure if all the recipes have kiddie appeal but there are some pasta recipes. I think the 'cartoon strip design has 'blokey' appeal anyway and may be easier for him?

www.theguardian.com/food/picture/2018/sep/16/len-alex-deightons-italian-cookstrips-pici

And I promise not to say appeal anymore!!

Can he read?
Can he work an iPad and watch YouTube?
Does he go to work and follow instructions?
Dies he have any specific learning disabilities?

Dont micro manage let him get on with it
He needs to take ownership tell him to work it put he could buy Jamie Oliver five ingredients or watch youtibe cooking videos.

Let him research and order hello fresh or gousto

Dont do anything for him

Haha, I get what you mean! And yes, he can read and he does watch YouTube and has no specific learning disabilities. Just for the record, I'm not worried about him failing to feed the kids, the issue is that he just doesn't see the point of cooking stuff from scratch. All very well for him (he has a ridiculous aversion to vegetables and - he would admit - a pretty rubbish diet, but he is just about the healthiest person I actually know) but I don't want the children to be missing out on all their nutrients

I do sound like such a micromanager and control freak! The problem is that he just won't do it unless I either a) annoy the hell out of him or b) make it really easy for him.

I liked the comic strips and will send them! And thank you for the Jamie Oliver recommendations and the ideas about the recipe boxes. It's the kind of thing that I'd never do because I enjoy cooking and I like figuring out how to make a meal out of what we have available. But for him, it could be good!

The panini maker is a great idea too. We only have a waffle machine (and the one time he tried to use it, it took about 3 days to clean up the mess he'd made!) but a panini machine sounds like a good investment

Why is it MIL's responsibility to teach a man to cook Why is it always up to a woman?

Years ago I could burn water, then I went to an evening class in cookery for beginners at my local college, it was fantastic. Now I love cooking!

Might be worth looking at for your husband, once lockdown is over?

Agree with the recommendations for Jamie Oliver's ministry of food book. Also found via oak academy a charity doing daily cook alongs on YouTube throughout lockdown. Weekly shopping list to cover 5 meals within school meals budget. All healthy and my 9 year old can do them. DH is as challenged in the kitchen as yours and he has done a couple of them with the kids as they're about his level. It's called cook with jack and I highly recommend it:

www.biteback2030.com/real-story/cook-jack

If pasta and pesto is too much bother, he's got no hope

I can understand that he might not know how to cook but presumably an intelligent and capable man can use Google as well as any woman can...?

Gousto boxes or even better, Simply Cook. Really nice meals and so easy to cook. It's the herbs, flavours etc and you buy your own meat, veg or whatever. My kids love them.

First meal I taught my children to cook was chicken and pesto pasta.

Boil salted water, add pasta, set a timer and follow the cooking instructions on the actual packet of pasta. Check if cooked by biting through a piece of pasta. Drain, add pesto and stir in pre-cooked supermarket chicken from a packet.

This is a summer holiday lunch meal my children could cook from 11.

My Mum refused to learn to cook. I always find this a fascinating thing. I mean can you imagine if a parent said, no sorry, I am not going to learn how to change a nappy or make up a bottle of forumla. A million cooking YouTube videos showing you exactly what things should look like in terms of colour and consistency.

It is not difficult. Just bloody lazy.

@OhioOhioOhio

Jamie Oliver ministry of food cookbook. Recipes with 5 ingredients on Pinterest.

He doesn’t see the point of giving his children nutritious food? So he won’t do it unless you nag him or do most of it for him.

He sounds like a pretty shit father and husband TBH. I’m failing to see how this is funny and quirky and a bit cute in a “ oh you know men they are so helpless “ kind of way.

Feeding your kids crap all the time is part of neglect. It’s not cute or amusing.

BTW You don’t sound like a micromanaging control freak to me. You sound gullible and manipulated.

Sorry that was the wrong quote!

Hmmm, I don't think I am gullible or manipulated (but then I suppose I wouldn't, if I was! ) and I'm probably exaggerating the severity of the issue. I just care more about them eating vegetables and having a balanced diet than he does (not to say he doesn't care about them being healthy, but since unhealthy food hasn't made him unhealthy....). He is certainly not a bit of a shit father and I don't mean to imply that he never prepares them a meal - he does, it's just that there is no cooking involved!

When we are both at home, not an issue. But just now, while he is preparing 100% of the meals, I'd like to encourage him to expand his repertoire a little!

How about using jars / packets etc as a half way step between proper cooking and ready meals?

So you meal plan around them and you add your own 'take' on them either in the morning (based on fridge contents) or as part of the planning if you get organised?

So the plan says:

Curry
Spaghetti Bolognaise
Spanish chicken
Chilli
Sausage casserole
Salmon bake
Veggie pasta

Then you add notes on what veg to serve with it or chop up into it etc?? Then he just follows the jar instructions with your own 'add chopped carrots, potatoes and peppers here' extras?

DH and his 3 housemates lived like this for years when I first met him and it always struck me as a really simple but pretty healthy way to go about it.

I think there’s this common misconception that cooking is “easy” and “who can’t follow a recipe?!”.

But take a moment to imagine you’ve never been taught it as a skill. A recipe online says dice your onion. Well what does that mean exactly? You’d google that or suffer the embarrassment of asking someone. Next instruction is brown off your meat. Ok, no concept of what “browning off” means so googling that too... And so and and so forth. Suddenly it isn’t so quick or simple.

There’s also the fear that you might mess it up and waste food or it’ll taste awful.

I’m not saying this is the case here, but it can explain why some people “can’t” cook.

I’ve had to teach my DH how to cook. His parents never taught him but also mocked him when he went to uni for eating tinned food. A lot of it is confidence - it’s not hard to cook up a stir fry, but getting the prep done before he started and keeping calm are skills he just didn’t have as he’d never learned them.

He asks me questions still like “how much oil?” but I don’t berate him for it, I just say “when” so he can learn to eyeball it from me.

Anyway! Maybe OPs husband is fucking useless, maybe he has skills elsewhere That negate his lack of cooking skills. Only OP knows. But I do agree that if he won’t cook pesto pasta then he’s not ever going to cook anything more complex.

I can get where he's coming from, cooking is really very intimidating when you first start.

The title sounds like a bit of a seventies joke but "Cooking for Blokes" is pretty good www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Blokes-Dr-Duncan-Anderson/dp/0751515639?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

It starts off with really basic things like How to cook a potato, and how to defrost chicken pieces, and then goes up into proper recipes. I knew nothing about cooking when I left home and it was helpful for me.