Jacket potatoes and omelettes are not a dinner. Discuss.

[TwigTheWonderKid]

According to my usually fairly normal and reasonable DH, jackets potatoes and omelettes are not " a dinner". He is unable to expand upon this statement and when questioned, just keeps repeating "not a dinner".

Does anyone else have an opinion on this, and if you agree with him, do you have any evidence to back up this assertion?

I’m with your husband - it’s a pretty depressing dinner. If I’m having a super quick easy meal I’d prefer pasta.

DH suggested baked potatoes for dinner this week. Fine for him, he had a beef stew to have with it (so really beef stew with a baked spud on the side). I don’t eat meat so I had a spuds and beans and it felt like a school dinner. Food to survive on, not food to enjoy.

I love omelette for breakfast or lunch.

However, if he doesn’t want it for dinner he can cook something himself.

Sometimes I cook a roast on a weekday. And that's not all. If there's leftovers, sometimes I have them the next day. For breakfast.
Good for you.

We don't have time, which is why midweek teas are quick and easy. I enjoy eating leftover takeaway for breakfast too.
Honestly, I can't believe some of the rules and restrictions people impose on themselves about what food can be eaten when.

It's not rules and restrictions.
DH and I know what we mean by a midweek tea. Nobody dies if we knock up a quick pasta dish on a weekend, but we enjoy cooking and the weekend is when we put a bit more effort into cooking something we wouldn't do during the week.

According to Elizabeth David an Omelette and a Glass of Wine is definitely a dinner

Favourite main meal here I l0ve omelette sandwiches.

Oh dear we just had tuna jacket potatoes, now I'm worried we haven't had dinner after all :)

Of course it’s a dinner. What he means is it’s not a dinner he likes. Easy solution: he can do the cooking if he doesn’t like what you’re proposing to do.
I have spent the last year with three adult kids back from uni and husband working full time from home. I’m the family cook as I work part time and I try to give the family varied meals but I realised by end April 2020 that every time I said I was doing a salad for the evening meal everyone complained and my husband always volunteered to cook. 11 months later he’s now the family cook.
OK I’ve eaten more than I want to but it’s all good stuff eg cottage pie, beef stew, lots of curries made from scratch, fish pie etc. It’s fantastic. As I’d already put the kids on a rota to clean up I now have very little to do with evening family meal. Bliss.
Just wish I’d realised years ago how much they all hate salad! 😂

There was a post, last week I think, about 19070’s dinners and them containing less meat. Both posts made me think; yes a jacket potato, an omelette or egg and chips were definitely a dinner in the 1970/80’s, but I would think of them as a lunch nowadays. It shows how good we now have it with the price of food compared to then.

If you eat it in the evening and you eat until you’re full - it’s dinner.

He can always cook for himself if he doesn’t like your meal plan?

I don't usually have an omelette because I see it as lunch or breakfast food but jacket potatoes is one of our regular diners here. Very filling too

A potato omelette as cooked by my ex is a thing of eating dinner heaven. With a Greek salad, it is sublime.

I agree with your DH, those are big lunches or the sort of thing I might eat if it was just me eating for some reason. Dinner is a dish of some kind, spag Bol, curry, casserole etc imo

I wouldn’t have a jacket potato with an omelette - but either is perfectly acceptable. I’m having a jacket potato myself (anything more is behind me as I had my Covid jab and am feeling a bit kitten-pathetic just now)

Jacket potatoes are.

Omelette isn't unless it's you are having something else or you had a large lunch.

Omelette must be served with chips... that is the law surely?

I can just imagine my husbands face if I produced either as our main meal for the day!

Oh dear, dear, dear. Even after nearly twenty years of marriage my DH still knows better than to just expect me to produce a meal on a daily basis. He's properly trained to be suitably grateful when I do cook dinner, but to also be self sufficient when I can't be arsed. Tonight, I'm tired, so he's grazed around the kitchen finishing off some bagels, cheese, and a large pot of Onken yoghurt. He's perfectly happy.

I have always utterly refused to assume the role of 'meal provider'. Why should I?

Don't agree. They are 100% dinner foods and yummy ones too! Why wouldn't you want a yummy jacket potato with salad for dinner? My DH would also be very happy with an omlette for dinner- especially if it's a cheese one

If my dh told me a jacket potato or an omelette was not a dinner I would laugh in his face.

I had JP for dinner tonight l!!

I absolutely consider it a dinner, but DP wouldn’t. In fact I’m not sure hes ever had one!

Mumsnet is an education. Who could believe women in 2021 are living in partnerships where the other half dictates what constitutes a dinner.

When I deign to cook, I'll have you know my jacket potatoes are sublime. I rub the skins with garlic butter & salt, then when cooked, scoop out the potato and mash it with butter and Stilton, before putting it back in the jacket.

Omelette and chips is a definite dinner. I’ve seen it on pub menus. On that basis, omelette and a baked potato are also very much dinner.

It’s very french too... cheese omelette and frites.

Cooking four separate omelettes would be a pest here. More work than a "proper dinner" for 4. But an omelette is about to be my dinner! Its meal of kings!

We often have mid week baked potato night. Easy for nights with scouts etc.

We've just had that (with a side salad) for dinner and I'm stuffed. Tell him to bugger off! It's a perfect dinner!

Jacket potato with topping is lunch but not dinner, jacket potato at dinner is a vegetable.
Omlette on its own is lunch, with substancial filling and salad is supper.