Please help with my cooking dilemma!

[Rach224]

So… DH ONLY wants to eat ‘his food’, which is basically rice every single day just accompanied with different types of sauces and salads (he is arab and loves arabic food).

Now, if it was just me and him I wouldn’t complain making ‘his food’ every day because I happen to like middle eastern food a lot. However, now we have two DC (who both refuse rice and most of the sauces I make), I find I am cooking separately for them. I obviously willingly do it as I want them to have a much more varied diet (they have spag bol, chilli, fish pie etc etc) and something different every day.

BUT… I spend so much time cooking!!! Around 2 hours a day is spent cooking different meals, not to mention time spent on cleaning up afterwards.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can make life easier for myself? Should I batch cook for the kids?

If he only wants to eat his food, then surely he should be cooking it himself.

This with bells.

If he doesn't want to eat what the DC and you are eating, he can make his own meals.

Then you cook for you and the kids and he cooks for himself.

It really is that simple.

He batch cooks his sauces and buys himself a rice cooker.

You cook a range of things that you want to eat and that will nourish your children.

In an ideal world, your DH would also take on some of the cooking and make an effort to find things from his home cuisine that your children will eat, to help them appreciate the culture.

Watching you labour away for hours each day to meet your husband's demands is not a good way to learn about Arab culture!

Batch cooking definitely.

But if he is being the fussy one, he can cook what he wants himself. He’s a grown up who can venture out to different foods and/or cook himself.

Yeah, if his is just sauce and rice then you need a load of sauce in the freezer in single serve portions that just need warming up which he can do.

Then you cooks for you and the kids.

Not sure how even with 2 separate meals it's taking 2 hours a day though. What are you making?

Cooking dinner for me, DH and DD takes 30-40 minutes a day and most of that is just leaving stuff to cook while I do other things. It's only about 5-10 minutes of cutting/mixing etc then it's on a tray in the oven or in a pan on the hob.

Something has got to give. So your husband may have to compromise....

this is ridiculous. You cook varied meals for the family. If DH does not want what everyone else is eating, he cooks his own. I'd also recommend that where possible, you make extra of whatever you're cooking so that on days you're making something he doesn't like, he has something in the freezer and on days you're making things the DC don't like, you have something in the freezer.

Dh doesn't cok. I have made my peace with that. But only because of a few important points:

1. he never ever has any comment to make on what I am cooking besides, "thank you" and "delicious".
2. very occasionally, if he does not feel like whatever I am making, he will "forage" for himself and I do not have to do anything extra.
3. In a pinch, he can prepare basic meals for him and the children, or even me, albeit they will be heavily based on eggs or things from the freezer with steamed vegetables.

Yeah, he's likely the best placed to do this. And surely there must be some viable middle ground options? Plenty of Arabic and ME dishes don't have rice, or don't have to.

He batch cooks and freezes.
He reheats meals when he doesn't want the family meal.

FWIW, he needs to try and eat some of the meals with you and the kids. There is one meal of DHs that I just don't eat. The kids picked up pretty early on this. It will be noted that DH eats differently. The less this happens the better it will be for the kids.