Feeling resentful of cooking...

[PlopSofa]

Have you ever thought you just can't make yet another meal?

It's like I've been doing this, feeding the family for 16 years now, 2 DC and a DH and I'm so fed up of cooking for them all. Night after night. On and on it goes.

I like good food but DH incompetent and the kids rock up each meal time like it's a hotel. So it's just me in the kitchen.

Please no suggestions for getting them involved. Both on the spectrum and it's hard to get anything done, let alone cooking. DH works night and day, never around so he's no good either.

I am so fed up of cooking. How do you muster the energy to cook night after night after night, if it's always you?

If I won the lottery I'd employ a professional chef.

Tonight it's an M&S ready meal as I can't face cooking again. They are tasty but I feel guilty too. I should be cooking from scratch. But I hate the time and effort it takes. I just hate cooking. I never realised that being a DM I'd have to cook so much and try and be creative. It's one of the things I dislike the most about being a DM. The endless cooking.

I now have my steady 7 meals which revolve round day after day, week after week but OMG I am so fucking bored of it all. Add to that the sensory issues of kids/DH that won't eat certain things. The limited list. OMFG.

I crave an escape to a place where I can just cook for myself and eat out, maybe on the streets of Nice or some sunny getaway with a view of the sea where I can just be alone with no one else to cook for!

This post has made me want to scream loudly. I really, really hope it was intended to be ironic and got lost on me. The whole having to be filling and nutritious schtick is precisely why it gets so fucking monotonous.

And breathe.

I'm hoping you have decent freezer space, in which case the freezer is your friend.
Next time you shop, buy double of a couple of staple meals, such that when you cook them you can either prep double or prep and cook double, then simply freeze it so there is your 'ready meal' or 'nearly ready meal'.
Things I do ahead are things that freeze easily, most things that need peeling chopping etc can just be frozen ready prepped (diced, chopped or whatever)or buy frozen
When I slice an onion, I use what I need for that meal but slice extra and keep in a ziplock bag in the freezer. If you hoick the bag out at the last minute but need chopped onion I discovered the frozen slices snap very easily so there is your chopped onion.
If doing anything with garlic, prep a couple of extra cloves and freeze.
If making a pie, I make double the pasty and freeze the extra. If really keen I do roll out, roll up in baking parchment and freeze. Saves masses of time
If making pasties, I make double quantities, glaze with egg then bake half freeze half
If making a pasta dish, make double the topping and freeze half.
Life is too short to grate cheese, so tend to buy but sometimes get the food processor out and grate a few blocks, it freezes well, but I tend to put in an overlarge bag and split into 4 sections within the bag, so I have a good portion can be taken out from the freezer.

I would also suggest trial one or two of the home cook delivery box schemes to find a few extra recipes to add to your repertoire. If you get to two weeks plus worth of repeat it's far less monotonous.

As your DS is 13, I would get him on track to cooking one night a week or a fortnight - after all you don't want him to be one of those kids that go away to Uni and cannot rustle up a meal. Give him one main ingredient to start his search eg chicken broccoli or whatever, and ask him to find a recipe he would eat that he can cook with you to start with, progressing to entirely cooking on his own. Simply add the ingredients to your weekly shop. You'll really appreciate that when he's still living at home in his 20s and you come home from work to a lovely smell emanating from the oven, and realise tonight you do not need to lift a finger!

Never agreed with a post more. Also everything I make myself tastes like dust to me I get zero pleasure from food I’ve made myself. Hate cooking shows too.

Went on a hen weekend a few years ago. I thought we were going out for a meal but oh no we got to make our own sodding pasta like it was a fucking treat!! I wanted to scream! The organiser was a single child free twenty something I was on a precious child free weekend away and was still cooking!! Actually felt quite murderous about that.

Yes, totally agree OP!

I also feel like no one ever told me how much cooking is involved as an adult. I feel like I am constantly either thinking about what to cook, actually buying the food, cooking it, eating it or cleaning up after cooking. All of these take up so much time.

I did like Hello Fresh for a while. It took some of the mental headache out of the equation but it's quite expensive and the recipes got boring after a while.

My tip that only works if you WFH is to make dinner when you make yourself lunch. Then you only mess up the kitchen once and when dinner time arrives it’s already done so feels like someone else has made it. I am self employed wfh appreciate this won’t be possible for many.

It's soul destroying especially when no one else ever suggests a meal but are quick to turn their noses up at every suggestion.

Don't be a martyr, nothing wrong with a couple of M&S meals and extra veg each week. Assuming you aren't a vegetarian, I can highly recommend their Mussaka (sp?) and pre prepped veg medleys.

To be fair my teens will cook sometimes but I need to have done the thinking and got the food in but still it’s a start. Dh cooks at weekends but not in the week he’s a good cook but soooo slow. Takes literally double the time I take.

Houston or hello fresh? Takes the thinking out of it

Went on a hen weekend a few years ago. I thought we were going out for a meal but oh no we got to make our own sodding pasta like it was a fucking treat!! I wanted to scream!

^

I hear you..that would have driven me crackers

I want some bloody table service and a sit down ffs

I resonate with this so much. I am so bloody fed up of it. The part I hate the most is thinking what to have. It feels like bloody groundhog day.

Fortunately, my two DC are past the really fussy stage but still have their moments.

I try and cook properly at the weekend and get the kids involved, but in the week we'll have a couple of quick/easy meals such as egg and beans on toast, jacket potatoes and sometimes a bowl of crappy packet noodles like i lived off at uni. Shove some 🥒 on the side and everything becomes a balanced meal!

This came up a while ago as the worst thing about being an adult that nobody tells you. Thinking of what to eat every night (and cooking it!).

Just me and DH now most of the time but it isn't much better.

Problem is I'm largely vegan and DH isn't. He's fine with eating vegan meals but has always been a meat and two veg type cook so dinner is usually my job.

If he's ever out for an evening I celebrate with beans on toast which is my favourite cooked meal.

I’ve found my tribe on this thread. I absolutely detest cooking anything and would happily live on ready meals, sandwiches and breakfast cereal. My DH now has dementia and some other health issues which means he frequently “doesn’t fancy” whatever it is I’ve planned for any meal, which makes the constant mental “what shall we have tonight?” load even more tricky. GAH!!!!!

I resonate with this all hugely. My dh just doesn't think about it at all. I will give him 1 day to cook and he will forget until 6pm and then start thinking about it and as we have a 5 yo this is stressful for her routine and means a late night. So I end up doing it. Its caused alot of arguments between us. He tells me to just not do it if I find it stressful. But its important to me my daughter is eating healthily so I do do it. I tell him he needs to think about it earlier, he says OK, and then doesn't! Its fucking infuriating! We both same hours but he has a longer commute so I tend to be home a little bit earlier. I've started batch cooking a bit which is helpful. I also do all the bloody food shopping! Arhjjj! I hate that the patriarchy has pushed this on me as pre kids we were very equal and he did lots of cooking.

I bought a Thermomix a few years back, now I have two. Guided cooking when you can’t be arsed to do much except press next but I use it in so many ways - I haven’t chopped an onion or garlic for years. A rice cooker also helps. I am very lucky in that DH and DD will both cook now (for many years I was the only person cooking) and we usually eat out a couple of times a week (two adult kids at home) but I got to the “I will scream if I have to put another delicious nutritious meal on the table every night this week” stage a while ago so I feel your pain,

I would recommend Cook meals (basically frozen meals but cooked as you would at home, so not UPF with loads of stabilisers or emulsifiers or other weird stuff). I don’t feel guilty about getting them but they are more expensive than cooking from scratch. Good for a ‘night off’ though.

Exactly. The pressure is on as a mum even as they get older. I have one teen who is model slim and if she doesn’t fancy what’s for tea she just quietly won’t eat it which stresses me out so there is an implicit pressure to provide food she enjoys. The other teen has turned veggie <bangs head on table>.

My low point was during the pandemic. MIL came to live with us and really had to be persuaded to cook a meal once a week. I was furloughed but DH wasn’t so I did the cooking for everyone.

On the whole I enjoy cooking and I'm lucky in that my other half is not a fussy eater - he likes almost everything - and is very appreciative of my efforts. However, we all get a bit jaded from time to time.
Can you make double the quantity of some of your usual meals and freeze, so you have a meal available for the days when you simply can't be bothered or don't have time?
The odd M&S or other supermarket ready meal here and there won't kill you either (although will probably cost you).
As previous posters have said, there's nothing wrong with shop bought pizza occasionally if you're eating healthy meals most of the time.
Be kind to yourself and have the odd day off cooking from scratch.

I relate to all of this ! I really have no interest in cooking or food . I live with adhd dp , and two dc with asd , we live on the same boring , rotation of meals .

I think with a child with ARFID you are dealing with something exponentially tougher - no wonder you have ended up wuth 7 boring but safe meals. But yes, it is fucking awful. I can't help feeling I could tell Shirley Valentine was written by a bloke as she ended up cooking for a bloody living.

And there is absolutely nothing fucking wrong with toast as a meal. I suppose I would put something on it.

I can only recommend widowhood. After ds left home I gave myself a year off cooking and it was awesome, mostly I ate chickpeas out of the tin and spinach leaves. I have now got dp but at least he cooks half the week, plans, shops etc.

Gousto has really made a difference for our house. I know you said your DC might have issues with some food but perhaps they might enjoy choosing meals they WOULD eat. There are lots of basic family favourites etc to choose from. It has really taken the mental load off thinking and planning for me. And I don’t have to do the mindnumbingly boring shopping list. Or come home and muster something together from thin air. The ingredients you need just turn up and you use them.

shhh but it’s even made me quite enjoy cooking….

I had marmalade on toast and cup is tea for "dinner" last night, single mum too, children dropped back as soon as I was finished work, kitchen clean, no way was I cooking, didn't fill me up too much but no mental resources needed

Yes! Absolutely 100% agree OP.
Funnily enough 16 years in too and two DC. One very fussy (ND) and underweight so has to eat. Often I'll end up doing two adaptations. Or just two different meals...

Very recently I have instigated DC cooking once a week. Youngest DC will cook once a week, god bless her.
Eldest (ND) DC will cook, but will need reminding and supervising (so not a break).

It's the mental load, plus the cooking and cleaning up every single day. The relentlessness of the daily grind is exhausting.

Which is probably exactly where the phrase 'the daily grind' came from - a pissed off woman fed up of grinding grain to make flour, to bake bread for her family every flipping day!

I adore cooking and it’s like a stress reliever for me so I don’t relate BUT wanted to say I do sympathise 100% and also what’s stopping you from doing some low effort stuff when you can’t be arsed? Shop bought pizza, health(ier) ready meals, beans on bloody toast!!! Would even go so far as to suggest fish and chippy tea or maccies one night a week..? Why not life’s too short to be resentful, if you can lighten your load you absolutely should x

@SloopyDoodle

“He tells me to just not do it if I find it stressful.”

aaarrgghh this is so annoying isnt it. My DH doesnt cook (not home in time for dinner) but is like “why dont you just have set meals and a set ocado list” AS if it is that easy with two small kids that change what they will eat on the daily and also need a full range of nutrition