Do you actually enjoy cooking every night, or is it just me who’s completely over it?

[Alyah]

I feel like I used to enjoy cooking, but lately it’s become such a chore. Between work, kids, and everything else, by the time I get to the kitchen I just want something quick and easy. But then I end up feeling guilty for not making “proper” meals.
Everyone on social media seems to be whipping up homemade dinners from scratch every night — meanwhile, I’m here trying to convince myself that oven chips and fish fingers count as balanced.
Does anyone still genuinely enjoy cooking daily, or have most people just accepted it’s about getting everyone fed and moving on?

I'm still happy doing it, it's one of the few things I can still do even though I have health issues and more complex dietary requirements now (which I have to balance alongside DP who can eat anything, meaning sometimes I cook two different meals). There's something very satisfying about taking ingredients and preparing them. Even when I'm not up to doing it physically we do have our own home made 'ready meals' in the freezer so then I'd only have to put rice or pasta on to go with. DP can cook too, fortunately, and make some of the things he enjoys that I don't eat.

I would find batch cooking and re-heating more of a faff than just cooking something. I went through this phase, of hating the routine of cooking, but I have gone back to quite enjoying it now.
I only really cook things that are very quick to do (and I cooked for a living so I am pretty quick) or things you can just leave, in one pot, stir occasionally) so I do things like frittata with big salad, and nice bread, pasta Puttanesca or curries.
I have never in my life asked a child what they want to eat though! I tell them they are bloody lucky to have grown up eating such good food! (Which they are).
My mum totally stopped cooking in her 60s though and lived on M&S ready meals, and fair play to her.

Since I have moved house and I have a brand-new kitchen and I have set it up very well with all of the herbs and spices that I need and everything easily accessible I find cooking a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable!
However, the part I do find slightly annoying is getting to an agreement on meals so everybody would want. I make a meal plan on Friday for the following week and I usually ask everybody for a few suggestions. I will work off that and then I will try to introduce one new meal a week. I like exploring new options so I enjoy that aspect. I try to keep meals as easy as possible as I also work full-time. My DP will cook also some nights but he is more of a creature of habit so will make something he knows quite well and can do with his eyes closed. So that will usually be a pasta bake, or an oven dinner as we like to call it, so sausages, chicken Kievs etc. I tend to cook from fresh most nights also. But I will also buy the art thing from the butcher that can make life a bit easier… as mentioned above chicken Kievs etc.

Exactly this, meal plan together, shop accordingly, everyone is happy and you save money.

I am lucky enough to have a Thermomix this takes the chore out of meal prep and means the kids can do some of the cooking.

Bain of my life and the mental load of meal planning urghhhh. We started getting hello fresh a couple of times a week and that's helped a lot. Although I acknowledge it's ridiculously expensive but at least we eat a bit better.

Me too, but I think it's harder now. Kids are bigger and eat more than I do, so cooking a full meal or doubling up for all of us is more of a chore. Plus their likes and dislikes are more fixed and I find myself catering around them more. When they are little you can just steam ahead and serve it anyway as long as there's something they'll eat on the plate, and variety is good, but 15 years of serving mushrooms to someone who hates mushrooms is just an exercise in futility so I end up trying to adapt, which is tedious.

Totally with @Tiebiter and others who hate the "oh I don't mind". Just. Help. Me. Out. "But everything you choose is great Mum". Ugh.

Lately my strategies:

• Simply Cook - same price point as buying jars but does a bit more of the planning for you
• once a week we'll do something like bacon or steak baguettes rather than a full meal
• always keep emergency pizza in the freezer

ND teens who are burned out from school so zero help in the kitchen. Unfortunately "low demand parenting" tends to place very high demand on the parents.

Have you tried baked potatoes in the slow cooker? Or a joint of meat / chicken. You can just chuck it in the sc and leave. Or if you are feeling fancy you can add seasoning and herbs.

You can serve the meat with a nice bread and a salad on the side.

Have you tried putting a pastry top on the stew and claiming it is a pie?

I know it is old fashioned but a steak and kidney pudding is easy in a sc.

Make the suet pastry.
Use oil or an oil spray to grease a Pyrex bowl. You can also use plastic but that can fall over.
Boil the kettle
Put a folded up tea towel in the sc. You don't want the bottom of the dish to be in contact with the sc.
Line the Pyrex dish with 2/3 of pastry, the final 1/3 is for the lid.
Fill the pudding with meat (I dust with seasoned flour), onions, veg if you are using them. I crumble in a stock cube too.
Make a pastry lid and put it on the pudding.
Put the pudding in the sc on the tea towel.
Make a hole in the middle of the lid with a knife or your finger.
Pour the boiling water in through the hole until it is full.
Pour the rest of the water around the Pyrex dish.

When you get home carefully lift it out and turn over on to a plate, turn the pyrex dish a couple of times to loosen the pud and lift the bowl off.

I know that sounds like a lot of work but you can do most of it the day before and then put on to steam in the morning.

You can change the filling, chicken and leeks or a vegi version.

After decades of family meals while husband frequently worked away, can’t stand it.
Retired now, I rarely cook, husband is the chef. He enjoys it.

I'm totally with you @Irmnern on batch cooking for more people. Using the food processor to chop onions etc helps a bit but then there is more clear up. On our craziest days we woul feed people separately - sandwiches or something really simple for the kids at 5pm, ready meals for me and DH about 9pm. This too shall pass & all that.

I don’t mind the actual cooking, it’s the meal planning and shopping I hate. Trying to work out each week what to eat that has enough fibre, enough variety, trying to limit red meat and UPF, not too much sugar, not too much fat, then I have to consider if the family will actually eat it and on top of all of that keep to a budget. I find it very overwhelming and a big responsibility. And I feel racked with guilt when I “phone it in” with repetitive dishes or food that I know isn’t as nutritious as it should be.

Some nights, I skip around the kitchen like a cross between Mary Poppins and Nigella Lawson, singing and dancing to music with my children and taking pleasure in cooking delicious, well rounded meals I know we’ll all enjoy. Other nights, I whack some frozen chips in the air fryer. Life’s all about balance 😂
I think the issue for me is not the cooking, as I actually really enjoy cooking and I’m quite good ( 🎺 my own!) but it’s the deciding what to cook and making sure we actually have everything we need. Meal planning doesn’t come all that easily to me, so that doesn’t help.

I don’t mind the cooking, it’s the thinking what to have for dinner every night that can seem like a chore. I am more organised than I used to be though, so usually have the next 3 dinners planned and shopped for.

I often enjoy it but certainly not every night and DH does a decent amount of cooking too

I'm so fed up of cooking and choosing, I have returned to very basic food for the most part
Salmon
Lamb chops
Steak
Sea bass
All with veg/stir fry/salad and not proper hands on recipe cooking.

Roast dinners

I sometimes do a batch cook of chilli or some type of curry so that I have plenty of freezer meals

I just suddenly lost interest when I retired and DH and I go on walks early evening

I grew up with parents that ran a restaurant in my younger years. My parents both taught me to cook. when I make things I can just do it by eye there is none of this measuring stuff out which is tedious and I make food by the way it ‘feels’, like just pulling the spoon up in batter and seeing how it flows.

I love cooking, DH and DS and myself eat practically everything. DS GF doesn’t and she is the first person I have had to cater for a lot who doesn’t. So I can see why cooking for people with multiple dislikes and allergies must be a pain.,

To this day DH doesn’t cope with how I make things because he likes to weigh stuff and be very precise, it’s a little joke between us.

When I had a long commute I used to use a slow cooker quite a lot. My biggest cooking effort is Chinese New Year every year, to prepare everything takes me 3 days. I can cook English food as well and also do stuff like make fresh pasta and a fair amount of French and Italian food. I’m not much of a cake maker purely as I do need to measure stuff out.

My favourite dinner currently is making flatbreads putting on top homemade meat balls, salad, crumbled feta and a little honey drizzled on top.

Bored

If something like curry or casserole or bolagnese I do always make double/ triple and freeze as not much more effort

Moving to realise no one starves from simple food. Ds is so fussy it’s a pain either way.

We have things like scrambled eggs on toast with grilled peppers on side, or Omlette with salad once a week. Fast, can be more eggs if more hungry. 15mins max

I hear you! 🤣

@MyAcornWood We bought our house based on the big kitchen and I keep a massive range of food stuffs. DH built my kitchen for me. I have a tall pull out larder drawer each side of my fridge. One has the Chinese ingredients and one is the English and a European side. I would just get a rotation going of your base ingredients.

I find it easy because I do it all badly. The best thing I ever did was to declare myself a terrible cook. Now expectations are low and if anything tastes edible the family is delighted.

I use Mindful Chef and I enjoy cooking from scratch now as I don’t have to worry about what to cook. I’ve tried a few services including Gousto and Hellofresh but now this with my current one. For me the hassle isn’t shopping or cooking it’s what to have so that is solved. DH and both DS will take a turn cooking as well.

We batch cook. Always have curry, chilli and spag Bol in the freezer. Eat these on a few days of the week and cook other stuff the other nights.

I still enjoy it, but I only have to cook when I want to. DH usually does all the cooking.

I hate cooking, would much rather clean the toilet!

However I do it and we generally have 4 or 5 balanced meals a week, 1 'free for all' meal (I had bacon and eggs this week!) and weekends are fair game for anything as we're out and about, working or away for the weekend.

I love cooking.
What I hate is that because the evenings are so busy I have to either cook three or four times or reheat food which I find miserable. While it’s nice to have some back up food in the freezer I find no joy in batch cooking.