to be cross with my 38 year old husband for not being able to cook

[nicecupofteaplease]

My husband's repertoire consists of omelette and at a push stir fry. As a result, I always cook. I like cooking, so generally I don't mind. But now and again, it would be nice to come home from work and not cook (and get to eat something other than an omelette).

Last night he said "I'll cook for you if you want, what is there?" - he decided upon a lasagna. Great. Then he asked me to show him how to make a lasagna, which I did. I essentially made both the sauces and he chopped things up. I left him to his own devices to do the layering and said more than once "remember the last layer should be lasagna, topped with cheese sauce".

I was really hungry, and a bit crochety anyway, and I'm afraid I went a bit beserk when he took the lasagna out of the oven and it was topped with a crunchy layer of mince and contained only one lonely layer of lasagna. He'd used two sheets and put the majority of the lasagna sheets back in the fridge (as apparently he'd decided that lasagna does not merit the inclusion of pasta sheets).

I feel a bit sorry for him as he'd wanted to make me dinner, but I am just so frustrated that a 38 year old man cannot make something as simple as a lasagna. It was just a dish of cheesy mince with a slither of pasta somewhere in the middle. Even if he didn't know how to make it, I helped him and gave him pretty easy to follow and clear instructions. It's not rocket science. I'm peeved that he ruined the dinner when I was really looking forward to it, and wasted 3/4 of a pack of lasagna sheets for no good reason. And just once I would love not to cook AND to eat something resembling a decent meal. Is that unreasonable? I probably shouldn't have shouted at him, but for God's sake, how hard can it be?

If, as I suspect, you come to the conclusion that IABU and should've eaten the cheesy mince with a smile on my face, what can I do about it?? Not the lasagna, the lack of any sort of cooking ability.

Rikalaily The pasta came from the fridge and the remainder was "wasted" - so it was pre-cooked or fresh (unless the OP is particularly weird and keeps dry pasta in the fridge and throws the remainder of the box away) so only having one layer would not have changed the runniness of the meal at all - if it was too runny then the sauce was too wet.

Lasagne is not hard for anyone who knows the basics. Lasagne IS hard for someone who doesn't!

First of all, I don't think I have ever topped a lasagne with the noddles and sauce. Last layer is meat and then cheese, surely? So, yes, you should have eaten it. And I also don't consider it an easy dish as it has so many parts

Last layer should be lasagne sheet then sauce then sprinkling of cheese, everyone knows that!!

What are "noddles"?!

And I was pointing out that not being able to strip a boiler is hardly a life skill! It's something that it would be great to be able to do on occasion to avoid the cost of getting someone to do it for you

I clearly should have written "DiY, home and vehicle maintenance skills", I forget some people are very literal minded.

The bigger point I was making was that cooking is one of a huge range of necessary skills to run a home and family, it is daft to expect both partners to have mastered all of them equally. Some people - typically men - don't like cooking or can't cook but can and do contribute with other skills.

Berating them on this one skill is nuts unless you also take other compensating abilities into consideration.

Some people cant cook or hate cooking. I don't see that as a problem and your DH (nicevupofteaplease) was at least willing even if he wasn't very good.

Does he want to learn to cook?

If you didn't cook for him he wouldn't starve but probably wouldn't learn to cook either if he doesn't like cooking.

My mate (a woman who doesn't/won't cook, a MOTHER too - tsk!) eats healtily and feeds her family well from pre-prepared foods, and very very basic 'not skill required' food.

I don't see the problem. I adore cooking and so does DH so we're often fighting over who does it because we both want to. If on the odd occassion we can't be bothered, we go out for tea.

"It irritates the hell out of me when boys aren't shown how to do the basic things in life by their mothers

What about their fathers?"

Good point, Trills!

My FIL was the cook in my husbands house when he was little. Dh 's first job was as a kitchen porter. Then he worked at a bakery, before progressing to be a barman (before studying IT and changing his career). He still cant cook.

He can put together things in the oven, such as M&S ready coated chicken breasts, and some potato wedges. He can make a salad and add to this.

It is a decent meal. I dont expect him to cook from scratch.

I can eat what he "cooks" without throwing a tantrum.

Lasagna is not an easy dish. I dont understand what you were thinking, asking that a person who cant cook make lasagna.

You set him up for a failure! Then you threw your rattles out of your pram, then you threw the food into the bin.

Princess, much?

Agree whatmeworry I can't change a fuse, I KNOW its easy, but I just panic around electicity. Likewise I cannot trim the hedge... that IS a 'necessary' skill actually because it grows quickly and then we can't get out of the drive. I've nearly killed myself trying, quite a few times.

Dp's idea of haute cuisine is a packet of frankfurters sliced up and mixed with a tin of veg or tomato soup with a couple of slices of bread and butter!! He's 46...and has only ever lived on his own for about 3 months.

He did make more of an effort when dd was a baby as she cluster fed right around dinner time, so I had to give him instructions on what to do, but even then I helped him cheat by buying some ready made mashed potato from M&S! If I go away it's a case of fill up the fridge with some ready meals, pizza, sausages and bacon.

I know I'm enabling him to be 'useless' in the kitchen, and he could cook if he really wanted to learn. However, he is a typical 'everything must be perfect' Virgo, so we wouldn't be eating until about midnight...

But as I like cooking, I don't really mind, but it would be nice to be surprised sometimes!!

(he does do the washing up /loading dishwasher afterwards!)

i cant make lasagne and i have been cooking for 30 years, always comes out horrible.

why didnt he just do a shepherds pie or something, cant go wrong with that, or even a spag bol, thats easy

"I clearly should have written "DiY, home and vehicle maintenance skills", I forget some people are very literal minded."

I get equally pissed off with women who can't put oil in a car or don't know how to change a fuse or know where the trip switch is!But I honestly can't think of a single other skill that equates to cooking in terms of needing to be done every single day. I'm not talking cordon bleu stuff, but surely any father of a family should be able to provide good food without hassle if the main cook is in hospital, or has a broken arm or is breatfeeding the next baby? Surely

I agree. It is a survival skill. And I don't include ready meals, stuff in a box etc as that is not the way to a long, healthy life! We keep a box of breaded fish, tortellini or similar in the freezer for emergencies, but certainly not as normal eating.

Oh, and I can change fuses, wire a plug, check oil, tyre pressure etc etc, change a flat tyre etc. I couldn't bleed the boiler (can bleed a radiator) though.

I am useless at all practical things except cooking.

I certainly can't change plugs, tyres etc but nor can I sew, paint etc. And I am a horrific ironer.

I actually don't mind that DH and I carve up the jobs between us (delegating as many as we can). We play to our strengths. But the lack of cooking on his part does irritate me.

I'm not talking cordon bleu stuff, but surely any father of a family should be able to provide good food without hassle if the main cook is in hospital, or has a broken arm or is breatfeeding the next baby? Surely

Yup, but I wouldn't class a perfect lasagna in that range, nor would I shit all over a newbie cook if they didn't do one perfectly first off.

My aunt rang yesterday and it came up in conversation that DH often does Xmas dinner.
This was of course followed by much muttering as neither my father or her DH (his younger brother) have a clue.
Their mother spoilt them rotten and my Aunt and my Mum didn't take them in hand, they are now 65 and 73 and utterly useless. DU is pretty useless at most things (other than work) and I've no idea how DA has put up with him for so long.

If he can do a stir-fry, how about building more variations on that theme to get more varied dinners from him? Different meats, marinated in different flavours, different veg, noodles versus rice...

But lasagne is tricky if you don't do it regularly - I'm a good cook but recently did a lasagne for the first time in years - couldn't find any consensus online as to whether the pasta needed pre-cooking or not, added extra fluid to ensure it could cook in the oven, and it ended up rather soupy. But as others have said, a meal involving cheese, meat sauce, and a bit of pasta is very difficult to make totally inedible!
Fortunately MrNC has manners so just used his veg to soak up the juice and suggested I use more pasta or less liquid next time. FWIW the next time it ended up very solid and kept us going for a week!

It's one of those dishes where different thicknesses of pasta, density of sauce, depth of pan and oven temp all affect the cooking time and how much liquid you need, so if you move house and get new pans you have to learn how to do it again.

For inexperienced cooks, I recommend Jane Hornby's What to Cook and How to Cook It - it has a wide variety of recipes that can be later tweaked, but has pictures for every step showing how brown to make your onions, how much a pinch of salt is, what the mixture should look like when properly mixed, etc. MrNC has managed some very impressive meals with no help from me at all, though afterwards we discuss ways they could be made more simply/cheaply/with other ingredients. Before this book he could do stir-fries, fresh pasta and sauces, and a few other basics... there was a year when I would get home at 9pm and be very grateful for hot food, but I have to admit it got slightly repetitive for both of us!

His mum is a terrible cook, so he's had to learn it all himself - just stopped once he could do a couple meals.

Two words.

Ready meals.

Unless you won him in a raffle when he was 37, you've help create this situation.

.

My 37 year old DH can't cook either. An omelette would be a luxury.

DH hates cooking. We've been together 5 years and I've gradually got him taking over some of the cooking. First I got him doing the steaks cos mine is well done so easy to do but DH is French so I did not want the responsability of cooking his steak correctly!!!

Slowly he took over cooking all meat (except roasts) and I even got him peeling the veg to go with it

Then one day I was held up at work so couldn't get home in time to cook. I gave him instructions over the phone and he made it (perfectly). When I complimented him he told me it was thanks to me cos I told him what to do I pointed out that what was recipe books are for!

Then when I was pregnant he took over almost all the cooking, with me shouting instructions from next door (I had serious morning sickness). Now he knows several recipes off by heart, so although he still dislikes cooking he can do it if needed (like if Im feeding the baby or am shattered from being up most the night).

I still can't convince him to give cakes a go though although he loves eating them...

I forgot YANBU but he obviously needs a poke up the arse to do something about it!

It is an essential life skill otherwise you get left like my aunt, when her DH wouldn't go anywhere as he got elderly (e.g. Australia to see DD) she couldn't go either because he couldn't cope on his own-never having done anything in the house. He died first, but the general view was that if she died first he would have to go into care. She should have made sure that he could have done it when he was younger and then she could just have waved him goodbye and gone to Australia for a month.
I wonder how some people with hopeless DPs manage if they have to go into hospital and leave DP looking after the DCs and the house. No wonder they talk about DP 'babysitting' his won DCs!

I think that some people just like having an extra DC because it gives them control of 'their' house, 'their' kitchen and 'their' DC. They then moan fondly that their DH or DS or DD is 'hopeless'.

I prefer my way where I could go off for a week and don't have to issue instructions, cook for the freezer etc etc-DH is just as capable.

Ready meals might be the answer but they are full of salt, preservatives etc and cost a lot more.

There are some things that DCs should be able to do that are non negotiable e.g. swim and cook spring to mind.

'IMO it's a disgrace that any NT adult gets to that age without having a basic repertoire of ten/fifteen dishes to feed themselves and their family'

Can I point out that my ND son is a very good cook? He has cookbooks and learned in tandem with me at first, but he sees it like chemistry.
You assemble the necessary equipment and ingredients, follow the rules and it works. Then, joy of joys to a teenage boy, you can eat it.
He has yet to cook like me, with a handful and a slosh and 'some more of this' or to adapt recipes.
He's more a '125g plus 18g ' sort and whisking 268 times.
I agree that if the parents don't teach their children to cook, they are responsible not only for the lack of skill, but for the subsequent attitude and false helplessness

I can't/don't cook either and I'm older than your husband. I just couldn't be bothered making anything from scratch. Sure what's the point, you can buy anything you want ready made in the supermarket. I don't just mean ready meals but cooked from scratch dinners etc

Cooking's not difficult but it's boring and takes too long. It's just unnecessary drudgery and martyrdom if you ask me!