To find the benefits of DP cooking don't necessarily outweigh the clearing up involved

[urbanproserpine]

I end up doing the clearing up (whilst DP does bedtime x 3) after DP cooks at weekends. The results can be spectacular. The washing up, the garlic skins strewn around in unlikely places, the peelings in the plughole, the un-clearing-up-as-you-go-alongness, the floor...

I'm not complaining about the actual food, but sometimes my heart sinks during the meal as I can see the kitchen from the table

Swap jobs then

He's not going to stop being messy if you're there to clean up after him

No, I do bedtime and cook every weekday evening. It is hell. There are a five year old and two three year olds, and they are all boys. I reeally need a day off bedtime duties..

LOL

I could write the same thing about my DH. His washing up (after I cook) leaves a lot to be desired too.

However, he is a better cook than me.

I have this problem too, can you suggest meals that don't involve tons of ingredients and less pots and pans, i.e. stews etc.

When you cook, do you also wash up?

If so, then so should he?

My dh puts all his ingredients in separate dishes like a tv chef.

You describe me and my kitchen after I have cooked dinner. I do try very very hard and wash up as I go, but when it comes to serving at the end, I just can't seem to get it all on the plate and keep the place tidy. No matter how neat it is when its cooking, once the timer goes off it all goes to pot.

DH is anally tidy when he cooks and just can't grasp how I can manage to create such a mess at all.

I know what you mean.
I am anal about clearing up as I go along. dh is not.
But he cooks on Monday and Tuesday so I try to be out until all is nice and tidy again.

So can you do cooking and clearing up while he does bedtime for a couple of days in the week, then he does cooking and clearing up while you do bedtime at the weekends?

I have strained my neck nodding in agreement.....

YANBU-I clear up as I go along and then we just pop plates in dishwasher after eating. Kitchen used to look like a bomb site when dp had finished...he has improved with practise though and now clears up as well. The answer is to get your dp to cook more often!

Glad to know I am not the only one, my DH will choose to use the largest pan, sauce pot, chopping board and sauce just splatter all over the stove... and burn mark in the pots sigh

I actually ask him why does he always choose the biggest pots and pan as there is a lot to wash up ;p So now he actually is a bit more sensible mess is still there

I guess you just have to let him know and/or tidy up his mess 'while' he is cooking so he get the hints ;)

I used tomhave this with DH.

When he cooks now, he has to tidy up as well.

Aha, but 'contrary' would be the description of the reaction to any request for tidying as going along. It's hereditary as his dad (chief cook in their gaff) is the same. great food, great mess.

I call it 'performance cooking'

He is almost never home in time for dinner with all of us in week, and often not for bedtime either.

YANBU at all - I'm with you girlfriend.

I don't bother cleaning the kitchen until dh has done dinner. Not dinner we wanted. Not dinner that's needed but he just thinks sometimes (about 2 times per week) - we need his food and his food involves nothing that has nutritional value but does leave mess on surfaces, the hob needs a deep clean as does the floor.

Yikes. From my point of view better had I just done his meal - but he thinks I can't cook Italian food (I can- better than him).

I have a Performance Cooker too. In the time it took me to watch an entire East Enders once, DH had gone from pizza base done, tomato sauce on to pizza base done, tomato sauce on, mushrooms arranged perfectly on top in concentric circles. Uniformly sliced, perfectly arranged mushrooms with an equal distance between them. That was my tipping point - life is too short to spend that much time faffing on a Wednesday night.

My DP used to do this, he also used to wash up like Edward Scissorhands. In the end he got severely told off. He's a good boy now

If you're clearing up after yourself in the week, he can do the same at weekends. If he cleans in the week, he just needs to understand that he's leaving far more mess than you and the penalty for not cleaning as he goes along is having to take on that extra burden at the end. Or, you cook every day as it's not worth the mess.