Is he doing this deliberately?

[Wuldric]

I asked DH to cook Sunday lunch this weekend. He blanched, but when I pointed out that the DCs were doing breakfasts, I had done Friday evening, Saturday lunch and evening, and Sunday evening, he manned up.

It was a roast. What could be easier? It's all peeling and chopping. So this is what happened.

Roast lamb - I would have cooked this with slivers of garlic, plenty of rosemary, salt, black pepper and red wine, and served it pink and juicy and delicious. We got dry and overcooked lamb. No extras. You try overcooking lamb until it is dry. It is not good. In fact it is pretty hard to overcook lamb until it is inedible. DH, however, succeeded.

Roast potatoes - Roasties are simples. You boil some potatoes, drain and slather them in goose fat (we have jars of the stuff) and salt and black pepper. Never leave them in for longer than an hour. DH presented us with roasties that had been carbonised. I have never tasted such things. Imagine something black on the outside, and the inside had shrivelled and detached from the outside. Little buttons of burned stuff.

Gravy - he presented us with bisto granules. I have binned this stuff since I saw it creeping into the cupboard. They are nonsense. Nasty and artificial and somewhat sinister. And lumpy.

Vegetables - I don't even want to tell you about the vegetable abuse. You would call vegetable social services. In any event, they were so soggy that they were almost liquified. You try presenting liquified carrots and parsnips. It takes a real man to liquify a parsnip without electrical assistance.

Yorkshire puddings - purists amongst you will have noticed that the roast in question was lamb. Yorkshire puddings are served with beef. DH is from Yorkshire therefore feels that no meal is complete without a Yorkshire Pudding. Despite his undoubted Yorkshire heritage, DH managed to serve black nuggets. Black nuggets are never ever going to catch on. I understand now why the smoke alarm kept going off repeatedly.

He is doing this deliberately, isn't he?

The mistake was that you wanted him to cook but you chose what he was cooking and did the shopping. If you usually do it then you can't just spring it on him with no notice. Discuss it in advance so that he has time to choose what he is cooking and buy the food. A roast, with precise timings, is not a good place to start.

If you are so fussy and critical do it yourself. If its his turn to cook, let him cook what he wants. You sound a bit like you enjoy putting him down.

If it was timing, you'd think one thing would have been good. Maybe it was the Yorkshire puddings?

I agree with BlueTit.

YABU. Not everybody can cook a full roast dinner. I can cook a full roast dinner with ease but my husband couldn't and so I would expect him to cook something that is within his level of capability.
If you really wanted to have a perfect roast on sunday then you should have cooked it yourself and asked him to do dinner on Monday. The alternative was to have a meal that your husband can cook.
The fact that you have slated his use of Bisto and detailed precisely how you would have made it makes me think that you are overly fussy and should cook for yourself. He probably did such a bad job due to the stress of thinking about your expectations.
Slivers of garlic and plenty of rosemary, balk perp per and red wine, potatoes slathered in goose fat....... I'm having visions of the man trembling in the kitchen due to the stress of trying to cook a full roast to your standards and knowing that chances are you will slate his efforts.
What is his cooking usually like?

I have been cooking for many years and I find a roast a difficult thing to coordinate. I would never ask dh to do one. I hope, as he had gone to the effort, you ate it.

Its not about "timings" though is it? He burned every item, so he basically left everything in the oven too long. I suspect he was on the tablet in the kitchen like I would be and forgot about the dinner.

Yabu, do it yourself if you are the expert!

Do it yourself if you're so good at it. You obviously knew exactly how you wanted things.

And Yorkshire puddings go with any roast.

That sounds rank.

I would have forgiven the gravy and soggy veg if the meat and potatoes had been okay. How can you so badly overcook lamb and roasts?

I cook a truly superb, stupendous, mind blowing roast dinner and my roast potatoes are a legend in my family, but it's taken me three decades to get there!

He probably didn't do it deliberately. Roast dinners are the hardest thing to cook well - all those different elements and timings and different oven temperatures. It's a living nightmare for someone who doesn't cook all the time.

There are lots of things that my husband can cook better than me, shepherds pie for one, but there is no way that I would tell him to cook a Sunday lunch without lots of help and looking over his shoulder. It's not worth it. The cook gets to choose the menu.

Yorkshire puds go with every roast in our house too.

I've been known to use gravy granules. I quite like it's salty syntheticness.

So I suppose I think that on the whole YABU, but much sympathy for the ruined dinner. It sounds horrendous.

IMO, there's a difference between a sub-OP's-standard dinner and an utterly ruined and inedible one. If it had just been the former, then I would agree with all the YABUs. BUt it wasn't, was it. It actually takes a bit of effort to thoroughly charcoal potatoes and yorkies - you have to ignore them for a LONG time.

So I still say OP is NBU - he buggered it up deliberately.

YABU - let him choose what to cook and don't expect him to cook the way you would.

I was at work. I do more cooking, but he can cook really well. It's not like he's never cooked before.

Yanbu. There is no way he could have cocked up every single item unless he forgot about it all or did it on purpose.

Even taking away the tricky stuff like the meat or yorkshires I do not see how you can screw up veg that badly

I hardly think OP deserves criticism. My DH couldn't cook when we met and I explained that that needed to change. Nearly five years on he still asks the odd question and gets me to make the gravy. Unless she refused to offer any assistance regarding time planning then this is feckless selfish behaviour.

And a bit of garlic and wine with a joint is hardly intimidating. I'd struggle to respect an adult who saw that as some kind of challenge. My DH would say "you usually use garlic, what do I do with it." Am I doing it wrong by not meeting his competence as a human being with a rush of gratitude?

my dh doesnt know how to turn on hob or oven

think you are being very harsh and ungrateful

Ungrateful? What at wasting the money? Meat is expensive. All he had to do was say he can't manage it and do something easier like lamb with salad.
op said that he can actually cook so he's most likely done the "playing on iPad" thing and forgotten about it all or don't the "if I do it badly I won't get asked again" thing.

My dp can't really cook either. If he has to I ask for something idiot proof like sausage and mash but that still turns out vile.

Too much "pre heating" going on playing on iPad and not enough actual thinking. Grr

Has he ever cooked a roast before though? It's perhaps not his forte.

To be honest, I'm going with YABU, but mostly based on my own experience: it pisses me right off when my husband tells me exactly what we should have and exactly how to cook each ingredient. If I'm cooking, he can stay out of the kitchen. I find his food is occasionally too rich and too fussy with far too many flavours. I don't like over-cooked vegetables but his are regularly raw (including potatoes). When I get to cook, I go for fresher flavours and if he doesn't like it, he lumps it.

Sounds like he wasn't up for cooking that particular meal. Go for 'it's your turn to cook' and let him sort the finer details. Removing all the things that will simplify the cooking (Bisto is sinister?) will mean that he's far more likely to make mistakes.

Yabu and expecting too much i mucked up my first roast big time

I think you probably thought you post highly amusing, but actually it does come over as being a bit unfair. If he hasn't cooked a roast before, it's not that easy, even if you're a good cook, and lamb in particular, is not easy to get right.

i know meat is expensive but if you want something doing properly or to your standard..do it yourself or get someone who does know..

just because you live, marry someone doesnt mean they magically turn into mini heston blumentahls overnight

some men are good..some are shite

just the same as women..

fwiw i grew up where my dad did all the cooking because mums was vile
ever had red water plonked on spaghetti...hideous

partnership is about strengths..you take the good with the bad and accept it and move on

but you never demean them for at very least trying to make an effort

Why is if expecting too much? When you have a family you have a duty to take care of them. That involves feeding them. It is our responsibility as adults to ensure we are capable of doing that. Why should op have to do it all, all the time? She should be able to trust her dh to cover the basic responsibility of cooking a meal.

Meat- timings are on the packet eg 20mins per lb etc

Potatoes? Well any number of internet sites would give basic instructions on that. Delia online anyone?

And veg? Seriously can a grown man not cope with veg?

The gravy I'd have not worried about but we shouldn't have to baby our husbands they should be able to think for themselves.

And yes I'd laugh and expect a hiccup. If the lamb was undercook I'd shove it back in the oven after slicing some off so it cooked quicker for example. But to ruin the whole thing so none I it could be salvaged? Well that's pretty hard to do

you find that pretty hard to do..

hows about a smoke filled house because dh boiled an egg

yes as simple as that

i have never seen a cremated black egg before or since lol