to never cook dinner again?? **sort of lighthearted**

[tryhard]

I have a 5 year old & 2 year old, I try my best to think of meals which are nutritious, which we can afford & which I can cook on a weekly basis without spending all day in the kitchen. A favourite is Quorn meatballs with homemade pasta sauce & wholemeal spaghetti. I do the sauce in a massive batch at the weekends. & freeze it in portions. Anyway, DH comes home tonight, stares at it & says he can't eat Quorn meatballs anymore, he's bored of it, so goes out & buys himself a pizza! A fucking pizza! AIBU to put his portion that I lovingly set aside at 5pm & let him cook his own damn dinners from now on?!

I had a housemate that very kindly used to make us pasta bake practically every Wednesday, for over a year! I felt like such a bitch when I told him I didn't fancy pasta bake.... Ever again!!
We laugh still about it now but I still can't face pasta bake five years on.
You'll see the funny side of of this soon.

My dh gets really grumpy when he's hungry!

Could he contribute to the meal plan so that he's happy with it too?

Let him do his own bloody cooking! If he wants to whinge that a jacket and beans isn't good enough then it's up to him to make something better.

I think he's being rude! If he's not happy with what is being provided for him then he needs to make some suggestions and take part in a general discussion about meal planning. It can be a real chore working out a plan that is varied and that everyone will eat.

Wholewheat pasta tastes like cardboard I am on a low GI eating plan so eat it regularly but there is no way I serve it to my non dieting kids and partner. And you have Quorn with it too? I'd be buying the whole family pizza. It doesn't sound very appealing OP.

We do a monthly meal plan and it's all different meals bar one or two (ie Sunday dinner) and put it on the wall that way everyone knows what's for tea and it helps with my food shopping. I colour code them so we can see which are veggie meals etc.
But yanbu to feel put out.

Maybe he could come up with some suggestions or help with the batch cooking.

I cab see why he's fed up tbh. however I do think its better to eat a limited range if fresh home made food than it is to rely on bought and processed stuff so don't get upset about it. however just gradually try and improve the range.
.but rope him.in to help. he may be at work and nit able to cool but he cab help with a menu plan and shopping on his days off

YANBU to not have a meal ready for him in future. Or at least for the rest of the week. Ungrateful sod.
Fine, he's bored but he can raise that more positively, put some bloody effort of his own into choosing and batch pre cooking meals. Turning his nose up at what you made is just rude.

I have a rotating, three week meal plan. It's not actually as complicated as it sounds - Sat is always some kind of homemade 'takeaway', usually pizza or Chinese, and Sunday always a roast. So that leaves five week days - because of clubs, Thurs is always something snacky like eggs, toasties, perhaps a bacon sandwich; similarly Tuesdays are always something from the slow cooker, either pulled pork, chicken casserole, maybe beef. I try and do beef x2, chicken x2, veggie x1 across the week days. This way I only really need a maximum of six recipes of each type and it means we rarely eat the same thing more often than monthly.

Beef tends to be spag bol, meatballs, tacos, pastry pie, cottage pie. Chicken is usually stir fry, stroganoff, curry, pastry pie, casserole. Veggie often macaroni cheese, peach & chickpea curry (adults), pesto pasta, stuffed pasta, beans on toast.

I definitely don't think you are BU. We eat one or two meals the same every week, and probably another 3-4 the same every fortnight. Cooking dinner falls to me as DH gets home late too and it's bloody hard to think of new things! I'm a good cook but it's hard to think of different things which are nice and filling and reasonably priced and I think your DH sounds a bit ungrateful! Even if he couldn't face it he should have eaten it this week and asked if you could make something different next week. It's just food.

Who do all these husbands think they are, coming home and refusing dinner, and ordering takeaway instead?! How bloody rude and selfish.

If you do want some more variety, OP, here are some of my staples:

• stir fry with veg and noodles, and either chicken or prawns as meat, with a variety of sauces - chow mein, hoisin, satay or sweet and sour, mostly.
• tuna pasta with sweetcorn
• sausage casserole with mashed potatoes
• bangers and mash with peas
• chicken and mushroom pasta bake
• chicken and pesto pasta with peas and cherry tomatoes
• grilled fish (normally plaice) with new potatoes and vegetables
• spaghetti bolognese
• pitta pizzas - pitta bread used as pizza bases, with tom sauce and toppings
• jacket potatoes with a choice of toppings

Your DH needs to be more grateful that he's coming home and getting food cooked for him, though. Cheeky sod.

Home made kebabs
marinade your own chicken pieces in oil and spice (I have loads and loads so vary them as I prefer hotter than DH) or yoghurt and spices if you prefer being extra healthy. Cook as you wish, serve with wholemeal pittas/wraps loads of salad and veg/rice/wedges/salsa

Chicken/Pork escalopes, bash pieces til thin, breadcrumb them, grill. serve on a bed of spaghetti with a reduced tomato and balsamic vinegar sauce (or your homemade pasta sauce)

Shepherds/Cottage pie add in the extra veg to the mix, top with a combination of carrot/swede/potato/sweet potato mash serve with yet more veg

Fish cakes
Tuna steaks

Prawn stirfry, get loads of frozen veg, cook off with the prawns, chuck in a bag of beansprouts, serve if you want with rice or noodles

mushroom stroganoff
get loads of diff types of mushrooms, add garlic and onion, paprika, worcestershire sauce, half pint of veg stock, cook and simmer til liquid reduced. when cooked stir through creme fraiche/sour cream serve with rice, chips, salad

jkt pots
sounds stupid but it's one of DH's favourite meals. I do a big a bowl of salad, and then all the different fillings you could want in smaller bowls, so beans, cheese, coleslaw, chopped up ham, tuna mayo etc he can then have a huge potato but have a little bit of different filling on each bit!

I felt we were getting in a rut. So I wrote down all the things we ever have (had a stack of old meal plans to work from) and got about thirty-something. Some were very similar, eg roast chicken and roast pork, or cottage pie and shepherd's pie.

And here's the clever bit. I got the DC to write the meal plan together. Less work for me and every day I can say "don't blame me: your brother chose it".

To add variety we also have one day per week as "slot machine". We have a set of cards which are protein / carbs / vegetables / style. You choose at random one of each (two vegetables) and make a meal from them. This week DS2 drew chicken / potatoes / French beans & peas / French which is about the easiest in the set!

I remember as a teenager hearing that my friend's mother had said she didn't mind what she cooked so long as someone else chose. I have a lot of sympathy for her position nowadays.

It sounds lovely actually but every week is just a little too often (even every 10 days or 14 days is better). It might just be that secretly he doesn't like it and had a bad day. I would have been well cheesed off if mine had gone out for a pizza. Sounds to me on the whole you're doing fine with the meals so don't be downhearted.

Quorn meatballs and wholemeal pasta is delicious and I would eat it once a week.

Your husband is jolly rude and could have eaten it before suggesting it isn't on the menu quite as much.

We've written out a consensus list of meals, and are now picking 6 meals for the week ahead together. Then no one gets to complain.

Personally I'm not too fussed about a massive variety, and I like quorn - which we have every week. I would be v annoyed at someone who hadn't expressed that they were fed up with/didn't like a dish coming home to dinner and then not just turning their nose up, but ordering in food for just them

One tip I've read is to have meals on a cycle that isn't seven days long. You notice if it's always sausages on a Monday, but if the cycle is even eight or nine days long it makes a difference.

I'm loving all of this idea of meal variety. DH said to me last week, however, that if he could have a roast dinner every day of the week he'd be a happy man. I agree on that one - all we have to do is peel spuds, boil, whack in oven. Easiest meal in the world. It's a fall back option most nights of the week

Get your DH to do the meal planning and shopping if he is not happy. I don't mind cooking but hate having to choose every single day.

Put your foot down now or you will have 2 teenagers and a DH coming in the house turning up their noses and sending out for pizza before you know it.

disclaimer: I would never cook or eat quorn but can vouch for lentil pie, lasagne, pasta bake etc.

Can I be the first to say that I think your Quorn meatballs and wholemeal spaghetti sounds delicious? I think wholemeal pasta is so much tastier.
I suppose if you could be arsed you could make a batch of turkey meatballs and freeze them? That way you're still having a night off red meat but avoiding Quorn for a while until someone gets bored of turkey and you can bring the Quorn back.

Your DH needs to come up with some affordable menus, do the shopping and cooking.

Quorn meat balls are very high in salt but that aside every week is a bit much.

Christ, if he gets in too late to cook he can blinking well get cooking before bed and make something for you to reheat the next day!
He's really lucky to come home to supper!! I hope this Saturday he will make something especially lovely for you since he has just eaten the takeaway budget!!

got a subscription to Olive....it was a couple of years back, but it wasn't too worthy, or full of toad farts and foie gras, lots of ideas, and also iirc had a nice section each month based on a weeks worth of meals, very easy to adapt.

Not sure how filling toad farts are but made me like a kid!

I sat down with a note book recently and made both kids 11 & 14 and dh suggest 3 meals each as they all complained too they didn't like what was offered so they had to contribute, I wouldn't answer any questions either until they swapped the answer for another meal idea that will teach them it's not easy when you've been doing it 20 years!!

If we're talking cooking magazines I really rate Delicious, I think it had more actual recipes than Olive and far more that are family friendly & weekday achievable. I borrow mine from the library every month.