To get irritated by DH's forays into the kitchen to "cook"

[MattDillonsPants]

He occasionally gets an urge to cook...which is fine of course. It's not MY kitchen though I cook most of the meals at home.

So he wanted to make some tomato sauce which could be used for pizza bases and or as a base for soups or pastas. SO he spent a long time chopping ridiculous quantities of tomatoes and cooking them down with herbs in a MASSIVE catering sized pot.

Finished it...I tasted it and it almost took my head off because he'd put loads of fresh chiilis in it.

Whatever. WHY he did this is beyond me because we have two children who can't eat the enormous amount of sauce he's made....that was yesterday...it's 3.00pm here in Australia so I just decided to begin to make tonight's tea...meatballs.

I chop up some onions...look for the garlic...can't find it...ask DH where it is...he says, "Oh. The garlic. I used it all yesterday"

He used two whole bulbs of garlic and never bothered to replace them or tell me where they've gone!

I am tired so probably more irritable than usual. He's now gone to get more...but I'm so annoyed. These self indulgent experimental cooking adventures are wasteful and silly.

And how can I de-chilli an ocean of sauce please? Not milk or cream as DH doesn't eat dairy.

[Roussette]

although I have no clue what you could do with the sauce

I do. Chuck

I know from experience that having huge amounts of something I've cooked that is really not good is a chore. Much easier to chuck the lot and start again.

[cherrytree63]

Yesterday my OH said he was going to Lidls, what did we need.
So I said just do what I do, look around and see what was needed.
God knows what he did buy, we have no milk, no butter, two slices of bread, but there's plenty of frozen chips and pasties....

[elementofsurprise]

Feel like this thread should be on the feminism board! Had similar issues with various ex's. It seems that to many men, cooking is some kind of indulgent hobby, whilst it's up to the woman to actually feed a family and stick to a budget. Plus the extraordinary amounts of mess, using every pan, whilst the woman is used to having to clean up so when she cooks she minimises mess....
(For anyone unable to read my post where I said "many men" I mean NOT ALL MEN)

Franny My husband follows recipes religiously. So if the recipe calls for six shallots and we have seven shallots, he'll use six. It makes me unreasonably annoyed. USE THE LAST SHALLOT.

YY to this. I almost posted on here when my ex did this with a load of carrot and coriander soup. I had a mountain of carrots I'd been given, so decided to use them all up in soup and freeze most of it. Had a lot to do, so he offered to do the soup (he loves cooking, and is good at it). He knew the soup was only being made to use up the carrots, yet only used about a third of them! Made a little pan of soup... when I asked he said "Oh but that's all the recipe needed" FFS!! And he left so much mess (it was up the walls!) that it woud have been quicker for me to cook the soup myself than to clean up after him - his 'helping' was actively unhelpful! And of course I had to grit my teeth and get on with it, whilst trying to politely point out to him why I was frustrated, without bruising his fragile ego. Grr.

[DoreenLethal]

As an aside, if you do have hot sauce that blows your brains out, a good spoonful of mayo on top helps to cool it down so good for dairy free people.

[CruCru]

Ah, you see this sort of thing really annoys me. I remember saying once that knowing that I had to clean up a kitchen that had been utterly destroyed ruined even the nicest meal. It got better after that.

[MrsFrankRicard]

YANBU, that would drive me nuts. You could dilute the sauce with lots of tinned chopped tomatoes or passata and freeze it in portions although then you will have heaps of the stuff and be eating it forever.

[gentlydownthestreammm]

This thread makes me glad that the only cooking DP ever does is opening tins and reheating stuff on nights I tell him I can't be bothered to cook. And he checks with me before using stuff. OTOH reading that back it hardly sounds like a feminist triumph either...

[Bounced]

HowBad is spot on.

It's the "I've had fun playing, now you sort out the mess and other consequences (running out of stuff, where to store massive amounts of unexpected food, knock on meal planning effects etc) and while you're doing all that cook an edible meal and praise me multiple times for all the work I did". Ugh.

[MattDillonsPants]

I wonder if I could use coconut milk in it and use it in curry? Would the Italian herbs ruin it for curry? Or could I quash them with curry spices? I use freshly ground spices...not just curry powder.

[CruCru]

Coconut milk is as good a way of dealing with it as anything else.

[fuzzywuzzy]

To de chilli it add lime juice or I've also in the past added more onion to a curry which is too hot. I'm not sure if this will work with pasta sauce

[HarlotBronte]

YANBU. Don't be fooled into thinking you are just because the first response said so.

[PandoesnotwearRaphaclothes]

Shallot-gate. The man is right. Even according to Elizabeth David, if you are a fair novice, you stick to the recipe. End of.

and all of this moaning and blether about making a mess when cooking. Big deal. Chill(i) out!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

and all of this moaning and blether about making a mess when cooking. Big deal. Chill(i) out!

Really? Why should she?

[CocktailQueen]

God, that would piss me off too. If he's making a new dish, suggest he makes a small quantity first? Suggest he tastes it as he cooks, to check it's not too spicy?

I write our meals for the week on the kitchen blackboard and dh will ask me what ingredients I need for each, if he fancies cooking - maybe your h could do that?

[Silvercatowner]

Don't chuck it. Put it into smaller containers or bags and use it as the base for a tomato sauce. It'll be fine diluted with another tin of tomatoes.

[foodiefil]

To de-chilli a sauce you need to get an ice cube, put it in kitchen roll and dip it into the sauce - this should suck lots of the oil out (where the chilli is hiding).

Good luck!

Also - too much salt? Slice of raw potato in for a couple of mins, then out and discard.

[bluesbaby]

Reduce it down as much as possible. Put it in an airtight jar in the fridge and use as a piquant sauce (a tablespoon or two) like a puree, to add flavour to your regular tomato sauce. Obviously don't use it if the food is not suited to chillis - may not be good for spag bol etc.

[HormonalHeap]

I should be so lucky.. wish my dh would foray into the kitchen, chillies or no chillies!

[Pipbin]

Using all the garlic and tomatoes really is no big deal.

You have no idea how far the OP is from a shop. She said that she is in Aus, it might well be that she has to travel for a while to go into the town for shopping. Not everyone has a Tesco metro on the door step.

I simply don't allow DH in the kitchen, except to wash up.

[expatinscotland]

It's not your job to tone down the sauce. Just leave it in the fridge till it's time to chuck it out. YANBU.

[Slimmingcrackers]

OP you have my sympathies!

Dh has a very stressful job and cooking is his "release" - which is wonderful most of the time - except when he uses ingreds intended for other things and doesn't tell me and uses every pot in the house and only clears up half heartedly afterwards .

Also I totally "get" your frustration at him taking time to make something wholesome from scratch which the dc won't eat!

[paxillin]

I hate it when people turn lots of food into a vanity project leaving the family unfed.

I had a boyfriend like this, £20 for food shopping was our budget. He bought £16 worth of herbs. He wasn't my bf for long, he would have turned a month's worth of food into something showy-offy and leave everyone to eat rice.

[ArmchairTraveller]

'and all of this moaning and blether about making a mess when cooking. Big deal. Chill(i) out!'

You are right Pan, I don't mind if people make a mess in the kitchen whilst they are cooking, provided it's left clean and clear for the next person.