...or is this slightly odd behaviour with regard to leftovers?

[naranciata]

At FIL's house. Yesterday I singlehandedly cooked a 3 course Christmas dinner for 11 people then went to bed about 9:30 because 25w pregnant and knackered. Woke up this morning and opened the fridge and you would not know it was Christmas yesterday. Every single leftover item has been portioned up and frozen and added to the "freezer spreadsheet" pinned to the noticeboard in the kitchen.

I was thinking along the lines of bubbles and squeak with fried eggs and cold meat for lunch, turkey sandwiches for snacks, big pan of veg soup for the next few days' food. Basically - no 'proper' cooking but lots of nice food.

I asked FIL if he'd frozen everything (as opposed to putting in garage fridge etc) and he thanked me for cooking and said he'd barely have to cook for himself over the next few days because of everything he was left with. In the same breath, he asked if I wanted some mince defrosting to make a chilli tonight.

AIBU to feel like it's not really up to him to freeze all the Christmas leftovers to be eaten when we've all left? Him and I paid for the food 50:50.

Well done. Hope you get a chance to put your feet up properly as well!

OP... why are YOU doing all the cooking? Surely there must be somebody else whose turn it now is?

Good for you OP.

Your FIL's actions are some of the most greedy, selfish and plain fucking stingy I've ever heard in my life. Talk about the spirit of Christmas .

Now get your feet up with a !

You need a different plan for next Christmas OP.

I hope you are now sitting down with a mince pie and a

I've just made some French bread, and baked some Brie and added turkey and cranberry sauce (that I made yesterday) also re cooked the bacon and maple sprouts, and the roast tatties and pigs in blankets...

Bloody stuffed now, sitting on the sofa with a wee glass of red, while ds's assault us with board games....

Well done OP, for taking them back out the freezer Boxing Day is for left overs.

STOP pandering to his miserliness then! And FFS, why the fuck are you doing all the cooking? Don't cook anymore.

'Erm he might not be greedy or thoughtless, he might be poor '

I'm poor. I'd never in a million years dream of doing this to my family. If I couldn't afford to host them, I'd not do it. Sure as hell wouldn't expect my pregnant DIL to cook for me whilst I did FA and then half inch every scrap of leftover they half paid for and then expect her to cook some more.

I agree that he shouldn't have taken the leftovers, but if he & Op paid 50/50 for 11 people, he's not that tight is he?

Well, when it suits him iyswim.

We were only 5 yesterday but husband & I still cooked together & the kids peeled/chopped veg.

Don't help=don't eat!!

Oh no! Reminds me of last year when I parcelled up the left overs, one parcel for my parents and one for the rest of us. It was only on Boxing Day when I went to reheat ours that I discovered they'd taken our share. I rang them up to discover they'd eaten most of it and frozen the rest. 'We did think it was a big parcel'. Yes it was.

Agree with everyone else, why tf are you doing all the cooking?!

Wants a Freezer spreadsheet - misses point of thread

Well done OP. You win the leftover wars!

BestIsWest some friends of our did that to us, they took the naice ham. A full naice ham I'd baked for a buffet celebration. There was more than half of it left on the bone when we'd done. Lots of other food left too.

I said to my friend, "Help yourself to some leftovers when you leave, we'll never eat all of it." I got out containers for her to load up some sides and foil and ziplocks for meat and a box to put everything in etc then busied myself cleaning up.
She 'kindly' covered and put everything away in my fridge when she'd got what she wanted so it wasn't until later I realised she'd taken ALL the bloody ham. My DH nearly cried, he loves baked ham and had been counting on it for supper, several days of sandwiches for work, ham and bean stew, omelettes...
I called and managed to fake tinkly-laugh instead of screaming blue murder down the phone when I told my stbex friend she must have packed the ham in her box instead of the fridge by mistake. And could she send at least half of it with her ds who worked with my DH the following day.

It was the last of many many straws but it certainly counted when we decided a few months later to cut those particular friends loose.

*wasn't the last of many many straws.

Did she return the ham, SomeKind?

The whole point of Christmas dinner is having the leftovers to eat on Boxing Day.

There are also spreadsheets of central heating vs. outside temperature; hot water usage variance with houseguests, for example

agog

He should have done the cooking with analytical skills like that!

Mind you, you might have ended up with carefully counted peas and carrots on your plates, and the meat weighed out according to your BMI

Did she give back the ham? I'd have gone over there and picked it up, the cow.

A freezer spreadsheet?

I thought half the fun was picking out unlabelled anonymous tupperware and deporting it for a delicious meal of stewed gooseberries and kippers.

*defrosting, not deporting (You bastid autocorrect)

I didn't mean to come across as a martyr for saying I cooked singlehandedly. I'm probably the only one capable and I do love cooking. DH helped with a lot of the washing up and grunt work like peeling but no one else has been very helpful at all.

I've just had a massive turkey, stuffing, cranberry, salad and mayo sandwich. Then a mince pie. Then a brownie. Everyone else knows where everything is and is equally as welcome as I am to help themselves. No one else has made themself a sandwich. Mugs.

SDTG "Did she return the ham?"

She returned some of the half I requested. It was better than nothing and I think I made a point, she was a bit surprised I asked at all because we'd let go so many of these kind of entitled 'mistakes' or 'misunderstandings' previously. It was just one too many, a cumulative drip drip effect over a few years and behaviour which was escalating, this time I asserted myself. And my dh and I continued to do so on all subsequent occasions, as I said, a few months later a few more pisstaking, selfish, tightwad incidents and one pretty big one led to a total breakdown in the friendship. Shit, we've saved ourselves a fortune since they are out of our lives!

What's naice ham?

Naice ham is a MN in-joke*, but it means proper ham sliced from a joint rather than square re-formed (cheap) ham.

• from memory, a shopping list had on it "ham for children" and "nice ham". "Naice" is "nice" but in a Hyacinth Bucket faux-posh voice.

Naice ham is extra-nice nice ham

HTH

it comes from a mis-spelt shopping list reported on MN a while ago {smile]

Take some leftovers out the freezer to defrost for your dinner tonight.

When FIL asks, just say "oh I thought you were making chilli for yourself? I can't be bothered cooking again, just fancied some of OUR leftovers!"

Oh lol I thought it was a place!