Do people really eat a cooked meal every single night?

[JonesyAndTheSalad]

I just can't!

I have done this week as we've got guests so it seems the polite and right thing to do...to cook a meal each night.

But the endless stream of meat and potatoes is awful!

We've had pasta one night but that was also with meat...another night we had pizzas...home made...the other nights it has been curry with chicken and rice and a variety of red meat with various potatoes.

I always ask the guests "What do you fancy this evening?" and it's always meat and potatoes of some kind!

Is this usual? Tonight I just didn't fancy it so said I didn't fancy a full meal and I ate some yogurt...they were a bit

Do you eat like this every night? Or do you sometimes think "Meh I'll have a sandwich" or "The kids will be happy with egg on toast and some fruit"

Or is it only me?

We have a cooked meal every night unless we've been out for a massive lunch or similar, then it would just be a sandwich.

I can't imagine not being starving by 6pm. toast or cereal wouldn't be enough. It's not always meat or fish but it's pretty much always hot and made freshly, but often simple meals like salmon with curried puy lentils, or a risotto, or stir fry.

I am quite greedy though so it wouldn't hurt me to miss a few meals!

Cooked meal for us every night except Friday when we have a takeaway. 3 courses at the weekend but 2 during the week. A mix of fish, meat and vegetarian meals. I use the slow cooker, pressure cooker or conventional means depending on what we are having. I also plan the weeks meals based on what I get in the veg box and how much time I have on a Saturday to get to the butchers or my fishmonger. On holiday on Skye atm and cooked a 4 course seafood dinner because the wholesale fresh seafood here is incredible. As you have guessed food is not just fuel for our family

Yes. If we have a ready meal once or twice a month we have fresh veg or fresh salad with it.
Having a child I make the effort for us to eat home cooked food. When we go out to eat I don't mind if she has chips on a side of her main meal as I know it's a one off and that we/she has home cooked food daily.

It's so much easier once you get into a routine and maybe plan out the week's menu. We have red meat twice a week, chicken and fish and sometimes a vegetarian meal the rest of the time.

Yes, but sometimes eggs with couscous and salad items which takes less time than heating up a ready meal or making toast. My son and I call it '1 second supper'

Yes normally, we generally have porridge or toast in the morning in winter (muesli or bircher muesli in summer); sandwich lunch or pasta; then a cooked meal in the evening - always a family meal just after 6pm (after the Clangers and Abney & Teal, but before Night Garden - basically the sound of the credit music to In The Night Garden is now like Pavlov's bell to me )

We're lucky that DD is not too fussy an eater so we can just cook one meal for all of us - in the winter normally something cooked from scratch like chilli with rice or jackets, served with natural yoghurt and sliced beans; spaghetti bolognese (DH is very proud of his bolognese ); beef stew with mash and veg; pasta; hearty thick soup with bread; chickpea tagine with couscous; salmon cooked in foil with green beans, lemon, tomatoes, served with new potatoes; jacket potatoes with fillings and salad; fish fingers, chips and veg; roast chicken; and so on.

In the summer we do quite often have a cold evening meal, but it's quite elaborate rathe than a lunch salad - e.g. big salads with fish and meat; a Greek style meal of falafel, houmous, Greek salad, tabouleh; salad Nicoise; a selection of breads, cheeses and hams, and so on.

We don't routinely have a pudding, though DD will normally have some fruit, and sometimes either some yoghurt or some homemade cake or similar.

I can get a cooked lunch at work, too, but I don't at all mind having two cooked meals a day - I just load up with more veg and have slightly fewer carbs.

Yes, I cook a meal every night. I work so some days are pasta. On my days off I'll make a batch of meals such as pasta sauce, pies, casseroles and such like so I can just take something out the freezer if I'll be pushed for time. And we always eat at the table and chat.

Yes. I cook from scratch every night. Have done since I was 13 and had to get dinner on the table for when my mum and dad got in. All the practice has made me pretty quick and if we are feeling flush I do take short cuts. So tonight I've got a bag of ready cut butternut squash to roast and I'll do that with rice, avocado and simmered black beans to make a Buddha bowl. Meals hardly ever take over half an hour to put together.

I do a hot meal every night without fail.....i have children and like them to sit around the table once a day to talk to each other rather than fight each other! ( because they do that all day!) and on Sunday's its roast dinner as they wont let me have a day off! Roast dinner is their favourite meal of the week! Rod for own back comes into mind here! * checks with children at what age they are hoping to move out!**

Children said NEVER! Bugger :( Going to be peeling spuds for a long time yet then!

Yes, we do too...every night a full cooked meal, but vegetarian, so usually quorn etc.

We have the main meal at lunchtime (at school or work). The children (5 and 8) have an afternoon snack when they get back from school and then when we have dinner they have soup or salad or egg with bread if they want it or a sandwich and my husband too. I tend to have a boiled egg or some tuna and sometimes an apple too. I like to sleep hungry and we eat quite late. Couldn't be bothered with cooking. We all sit at the table though and chat as we eat.

No I don't eat a cooked meal every night. I'm really not a dinner fan. I'm a breakfast person and tend to eat less as the day goes on. I cook a proper meal from scratch half the week. The rest of the time my children will have something from the freezer or have some type of eggs or beans on toast, or a jacket potato. Like me they are less keen on dinner and tend to have a hot meal at lunch with a pudding at school. Nursery also did it this way round with the big dinner at midday and tea, being something like sandwiches or quiche, savoury scones etc. As a result they prefer to eat this way. My eldest often asks for a cold dinner. I don't like having something too heavy before sleeping.

Yet another for the cooked meal every night, here, I'm afraid - but it's a different meal each time. I don't think I could cope with cooking the same thing night, after night, after night, to be honest.

My parents have only recently come round to the concept of pasta. They don't "do" rice (which is slightly bewildering as one of my grandfathers loved curries with rice, and introduced me to them both as a frugal meal when I was still quite young). Or salad. Or sandwiches which don't have the remains of their Friday night roast in. Although my father does make the most beautiful chips on the face of the planet (this alone might out me ). My grandmother (on the other side to the grandfather who liked rice) was one for meat and spuds every night of the week, come rain or shine. Always over cooked meat and boiled to death veggies, too. Perhaps it's a generational thing?

But yes, cooked meal every night. Why? I enjoy cooking, I enjoy experimenting with meals (not always successfully, it has to be said) and I grew up in a family where if you don't present your family with a cooked meal every night then you're slacking somewhere We do have take-out every now and then, but that's still a cooked meal. It still counts.

Yes always cook here (unless we are out!). Not meat and potato every night, imagine that does get boring!! We mix it up a lot, stir fry, rice dishes, hot salads. Jamie's 15 / 30 minute meals are always good inspiration for keeping things interesting. Neither of us would be happy with a yoghurt or similar for dinner! We do take the time element out of it by cooking twice as much one or twice a week and keeping it to reheat another night for time sake.

I'm on my way home from a work event and when I get in at 9pm I have absolutely no intention of cooking a meal when I get in! I had a lovely cooked lunch (delicious Ethiopian curry stall at Borough market) and will have a bit of fruit and some cereal when I get in. Yes cereal - as tragic as those here may think that is!

The adage is to eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. I switch it up and have breakfast like a prince, lunch like a king and dinner like a pauper. Even if I leave work on time and get home for about 7ish I still don't want to head straight to the kitchen to prepare and cook a meal. I'd rather eat a decent lunch (that someone else makes for me!) instead of a sandwich, and have a snack for dinner.

Nope not just you 😀

I work long full time hours, DH works full time, kids are at school/nursery/with nanny. I grew up with an anorexic mother and never saw her eat a proper meal, nor did she ever cook for us. I eat frozen food or microwave meals most nights when I'm not at work dinners. Food doesn't interest me, I eat when I'm hungry but not for enjoyment or social interaction. I don't seek nutritional content or variety. Growing up we fended for ourselves finding stuff in the freezer or making ourselves beans on toast and I've continued that in adult life.

DH grew up having a family cooked meal every night and he tries to do this when he can for the kids but it depends if they've already eaten with nanny/nursery before he gets home. If they've already eaten he just cooks for himself, every night. He would probably rather I eat with him but in the week we are usually just too busy with work and he eats meat or fish with every meal so when we do eat at the same time, I've got my frozen pizza and he's having salmon and veg...

We have a cooked meal every night - partly as that was how I was brought up with my Mum doing this every evening but also my daughter's school can't provide meals so she takes a healthy packed lunch. Being a healthy active 14 year old she needs at least one big meal a day!

As a rule yes but very occasionally, if we've had an adequate lunch, then it's something light.

I work shifts so sometimes I'm not at home in the evenings anyway. Both dcs have a hot meal at school and dp usually has a big breakfast and a big dinner at work (I'm northern and have dinner in the day)
So most of us arn't that hungry in the evening. We still all sit down together at the table with a pot of tea and a teacake/toast/crumpet or something. There's absolutely no point in wasting time, effort and money on a meal that no one eats

I am in a train back from Salford.

Right now I would literally kill for a bowl of porridge or pasta with shop bought sauce!!!!

Fortunately DS has text me a photo of the fajitas he and DH ate earlier .

Sometimes we have a cold buffet type dinner with ham, cheeses, salad and fresh baguettes or garlic dough balls. Generally we have a hot meal every night though. We eat fish or meat with rice, chicken drumsticks, sausages, vegetarian pasta dishes, lasagne with meat or fish. Even something like kedgeree is simple but tasty. Or classics like shepherd's pie, or maybe a stir fry with noodles or rice?

Yes, every day. But we rarely (never, in fact) eat a cooked lunch.

But it's only meat and potatoes once or twice a week. I vary things a lot.

Most days I will arrive at dinnertime having eaten little more than a yoghurt and some fruit.

We have a cooked meal every night but in my ideal world I wouldn't. I'm happy with just some cheese on a cracker or maybe a bacon sarnie or cheese toastie, but DH is the opposite. I don't think the kids need a cooked meal on an evening either as they have one for school lunch.

When he goes away I live it up and have a bit of toast for tea, it's glorious!

Cooked meal at least once every day - at the weekends it's a cooked brunch and then a cooked evening meal. Food is more than fuel for us.....we love eating good food.