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?

Fuck no! But I see we're in the minority. We have a proper cooked evening meal maybe once a week. Otherwise it's toast, super noodles, a quick wrap, sometimes even just a yogurt (or biscuits/chocolate if you're dp - he has a sweet tooth...).

But we're morning eaters; big breakfasts, daytime snacks, hot lunches. Never feel much like eating after 3/4pm. Toddler ds is the same, both at home and at nursery. Big breakfast, cooked lunch then "tea" mid-afternoon, which is often sandwichy. If he's peckish before bed he has a little something.

Works for us; both me and dp are super-sporty rakes. Plus we're lazy in the evenings

Yes we all sit at the table and eat a cooked meal every night, though it doesn't very often consist of meat and potatoes. Lots of veggie, fish, rice, pasta, cous cous. The cooked meal may just be frozen pizza, but it is cooked! Occasionally in the summer it may just be a salady type meal, but it is still a proper, sit down meal.

I usually cook but rarely meat and potatoes meals, and during the week is often something light pasta or fajitas - who wants to cook after a 12 hour work day?

I would feel really uncomfortable if I was someones guest and they cooked an evening mean for the guests and then sat there with a yogurt - it feels a bit like martyrdom - I would rather they say 'don't feel like cooking, sort yourself out'

Sometimes I just want a bacon sandwich or some soup....or a cheese toastie!

I'd feel rude saying that to my guests. Perhaps I should just say "I'm just going to have a sarnie...help yourself to the kitchen though! Feel free to make yourself what you like."

We have a cooked meal on week nights. Weekends are more casual grazing or we're eating out somewhere.
I work from home so do the weekday cooking & only do a meat based meal maybe twice a week. There's plenty of fish or veggie choices around.

Pink I didn't actually cook it tonight. DH did it.

And I didn't sit with my sad yogurt at the table! I was elsewhere in the house.

Yes, but I am veggie. Rarely eat potatoes now I come to think about it!

We eat a hot meal every night but not often the "meat and two veg" type!
My DP does the cooking and he only gets home from work after 6, so he either does quick stuff or cooks batches, so we eat the same thing a couple of nights in a row (microwave), and he cooks for the freezer so sometimes we just take something out and heat it up.
Recently we've had pulled pork (for a few days), risotto, pizzas (on naan bread bases), meatballs (again for a few days), chilli (from freezer)...
The last times I had to fend for myself I had fish and chips (bought) and omelette (DP doesn't like eggs)

Yes we do.

If I was a guest and my host said there was no dinner and they were having yogurt I would a) be hungry and wondering how to go about getting some dinner and b) trying to work out what I'd done to piss my host off.

We have a cooked meal every night here too, apart from on a Sunday because we often have a roast dinner for lunch so just have sandwiches/something on toast in the evening. It's meat/potatoes a couple of nights, pasta, fish, something with rice etc and usually whichever veg looks nice (or is on offer in the shop!)

Friday is usually pizza and movie night on the sofa (homemade pizzas though, couldn't afford take away every week!) but the rest of the time we eat as a family at the table.

As others have said, both hubby and I grew up with this so seems normal to us.

CBA with cooked meal every night.

Sometimes I just want a bacon sandwich or some soup....or a cheese toastie!

Jonesy - on weekends when the DC are with their dad, I'll often have a bacon/cheese/tomato toastie for dinner. Lovely stuff .

My late husband loved fillet steak, but I pretended to could never cook it just to his liking. So, if I didn't feel like cooking, I would buy him some fillet steak, and he would cook it himself. He always thought I was being super thoughful buying him his favourite meal, while really I was just trying to get out of cooking and eating some yoghurt for dinner myself.

Yes, most nights, but rarely have red meat - maybe once or twice a month.

We often have salad, soup or sandwiches in summer, but in winter we cook - fish and vegetables, grilled chicken, curries, pasta with vegetables or pesto.

It doesn't have to be meat and potatoes all the time

We have a cooked meal every evening. It's rarely meat and two veg. We cooks a lot of curries and casseroles and we, more often than not, have a roast on Sundays. I've started to do roasts sometimes on Fridays too to accommodate a friend who often comes over and who doesn't like curries etc.

Sounds like your guests are staying a long time if they have already been with you 10 days. When are they leaving? I never have people to stay for more than 3 nights and always cook a proper meal for them but if I had guests staying for weeks they would have to take on some of the cooking or get take-away some of the time.

I don't cook every night. I do a lot of batch cooking where I can, soup, casserole type meals, anything in a tomato sauce (chilli, bolognase). Anything that doesn't do so well in the freezer once it's been cooked has to be eaten for meals the next few days. But I have no issue eating lasagna or enchiladas for tea 3 night in a row. Heck if I make a big enough one I have it for lunch too!

People work on different definitions of the word cooked, I think.

Toast is only 'cooked' in the technical sense of applying heat to food before you eat it, but I can't see how bacon isn't cooked. It's an easy tea, but then I did steak and salad the other night, not a potato in sight, and the steak took the same time to cook as bacon does.

We do have a something and toast tea probably once a week, sometimes soup. With the soup normally being home made, but reheated when we have it, so I don't know if that counts as cooked or not! I don't particularly like sandwiches as I always feel they're not very filling for the calories, but then I suppose beans on toast is just a deconstructed butty isn't it!

The odd time it will be a beans on toast or frozen bean burgers type thing but on the whole yes but not necessarily meat and potatoes. Potatoes - make twice the amount so the next night only reheating. I batch cook the likes of bolangese or pasta sauce so all I have to do is throw on pasta. Pouch of rice cuts down on faffing and time. Stirfry no time at all to throw together.

Sitting down as a family to a cooked meal every night was really important to my mum growing up, I suppose I picked it up as habit.

I don't have a cooked meal every night, but we do all eat a cooked meal every day. Sometimes at lunchtime.

But a cooked meal doesn't always mean meat and potatoes, we eat lots of things, some veggie, some meat, some rice/pasta etc. In the summer it might be ham and salad and warm rolls. (so not actually cooked)

I find it a bit odd that you don't need a proper meal at some point in the day. I would get very bogged down with sandwiches - too much bread!

Depends on what you mean by "cooked". Definitely not meat, potatoes and 2 veg but sometimes it will be omelette with oven chips and a bit of salad, or hearty soup and bread, beans on toast, poached egg on toast etc etc.

Really CBA with a full cooked meal every night. If you have long term guests and this is what they expect - supermarket microwaveable options are your friend!

Yeah pretty much every night but I don't cook, DH does. If he's away I'll have a bowl of pasta or some soup. Can't remember the last time we had a 'meat and potatoes' type meal though. Last night was pork, butter bean and chorizo stew. If we have guests we menu plan in advance and mix it up with eating out and take aways.

Oh yes and baked potatoes with lots of different fillings/salad - easy and quick to do in microwave.

Yes we cook every night. Last week I did a salmon pasta dish, a paella, chicken tagine, chilli con carne, stuffed chicken breasts, steak...

The only exception would be a business lunch/ lunch out with friends/ Sunday roast etc in which case we'd do a light dinner. Or if we're massively hungover in which case I need mature cheddar cheese on toast with salt and vinegar Real McCoys for tea.

The dc do most nights. They have a packed lunch at school so need something cooked...although this is sometimes a tuna jacket or omlette, it's not always a full cooked dinner type meal.

Dh and I probably don't eat a 'proper' meal 3/7 nights ish. Generally the nights when the dc have eaten earlier and maybe had a pre-made frozen spagbol for dinner or similar. Sometimes we're so knackered we'd rather make do with a tin of soup or scrambled egg on toast rather than cook.