To think this is a good enough dinner..

[cutthegraa]

Okay, so dinner for the family was (6 year old and toddler);

• unlimited homemade lentil soup
• unlimited warm crusty bread and butter
• unlimited cooked ham

So the 6 year old had 2 big bowls, lots of shredded ham added and few bits of bread and butter

I think that's a perfectly good dinner for a school night (especially given I work)

MIL thinks it's not enough at all....AIBU?

We had lentil soup with bread then cherry pie for pudding. Dream meal for my son.

Some people just see soup as lunch, which is silly, because it's the same as casserole.

We have chicken noodle soup regularly for evening meal, but if we swap the noodles for potato it's casserole.

My mum used to regularly make a pan of soup from a ham shank, with lentils, carrots and onions. I'm veggie now, but I can still remember how good it tasted. Especially with home baked blackberry pie for afters.

Definitely not unreasonable OP!

I'd want salad with it, but other than that it's fine.

Definitely not dinner though, it's supper.

Sorry I dont really think of soup as a dinner meal either unless it was really so meaty and chunky it was more like a stew. Otherwise I'd see soup as a starter or a like a light lunch. Its not that it doesnt have the key food groups but that in order to feel full I'd probably have to have a lot of bread to feel full.

Sorry thats just me! And probably a bit to do with how I was brought up.

If you'd have said 'stew' instead of 'soup' would she have been happy?

Always have pudding - fruit and yoghurt is there is they want it

I've seen several threads on here of the 'Is soup a proper meal?' variety and I don't really understand why people think there's a yes or no answer. If your children enjoy it and it fills them up, it's a proper meal. If they're complaining afterwards that they're still hungry, it isn't.

If your kids (or partner) had been complaining they were still hungry and you were asking 'AIBU in thinking this should have been enough?', I'd have said yes, YABU. But everyone who actually ate it was clearly happy with it as a meal, so the opinion of an absent relative isn't really relevant.

All this obsessing over food, my pet hate is people who assume you must have a 'hot' meal at least once a day.

This is a new phrase There is not enough "chew" for dinner. It would be filling, but psychologically disappointing.

As if meal planning wasn't tedious enough, now we have to ensure that the food is not going to psychologically disappoint anyone. .

Can you imagine a man posting these sorts of comments or worrying so much about meals he ate/provided? It seems to me yet another way in which women are coerced into believing their role is to provide nutritious meals - even other women are judging each other on their choices.

Tell your MIL it's more than her son cooked for his kids

Thanks for the recipe OP, my lot are very happy on homemade soup for dinner too... you have reminded me that last winter I sometimes made cheese and ham savoury muffins to go with it... (these were initially happy discovery necessitated by running out of bread when I had already made the soup ) they absolutely loved that as a dinner!

They are a legume, not technically a vegetable.

As the definition of 'vegetable' is 'plant/part of a plant that you can eat': legumes are very much vegetables.

I was raised on beans on toast. Your soup is similar in nutrition to that but better cos more vegetables. Your MIL should butt out.

"As if meal planning wasn't tedious enough, now we have to ensure that the food is not going to psychologically disappoint anyone. ."

Oh, God, this times a thousand!

To think that so many people in the world struggle to feed themselves adequately, and here some folk are tuttutting over a hearty meal of soup, bread and meat. I mean, really.

Is MIL perhaps on the large side (just wondering if she over eats, if she considers that not enough for a 6 year old)?

In fairness, I could get pretty fucking fat on a diet of hearty home made soup, fresh bread with a looooooot of butter and ham. If anything the potatoes might be the slightly more diet option, since they're a more nutritious carb than bread and you'd probably have less butter on them. Not that those bake yourself roll things aren't the food of the gods. They are.

But Yanbu OP. Sounds lovely and is actually quite balanced! I would roll around in eat that happily.

It's a generational meat and two veg thing probably, I wouldn't be bothered in the least by any comments reagarding the soup.

Sounds lovely to me OP. Your MIL can butt out.

However - I know my DH would react differently. He's one of those people who thinks soup is not a 'proper' meal - ie it's only for lunch or a starter. It drives me absolutely nuts because he suffers from a number of digestive issues and he gets on with soup really well - it's a great way of getting loads of nutrition into him without placing too much stress on his digestive system - but he refuses to eat it for dinner. Learnt from my MIL who thinks that dinner must always consist of meat and two veg.

We have a similar meal regularly, it's my DC's favourite and it definitely fills them, they always want seconds too. My parents also did this. Can't see the problem. It's hot and it's nutritious.

OP, you have made me drool! I love the sound of your dinner, and am now looking up recipes and flasks to revolutionise our packed lunches.

I don't find (non-lentil) soup filling at all though, it's a drink for me rather than a meal, but yours sounds gorgeous!

My mum would simmer the ham shank in water with plenty of red lentils, barley maybe and finely chopped carrots and onions, then lift the shank out when cooked, and chop it up and add the chunks back to the soup. Served with bread and butter, it was very filling.

I'm wondering if MIL got through 18+ years feeding her kids, without ever doing a lazy tea (your tea was absolutely not a lazy one btw)

I think, like my MIL, they're happy to judge away, forgetting the corners they cut with their own from time to time.

I wish my two would eat lentil soup too!

Have copied your recipe and will have it for tea on Monday. Thanks OP!

I used to give mine lentil soup and bread for tea. They loved it. It is warming and nutritious.

That recipe looks lovely and simple. I think I will make it next week for my own lunch.