To ask for what to feed unwanted guests?

[MaryPopppins]

We have a couple coming over on Sunday for lunch.

I don't want either of them here. Nor does DH.

But it's unavoidable. So it's happening. So no "just don't have them" comments please as that's a whole other drama.

Anyway. In the past (when we enjoyed their company) I've cooked various things, roasts, lasagne, buffet type bread/cheese/salad etc.

Well. They're all too much effort for me to go to for them now. Jacket potatoes maybe.

What's the easiest group meal I can throw out. That will feed us, but not make the kitchen and loads of crockery dirty please?

Maybe a big bowl of pasta and a salad?

They should behave better after their telling off. If not you have to decide how often to see them. Do it with a good grace or not at all, you don't have to knock yourself out, simple is fine or get dh to cook. Don't let them abuse you or your child.

Pasta bake and bag of salad, and hope the fuckers choke on it

I agree with previous posters that you should have food you as a family will also enjoy. The Co-Op does some really nice, easy, ready-prepared meals that you just have to shove in the oven but which are not pre-cooked, as do Waitrose, I think. (Sorry, haven't lived in England for a while, so could be wrong about that.) No point not having an enjoyable Sunday lunch to make a point. As it were.

I second doing spaghetti bolognese, its quick and easy with hardly any washing up.

It also looks like some effort has been made but not too much, and given the circumstances I would also give them the same meal everytime they visit so they know your certainly not putting yourself out there for them but are however being a good host as you have been brought up to be by your parents.

Anybody who criticises my parenting will get zero effort from me I’m afraid.

"I'm not going to be the person to stop grandkids seeing grandparents"

Well maybe they should-sounds as if they don't care about them at all.

Why don't you & the kid(s) go to your parents for lunch & leave your husband to it.

Can't see why they would want to visit or why he would want them to either.

I wouldn't be providing anything at all.

We would be eating out and splitting the bill. I would choose a very loud and boisterous setting to offset their awful company and drown out the conversation, and a few glasses of wine should see you over the line until they go.

Just tell your DH to make his parents a sandwich. Take your "weird" child out for a slap-up lunch somewhere. Bastards.

Go to Iceland and buy some ready meals which you can just do in the oven. Bag of salad and tomatoes.
Strawberry cheesecake.
No wine; say you’ve given up alcohol for lent.

Hopefully they'll be on their best behaviour this time. I can't understand ILs who just want to upset those people who ought to be loved and cherished.

supernoodles and frozen peas

"I'm amusing myself thinking of all the things I could serve blush but I'm going to maintain the higher ground and be civil."

PA gesture or behavior is not the higher ground IMO (not saying that's what your planning).

I think you should cater to your usual standards, and be polite and pleasant enough.

You can do that without the same level of intimacy that you normally share with them as pil/grandparents.
Withholding that level, alone, will make your position clear and leave you firmly on the "higher ground".

Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie with frozen roast potatoes or mash and peas and carrots with angel whip for pudding.

Or, Mr Brains faggots in gravy, mash, frozen veg and tinned rice pudding.

Minimal prep and washing up.

I go for pasta, salad and garlic bread , followed by Cheesecake, cream and maybe a fruit salad? Minimal effort as you could get most of that pre made...

I had this with my mother. Except it was something dd had done. She was 7 and in high spirits, being a bit silly but all age appropriate stuff. Think dd and dn climbing on my brother / tickling him to get him out of bed at almost 9 am. He wasn’t naked or anything and I’d been looking after his ds for a good couple of hours. Obviously his ds doing the same thing was fine. . The way my mother talked you’d think dd had molested him (man in his mid 40’s). She had the cheek to tell me dd wouldn’t turn out well and that she would smack dd if she did it to her. This coming from a woman, who let the said same brother emotionally and physically abuse me. Think strangulation and imprisonment along with some demeaning sexualised abuse.

I can thoroughly recommend a period of nc for the type of behaviour you describe. The way I would handle this is to call their behaviour out on the spot. Remember you can ask them to leave if they get too much. Don’t contact them for a few weeks. Then call them exclusively to elicit an apology. No discussion about anything else. End the call nicely if they refuse. Stay calm. Obvs the calls will have to come from your dh.

A big frozen ready meal( meal for 4)- about £4 Iceland. Usually shepherds pie or lasagne I think. With a couple of cheap garlic baguettes.
Or a big casserole dish of pasta with a jar of ragu poured over n the garlic baguettes.

OP I am glad you explained.

It is not your responsibility to cater for your relatives- his family- he does the cooking.

And you have lots of options- send the kids to their friend's houses for the afternoon and drink gin while your OH cooks.

Or stay for the first 10 minutes to say hello then take the kids to the cinema.

Either way you dan't have to think about food.

Do you have a lild near?

A large jar of sauerkraut and a couple of packs of the weirdest looking sausages.

Boil the kettle and make stock with a stock cube.

Arrange the sauerkraut and sausages in a pyrex dish, pour over the stock and bake for 30 mins.

It's actually really nice if you use the right sausages, not with lidl bratwurst though.

You could also add some black pudding.

We have something similar in my family. I tend to suggest eating out because people moderate their comments in public, and if you book a busy restaurant the waiting staff will move the meal along because they want the table.

In your situation I would buy large supermarket ready to cook meals. Not m and s, not gourmet ones from a fancy fancy farm shop, just mediocre food. Don't spend ages cleaning up. Just give them the idea they are a brief interruption in your otherwise busy weekend.

Supermarket hot spit-roast chicken, jacket spuds, big ready-made salad with supermarket Tiramasu or profiteroles to follow. Very little effort involved in that.

I think revenge causes no good. I think a poor meal is hidden aggression. Understable but not the answer.
The answer is to communicate assertively, to not pretend you’re OK or accepting of their comments. To tell them the impact of what they said.

Perhaps that would best come from your husband and you together. So arrange for your parents to have the child/children whilst you tell the truth over lunch. A nice but simple lunch, doesn’t matter. What matters is you and your husband standing together and telling them the comments and judgements are not acceptable. Maybe listen in case amongst the comments is something valid or useful- do the children get any feral time, ever?
Then be brave enough to put the nastiness behind you and start afresh with new rules of engagement.

following your update

Don't feed them - feed yourselves? What would you like for lunch? Or do you need to make a lunch that gives you leftovers for the freezer/week? Does your child like cooking - cook with them. Make the ILs incidental. Soup, bread, cheese - a lovely lunch - biscuits and coffee: your favourites.

Good luck with the visit. Play ILs' bingo? Have an escape route if necessary - a friend you have to pop round to.

I’d kill with kindness.

But I like the idea of doing something with the dc - can you make bread with them? Definitely something that keeps you away from them

💐

After the update OP, I'd do two batches of chilli, some nice garlic bread and a lovely fresh crispy salad and wine (but v small glasses, you'll see why shortly).

One nice normal, a bit spicy but nothing too exciting, exactly to my usual tastes and hotness preferences.

Then another which had SO much garlic and SO much Scotch bonnet chillies (with seeds) in it, it would literally make you cry (and cause havoc to the intestinal tract and anus probably later that very day).

I'd dish up the normal chilli for us, the superheated supernova chilli for them.

My DDs 'weird' (ie has anxiety) too, due to an awful father and family on father's side. She most certainly is not 'weird' and anyone who said that would be out of my and her life permanently. Sadly, in our case, it means her 'D'Dad and 99% of her family is out of her life - he once told me DD "needed counselling" (not because he thought she might benefit from it, but with the implication that there's something 'wrong' with her, she's a bit mental). That didn't go down well.

Anyway, you probably won't do this OP because you are a very nice person indeed and of higher moral fibre than myself, clearly (to which I take my hat off to you). But I would question, doesn't DD pick up on the in-laws dislike of her??

Laxatives