To not have eaten the meal DP cooked for us?

[NameofTheWind]

For context: DP will eat pretty much anything, he's more of a quantity over quality type and open admits that fancy food is largely wasted on him. He would choose a larger, normal cut of steak over filet, for example.
I'll eat most things, but am a bit of a foodie so get excited about a good meal.

DP's cooking style could be described as... "pot luck dining" - if it's in the fridge, it's in the pan. Most of the time it's vaguely edible, if a bit eclectic.

Today he decided on curry - Jar of sauce, chicken and maybe some onion and pepper... Or so I thought.

I've just been presented with a curry comprising of chicken, sauce, onion, pepper... Courgette chunks, sweetcorn and button mushrooms.

The sauce has turned to coloured curryish flavour water because of all the veg, and something has happened to the chicken to make it indistinguishable from the mushrooms.

I made a really valiant effort to eat it but its so grim

I've had to admit defeat and DP has obviously noticed. He's such a lovely man and I feel like such a cow, but this is a terrible meal right??

Mincing

So funny hey! And actually very good recipes!

I would just like to say to all who are complaining about their partner's cooking:
A simple solution would be to explain what they are doing wrong and teach them the right way to cook.

If that is too much bother or they don't want to know; there are a number of options:

1. Do all the cooking yourself.
2. Get ready meals for them to prepare when it's their turn to cook.
3. Let them get a take away.
4. Pre-prepare meals and freeze them (cook larger portions to have extra to freeze)and get them to warm them up.
5. A combination of all the above.

I've put most of that in curries (not sweet corn admittedly but mushroom curry is a favourite). Just microwave to evaporate some water

As a single parent who has cooked dinner every night for 16 years I'd say there's a whole lot of fussiness and taking things for granted on this thread, I'd kill for an evening meal badly prepared by someone else!

😂😂

I expect it needed salt

If he's a lovely man he'll understand your opinions on this.
Why can't you just say "Darling I really appreciate the time and effort that went into this meal, but for me, it's too varied, too different, and nowhere near as enjoyable as all the other culinary delights you produce.
Sauce, Chicken, Peppers and onions 'YES!', but not the other stuff next time please 😁".

Did he enjoy it as much as he thought he would? We all have different tastes, and if it's his new favourite he'll keep on cooking it unless you make it clear it's not yours!

My wife gave me a very burnt omelette a couple of weeks ago - burnt despite her being in the kitchen with it!
I teased, we laughed, established that she wouldn't have been too happy with it herself, and I ate it, ...but hope she will leave her phone aside next time she's cooking me an omelette.

Like lots of others in here I bung any veg in most things like that so I don’t see that as a problem.

Also, the fact that someone else had cooked me a meal would send me into fits of glee. I’ve cooked every single meal for myself since March except the three times we ‘ate out to help out’.

OP I think you just need to lower your standards. If he’s prepared to cook for you, eat it!!

That sounds ghastly.

He should have made chicken cacciatore with those ingredients, minus the corn.

There's more to cooking than bunging items into a saucepan and turning on the gas.

The more veg the better. I'm making a curry this evening. Leftover chicken, onion, red pepper, peas. No mushrooms unfortunately, cos we've eaten them all. We love mushies.

If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. You’re not a toddler turning up her nose at something that was a previous favourite.

I wouldn’t of ate it. I would of just said no thanks and that I’m not hungry.

I don’t eat food that I don’t like and I don’t feel bad about it either.

we put carrot, spinach, peppers, courgette, aubergine, cabbage, potatoes... anything that needs to be used up. In curries anything goes! Yanbu regarding mushrooms, yack.

"Thank you very much for cooking dinner. This is lovely." Is all you should say when someone cooks for you.

@Localocal even if you don’t like it? you don’t have a relationship with your other half where you can be truthful? You don’t have to be rude, but sometimes you just need to say ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t like this.’

Try Linda McCartney lasagna potato waffles and tinned spaghetti hoops. That's what my partner (cooked) for me and I ate it because I thought he would never cook again if I didn't. Well he has never cooked again despite me silently suffering 🤣🤮🤬

To all those saying 'just be grateful' or 'just do X to help him': no, I won't. My partner is middle aged and has had plenty of time to learn not to burn food, leave it partially raw, or mix odd ingredients together (fish and apricots, anyone?). I am not going to continue to baby him - I did that for 20 years and it's not my job to fix his repeated errors. He cooks well when he follows a recipe, but he often just cannot be bothered. It's unkind and unfair to deliberately and repeatedly do shared domestic chores poorly and expect the other party to pick up the slack. And I won't be grateful for it, nor will I make it easier on him by doing 100% of the cooking (instead of 85%).

@Mincingfuckdragon2

To all those saying 'just be grateful' or 'just do X to help him': no, I won't. My partner is middle aged and has had plenty of time to learn not to burn food, leave it partially raw, or mix odd ingredients together (fish and apricots, anyone?). I am not going to continue to baby him - I did that for 20 years and it's not my job to fix his repeated errors. He cooks well when he follows a recipe, but he often just cannot be bothered. It's unkind and unfair to deliberately and repeatedly do shared domestic chores poorly and expect the other party to pick up the slack. And I won't be grateful for it, nor will I make it easier on him by doing 100% of the cooking (instead of 85%).

simply-delicious-food.com/baked-sticky-apricot-salmon/

www.delicious.com.au/recipes/fish-prawn-tagine-apricots/95c00baa-e30b-480d-bfa7-a74abb271cc7

www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/apricot-fish/d0ee40fc-8088-4640-9eaf-f76ad8e43c28

www.gousto.co.uk/cookbook/fish-recipes/wholesome-haddock-apricot-tagine-with-bulgur

^or for the tl'dr version throw Harrisa and apricots at anything to make it morrocan

@Localocal

"Thank you very much for cooking dinner. This is lovely." Is all you should say when someone cooks for you.

No it’s really not if it’s anything like what the OP is served.

Just made one, chickpeas, red pepper, cauliflower onion and potato. 😋whatever in fridge I put in, isn't that the idea of a curry to use up all the bits and bobs

MN is so weird about food.

"Eat what you're given and be grateful!"

Er, no

Veg needs to be sautéed/fried off and then personally I would use curry paste, stock and a tin of tomatoes and maybe some coconut cream/milk finished off with fresh coriander, how hard can it be?

However, some jars will do eg pataks Saag Masala is nice with added green yoghurt or coconut cream to make it thicker and richer. What OP's DP served up sounds revolting and I wouldn't force myself to eat it.

I still remember the sweet chili stir-fried sunday lunch leftovers my DH once cooked in the early days of our relationship. I didn't hide that it hadn't worked but he's gotten a lot better at cooking these days since he knows how to do things on a technical level.

Conversely - I have cooked things for other DPs that I thought he liked but turned out he didn't because he was 'being nice' about it.
No, being nice is not 'lie to my face'.

@Sinful8 I stand corrected. Those all look delicious. What my DH made however, was not.