Do you hate having to choose whats for dinner every day

[Flowers24]

Every day its the same, every week Monday draws around and i do the weekly shop, maybe its the lockdown life but fed up of it all and just cant think of new ideas all the time, is it just me?

What bothers me more is that my DH is in charge of making the meal on Thursday nights. I do Sun - Wed (fri and sat are basically fend for yourself or take out). It's been this way for years. So I come up with 4 meals for the week. Every. Single. Week. my husband will ask "what should I make on Thur" I get so mad and tell him that I have to think of things for 4 nights that he can come up with one. Then he's mad at me for not "helping him decide". Of course he never helps ME come up with any ideas. It's the same stupid fight every week, but I am at the point where I refuse on principle to help him think of a meal.

It is a good idea to sit down on a Sunday and go through the week ahead - we get cookbooks out and have a look through. Everyone picks 2 meals they like and they you work out your next 7 days around that (discarding ones which are too expensive / difficult / someone really doesn't like it). Works well for us and helps with shopping.

Hope to get ideas from what others are having, tonight is:

Tagliatelle bolognaise and bread
chicken and prawn stir fry tomorrow
Friday pizza kids, us make our own chinese curry
sat and sun , eeek not sure !

Not being unreasonable. Sick of planning meals, ordering food shops, and getting no input from my husband. He does a lot of the cooking but I’m sick to death of it. I do the plan, then it changes on the day and he needs other items and it’s me that has to go get them. It would be nice to cook together but I’m sorting out everything else. It’s not equal, I’m not even furloughed and so as I’m bringing any money in I’m expected to do all the cleaning and chores. I can’t wait for travel ban to lift. I’m running away as far away from food planning as possible.

That’s a good idea, @SunshineCake - here are a couple of my weekly meal plans.

Sat: Kippers and mash.

Sun: Roast pork, roast potatoes and parsnips, veg.

Mon: Spaghetti bolognese

Tues: Chicken curry and rice

Weds: Sweet and sour pork and rice

Thur: Sausage and cider casserole and mash

Fri: Chorizo and bean stew

Sat - Home made burgers.

Sun - Roast gammon, potatoes, peas, parsley sauce.

Mon - Sausages and oven roasted veg.

Tue - Cold gammon, baked potatoes, coleslaw

Wed - Chicken curry and rice.

Thur - Avocado, mozzarella and tomato salad

Fri - Mushroom risotto

I gave up about 2 years ago (DD then 15 & DS then 13) & told them to make their own stuff. It worked!
We now menu plan together & take turns to cook!

Here’s a couple more.

YANBU...i literally hate it. Lockdown hasn’t helped in the slightest because when you’re at home your whole day ends up circulating about what meal you’re making next.

I’m currently sat actively not knowing what’s for dinner...nothing in the fridge, Dp has just got in from work and the rest of us just got in from football. Thankfully kids have already had a laddies.

*maccies 🤣

Slimmingeats.com website has literally transformed my life. I haven’t had a bad meal since we started using it (around 18 months ago) and best of all it’s free!

I hate being responsible for meals.

Nobody has any ideas of what they'd like to eat.

Somebody always hates what I cook.

There isn't a single meal (except for McDonald's) that everybody will eat. So someone always moans/doesn't eat anything/sits and sad-faces the empty plate.

I am fed up of it. I never realised how much I gained from a weekly dinner at Morrisons cafe One night a week where they could all choose whatever they wanted, and behaved themselves because we were "out". That one meal a week sustained me through the rest of it, and I can't wait until Morrisons cafe is open again

I'm not a foody, hate having to think about meals, if I could I wouldn't bother

Yeah it gets tedious ... menopause tastebuds don’t help .. sometimes food just taste bland ... even when we went for meals before covid 19

I can cook well at least ... and I’m a vegetarian which doesn’t help

Yes, I get I'll eat anything or bacon or sausages. You can eat those two every other day.

Not really. Everyone in my house cooks for themselves as we all have such different tastes. DS and I tend to eat the same thing so we'll cook together and I reheat later as he eats a bit earlier than me. DD eats on her own. We only eat together once a week on Sunday. When we want to go out to eat there is always a long discussion as noone can agree so I couldn't be bothered with that every day. Thankfully the kids are both teens and can cook.

I feel exactly the same....it always falls to me to choose and do the shopping. I’d live on cereal if I could!

Buy an extra freezer and when you cook cook double and freeze one ie pasta bake, lasagne freeze these assembled but leave final cooking., currie, chillie and casseroles cook 1 hour and reheat. meat pie prepare filling put pastry on top(freeze uncooked),
Look up 1 tray bake cooking on internet, great ideas and saves on washing up..My favourite is potatoes slice and par boil, lay in dish, spray with oil and S and P veg on top ie spinach, asparagus. Lay white fish on top and dot with rose harrisa it is hot do not overdo. Also when chopping onions and garlic chop triple reqd and put into two plastic pots with lids put into plastic bags and freeze. Speeds up preparation.

I got lots of great ideas from watching Jamie Oliver programmes which give a huge variety of ideas. One series were meals made with just 5 ingredients plus store cupboard salt, pepper flour and oil.
I especially loved the chicken breasts flattened between 2 sheets of greased paper and coated in homemade breadcrumbs mixed with garlic.
He includes quick puds and veggie only meals.
I must say, like him or loathe him, the food is first class without faffing or spending a mint. BBC iPlayer.

It's a waste of time me meal planning as it all goes to pot when oh gets home and decides he wants something else ,it's also another reason I'm glad I'm going to be working an afters shift so I don't have to worry about what's for tea

@Flowers24

I have discovered frozen chopped onion, frozen chopped ginger etc and its made my life that little bit easier. Dh insists on sauces made from scratch no jars so on less thing for me to not chop!

DH should be making those sauces he insists shouldn’t be made from scratch.

Something I have found which helps is making a long list on my phone of meals we like. Some can be basic ones and some more adventurous (would be handy to separate these) and could even add a list of new meals you want to try. Each week I can then pick off the list what meals we are having for the week. Cuts down a lot of the time then! I also do ask my family what dinners they might fancy in the week ahead so that everyone gets an input and it isn’t solely on me to decide.

It’s hard work feeding people every sodding day. Deciding how to do the potatoes. Beans or veg. Being an adult is crap at times

I used to hate working out what to have for dinner so I bought a big wipe clean magnetic planner and stuck it on the fridge. We now have a five week menu plan which we stick to pretty much. It's taken some tweaking and we have space on it for new things to try when we think of them.. It saves time and money and takes all the thinking out of it which really helps us.

I am so fed up of organising the food. I think it’s partly because I’ve not been in a supermarket all Covid and I’ve just genuinely forgotten what food is available. Plus I’m very unadventurous with food, very much the awkward one but I do want to provide good meals for my family. Fortunately they’re not moaners.

Yes I do!