Can't think of what to cook every day

[Cantcook842]

Morning. I'm nearly 40 years old and I still cannot cook at all. I hate cooking. When I try to cook properly or bake it ends up as a disaster. So I try to stick to simple things.
Lately been getting into a rut and eating the same set of food each week. It's boring and every morning I wake up and am mithered about what meal to make that day.
My husband has to eat gluten free. This adds to the difficulty. My daughter is very fussy. Doesn't like cheese. Doesn't like potatoes in any form. This makes cooking meals very hard for me. She's willingly tries them but actually gags whilst trying to eat them. I don't like veg or pulses.
Got into the habit of each person in the family having something different. Such as a ready meal for my husband. Fish fingers and beans for the children as an example. We eat very simply. The type of food I like is what you'd get in a standard British pub. For example, gammon, egg and chips. Steak pie and chips. Lasagne and garlic bread. Sunday roast. Cottage pie. But because of the gluten, potato or cheese element to most one person in the house won't eat it! I'm sick and tired of trying to plan meals! I don't want to do it anymore! Last week I didn't eat an evening meal at all as I was so sick of trying to please everyone. I just had a bowl of Cereal!
Any advise on how to come up with a meal plan that incorporates everyone's choices?

I used to love cooking but lockdown made me so bloody fed up with it. I get Simply Cook now, there are GF options, might help for ideas

Ask each member of the family to list four dishes they really like, and pick your own four favourites too.

Next sit down with the list and work out what tweaks are needed.

So for eg one person likes bolognese; great - everyone gets bolognese sauce but your husband has his with rice or GF pasta.

Next, everyone likes gammon and chips, except your daughter has bread not chips.

and so on.

With a bit of luck you should be able to come up with 14 meals. Not everyone is going to love every meal. But everyone’s favourite will be there at some point, including your own. It’s ok if not everyone likes everything - potatoes can be swapped for bread, cheese you can serve as a garnish and the cheese hater can just not garnish theirs, and if you cook the main part of the dish without gluten, you can do separate pasta (or give everyone rice), etc.

Next, plan to put your children’s favourite meals on days when they are at home. And teach them how to cook it. Friday nights can be good for this as if the cleanup takes a little longer they won’t be up too late for school next day! This will be a hassle initially. But they will learn, and then you can turn Friday nights over to them. Make them responsible for it, together if they get along, or taking turns if that works better. In which case, the others get to clear.

And if you’re doing shepherds pie or a casserole, make two, and freeze one. Don’t just make extra in the same pot, that tends to disappear. But do another, or dish up the extra half before you bring the rest to the table, and then you’re a meal ahead of yourself for next week. You can if you like also do single portions of particular dishes so if lasagne is a favourite for 3 of you, you’ll already have a single portion of straight bolognese to give your husband instead. Etc.

If lasagne works for you would something similar like Spaghetti and meatballs? Gluten free spaghetti and you could top your with bechamel sauce but leave that our for your DD?

A Pizza night
A fish night
Pasta night
chicken night
mexican night

could it work like that? instead of a set meal plan, a more basic type of things?

Gluten free here and I do all the cooking.
Fortunately no fussy eaters though.
What helps me is to do a monthly meal plan. Each day is roughly based around a core ingredient eg rice / pasta / fish / meat etc.
We always have jacket potatoes on Monday.l which I cook in advance and freeze because I have a commitment in the evening. Toppings can be varied - tuna Mayo, chilli (from freezer) etc . Maybe your daughter would eat a baked sweet potato instead?

You need to simplify things further and also for cost / health reasons I would try and move away from what sounds like reliance on processed food.

Slow cooker - just bung things in and forget about them. Chilli, veg meat or fish curries, stews, gumbo, could all work around your family.

I'd go with meal boxes. Even though we love cooking we hate the planning and shopping, so they're a good solution, and the meal variation is good.

Mindful Chef do good recipes for gf etc, I would pick a set of recipes to get delivered - perhaps everyone picks one recipe - and then they just deal with it.
We do three boxes a week - the other nights are salad type things, leftovers, f & c etc.

I don't think there is anything wrong with eating the same meals on rotation that everyone can adapt. Yes it's boring but it outweighs the brain drain having to think up new ideas in the week. I've got a semi fussy child and I just served him the same thing over and over again until he realised his siblings were enjoying eating different family meals and he got fed up of the same thing. Eats anything now!

My youngest doesn't like potatoes much, unless they are plain boiled, so if we have roast spuds or something she won't eat, I do sweet potato wedges. Would yours eat that? You could use it mashed as a topping for cottage pie too.
What about cous cous? We have it with chicken skewer kebabs or with baked salmon.
I'm not too keen on pulses, probably due to most meals in my childhood being a stew of one kind or other with lots of them to bulk them out. I particularly dislike pearl barley, but will eat a small amount of it in a meal. I do like butter beans which we have in a sausage and either chicken or bacon casserole (Hairy Bikers one is really good) and black beans aka turtle beans which I do a veggie chilli with.
Do you all like dumplings? They are lovely on top of a casserole. I think you could use gf flour to make them.

I am gluten free. My youngest doesn’t like potato. We definitely don’t eat the way you do.

Example meals:
Spag Bol with gf spaghetti
Sausage, mash and veg. Youngest has extra sausage and veg, no mash.
Chicken curry and rice. All have naan except me
Homemade burgers and wedges with a salad. Youngest doesn’t have wedges. I don’t have the bun.
Pasta bake. Gf pasta. If your dd doesn’t like cheese, put a portion of it in a bowl and add the cheese to the rest and bake for you.

Everything I make is from scratch and I only do simple versions of everything.

When you say you don’t like veg, is that any veg? Are things like onions and chopped tomatoes in sauces ok? You say you eat cottage pie, there would usually be carrots and onions in that as a minimum, and a roast dinner would usually contain veg.
Also if you can make a cottage pie and lasagne then the same skills make macaroni cheese, pasta bake, chilli etc.

@Cantcook842

If it was just me on my own, I would eat a very small meal. I would probably just have a ready meal every day or something small like beans on toast or a jacket potato. I don't like large meals. My husband on the other hand likes his plate piled high. I'm a housewife and he doensnt come home until 7pm so I like to have tea ready for when he gets in.

I think I'm going to do what's been advised and stop pandering to people and just cook one meal and they can either eat it or not.

If you can afford not to work, can you afford to get meals delivered, like COOK (or similar)? (Alternatively, could you get a part-time job to generate the funds to buy the aforementioned?) At least between you and your husband, that might work. And if you maintain that you don't like any vegetables or any pulses in any form (really? i'm skeptical) then you can give the veg in your meals to your husband so he gets a larger portion.

I use Gousto quite a bit too. Only had maybe one or two that I wouldn't make again, so a pretty good success rate.

I don't like a lot of veg (I'll eat roasted carrots, some greens but not much else) or most pulses either and I just slightly adapt my portion or eat around the kidney beans!

Surely you can’t dislike all veg? There are so many varieties and they all taste different and even one type of veg can taste differently depending on how you cook it? I’d really struggle to make interesting meals without veg. Cheese and potatoes are far easier to remove/swap.

My friends dd is gluten free and the whole family eats gluten free at home. Saves effort.
But l get the whole tired of cooking thing. I am in isolation in my bedroom due to Covid and suddenly yesterday l thought...hurrah l do not have to cook or even enter the kitchen for 10 days!! I realised l really needed a break from it.
I may regret that thought by the end !

Every body else gets veg with their meal. I just don't eat the veg. I can eat Carrots. I can use onion, mushroomed, tinned tomatoes in sauces no problem tho.

I have looked at gusto before, think I might give it a try

Try Gousto but most of the meals aren't really very traditional English. So not sure if you will like it?

Each week I would do
A curry
A casserole
A pasta
A tray bake
Fish
Fajitas

And you can alternate what are in these each week

I have a picky DH and he likes the same few recipes, but will try new stuff if eating out!

So recently I tried re-creating things like Nando, Dishoom, Pizza Express favourites... that's given me something new!