To wonder how I ended up deciding what everyone would eat for ever more

[snowdropsandcrocuses]

This isn't a complaint about chores or sharing the general load. Me and DP both work ft though I work shifts and earn more so I tend to do the food shopping online. He is very very good at chores, will clean, vacuum, washing, ironing and everything else. Over the years I have taken on the lion's share of cooking. I'm better at it than him and I like food cooked well.

What blows my mind though is how others don't seem to have opinions on what to eat. I try to meal plan each week and order shopping but when I throw out 'what do people want for dinner?' I get shrugs and 'anything' answers.

Now I go through life deciding what I want to eat almost every single day. There is nobody placing a meal in front of me unless I already picked the menu or bought the ingredients.

I'm not complaining that I'm not cooked for but I'm so confused that others (kids/DP) don't have a 'yearning' for any particular meal. I say, what do you fancy for tea tonight? But get no definitive answer. How don't you know what you fancy eating?!?! It's like asking someone if they want tea or coffee and they say 'either'. What?! Why? How do you not know what you want?!?!

Do others not find themselves occasionally thinking 'oh I haven't eaten xxx for a while, I really fancy eating that for tea'?

Blows my mind.

Same here. I would absolutely bloody hate for someone else to choose 7 of my meals each week, but DH seems not to care a jot. Very, very occasionally he will say "I don't really fancy that" when I tell him whats for tea, I then tell him to take over and feed us all as he declined to be part of the meal planning. He usually then changed his mind and will eat what's planned.
But yes I'm with you, blows my mind too.

I would honestly be overjoyed for one of the family to ask me for a certain meal (as long as it wasn't two minutes before I served a different one!)

I get sooooo bored deciding what to cook all the time. If I was alone I wouldn't cook a meal each night. I'd just eat when I fancied it

Oh crikey, I wouldn't mind getting asked for a certain meal, but its more like "I don't really fancy that, I don't know what I fancy really"
I'm like you, I'd happily grave through the day and never meal plan again, the pesky kids dictate some sort of order is needed though unfortunately.

God I would love it if someone else decided menu / bought it / cooked it. Anything anyone else makes tastes delicious. Sooo bored of cooking.

They’ve essentially got a chef at their disposal and aren’t making full use of her!

I love my mum’s cooking and if I could have her cooking my favourite dishes regularly, I’d be in heaven.

It’s good that they enjoy your food, I think it would be worse if they didn’t appreciate it or moaned about it.

I’d love it if someone else decided!

Though we do take it in turns to do the shopping and I refuse to make a list now. I still have to do the meal plan

Except DH has been off this week and has had ‘the mental capacity available’ to think of meals pretentious git!

I could have written this myself

I could of written that myself...we're sat here now because I'm not cooking, as no-one will give me an answer...trying to workout what's for takeaway!! FFS..someone else decide. I feel your pain 😘

I identify with this. I don't mind cooking, it's the deciding all the time I can't bear

Ha. I get "what were you thinking of for tea tonight?"

It's literally my worst question.

I am an extremely unfussy eater, for whatever reason, and I liked anything my mum or dad would cook for us growing up. So whoever was cooking the meal that day would pick whatever they felt like, and whatever they chose was inevitably fine. They both worked shifts so split food shopping based on who was on rest days versus who was on nights or whatever. Communal list in the kitchen where anybody (kids included) could add requests, most of which were fulfilled. (Fizzy drinks were a very rare treat for example.)

My people.

Meant to be beef stroganoff for tea but I've got to cook it after just getting in from work

Not feeling it at all but if I don't do it we will end up popping out to a supermarket and buying aload of different meals and spend £25 all while trying to budget better.

Does my fucking head in.

When we started meal planning a few weeks ago I made it very clear it wouldn't just be me thinking of what we could have as dh can do his share Aswell.
Week one was good with all helping but it's waned now.

Imagine if I did that eh. Nobody would ever have a cooked meal

Could you try having a board where each person gets a day of the week and has to write up their meal choice for that one day? Do it prior to shopping for the week.

I guess you need a fall-back if they don't write it up - say, jacket potatoes. If none of them bother, you'll have 3(?) days of jacket potatoes in the following week. When they're sick of potatoes, they might be motivated to write up a different choice.

I live on my own. I'm so tired of cooking for myself that I hardly bother at the moment. I don't really care what I eat. In theory I eat most things, in practice I can't be arsed with anything fiddly or new. If you can eat it with a spoon in front of the telly without looking at it, so much the better. Bring on the soup, the paella, the risotto, the macaroni cheese.

I'm jealous. I seem to spend all my time pointing out that this isn't an effing restaurant and the family can just eat what they're bloody given or starve.

I have a thread on the go about this!!

Beans on toast is like haute cuisine to me if someone else cooks it. I feel your pain op.

I meal plan only to stop DH from asking me every day "What are we having for dinner?"

My Aunt and Uncle lived in Yorkshire, I remember her being aggrieved by this very thing.

One evening when asked what he’d like for his tea (Yorkshire, remember) he replied ‘owt’ and was surprised to be served porridge (oats)

Oh gosh, me too. Everyone has an opinion on what they don't want to eat, but only after I've done the shopping. But when I ask what they do want I get nothing (unless they're hassling me to buy takeaway)

Your mistake is to ask them. From now on, they're each responsible for cooking one night a week. Gives you a break and will be good for the kids to learn.

Throughout lockdown I found it was suddenly my responsibility to come up with ideas for all meals and snacks. It was honestly wearing me out.

In the end I gathered the family together on a Sunday and told them to write down 2 meals each on separate strips of paper. We put them in a bowl and picked them out for each day of the week.
Everyone was allowed 1 veto. So far it's worked great for the last 13 months.
I feel less burdened by it and its encouraging the teenagers to cook more as they look up different meals they want to try.

Omg I have this issue. Every day, the family gets presented with what I felt like cooking/what I fancied eating as no one else ever suggests anything. Tbh if dh did the same to me it would be fry ups, pie, general stodge…. I guess I’m lucky really?

I’m stealing the strips of paper idea. There’s just the two of us most of the time though adult DS notionally lives here and eats with us sometimes. It’s always me who has to think of meals though.

Steal away

For meals that don't get picked they stay in the tub until the following week.
I do the weekly shop on a Sunday morning so thats when we do the pot luck so I can buy in what we need.
Only rule we have is once agreed the meal won't be changed. You can opt out and fend for yourself with at least 4 hours notice.

I can't imagine looking in the fridge or cupboards and not knowing every effing thing in there, right down to the stock cubes. It must be great. Like living at home, food just appears and its no big deal to you.