To hate cooking and the relentlessness of it all

[nogella]

Bloody cooking meals. thinking of new meal ideas. Meal plans, fucking meal plans. The mess. DC not liking what's on offer and then not eating it. The mess. The clean up. EVERY SINGLE DAY

I felt like you until a few weeks ago when I got my long-saved-up-for dishwasher. Highly highly recommend, even with the cost of running it once a day.

Separate laundry baskets for everyone has helped to - everyone’s welcome to do their own before I get round to it, and everyone knows where their socks / towels / random items are without having to ask me.

Oh and have less STUFF. Every item you own is something you have to look after and clean.

It's a load of shite
I do Hello fresh & Gousto now 5 times a week and have crap from the freezer the other 2. Fuck it

We don’t have kids but we both feel
this! The dreaded question after work is “what do you want for dinner?”….

I tried batch cooking. Everyone (DH looking at you) just eats double.

DH also has an allotment so my meal plan is expected to flex at zero notice when he turns up with three cauliflowers or eight beetroot or two cabbages.

Currently with dc at nursery they have so much to eat on nursery days that they can just have a banana before bed and DH cooks while I do bedtime . . . Not looking forward to that changing!

Spare a thought for allergy parents, it’s even worse for us.

I go through phases of being very fed up of it and just not wanting to eat any of the meals on our regular rotation.

But I also find cooking as a bit of a breather during the day. Especially during the holidays, just to go to a room by myself where I can have YouTube or music playing in the background while I cook is quite nice. My kid tends to leave me to it whilst I cook so in the holidays its a bit of a break for me from playing train tracks!

I also have a nice collection of Cookbooks and I try to a new recipe every two weeks which breaks up the monotony a bit.

I've cooked dinner every single day for the past 23yrs (for my own children and up to 12 mindees) I'm done. It's bliss.

DH is veggie and likes to be in the kitchen so he cooks (has always cooked) his own dinner. 2 boys now home after uni look after their own cooking when they are around.

I eat what I like when I like. Sometimes I say 'I'm cooking this anyone want some' but these days that only happens if I feel like it.

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Things are much easier now as ds has come back from uni liking all sorts of foods he didn't like before and so it's MUCH easier now.

Yes. I despise cooking. It's my most hated chore. Especially shopping for it all. I'm only on MN now because I'm supposed to be at the supermarket.

When kids leave home I shall live off boiled eggs and toast.

Hate the relentlessness of it! I would rather clean the house and do the ironing than
be responsible for the food.
I do enjoy making a special dish, at my leisure. Today I’m making a raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake, but everyday family meal drudgery.. no !
I was glad when the DC were old enough to sort their own breakfast and lunch in the holidays.

Yanbu. Bloody constant, boring, stressful and thankless task.

I agree wholeheartedly. But this summer has been a revelation (been too hot and pregnant to cook so much). Some nice bread, carrot sticks, chopped pepper, tomatoes, various cheeses and cold chicken. No trying to get DC to eat... here it is, take it or leave it. You want a bowl of cereal for lunch as well, why not? And DC is still alive and apparently thriving.

My resolution for the new term is to cook 3-4 times a week max. Everything else will either be leftovers, takeaway or cold food.

Yes, and I used to love it.

I find I often develop decision fatigue these days and end up just staring at a piece of paper completely unable to think of something to add to the meal plan for about 5 minutes before managing to summon up the words "shepherds pie". I can honestly understand those women who have a rota, chops on Tuesday, curry on Wednesday etc, just because their poor brain has been fried by the relentlessness of it all.

Yes!!! Agreed. This was DH’s job - he enjoyed and was good at cooking a then he died, so I’ve had to cook as well as do everything else for the past six years. Argh!!

I have a chest freezer and batch cook. Except the batch cooking’s nearly run out, and I can’t be bothered.

Hear hear. Actually super tasty too.

food and meal times are one of my favourite things in life. We always (and always have ) eat together as a family. There were sticky parts with fussy eaters as babies and toddlers but we stuck with it and now me, DH and DCs 14, 12, 8 sit together nearly everyday for 30+ minutes discussing the day and events of the world.

I love planning and preparing interesting, tasty and healthy meals that bring us together as a family everyday.

we have a rule that you aren’t allowed to ‘hate’ a food, but it is OK to
say ‘this one isn’t my favourite’ … everyone will at least try a little of everything even if they don’t eat the whole meal.

I am with you on this. It’s just relentless. Planning meals, booking a slot, finding time in between looking after 3 kids including a Velcro baby who will never be put down to actually add it all to my basket, then cook it all and tip half of it into the food waste bin because no one bloody eats any of it.

Dh eats anything, I’m vegetarian, I have 2 kids who are unbelievably fussy but in annoyingly different ways. Dreading weaning the baby because she will no doubt hate the very few meals we will all eat and I’ll end up having to cook a separate meal for yet another person. Looking back the best part of being a kid was having all my meals planned and cooked for me and not having to do anything.

It actually puts me off eating.

Which is funny because I am happy to eat if someone else has made dinner for me, but I can never be tempered by my own food, I'm put off during the actual cooking of it

My suggestion- an 8 week rolling meal plan.

ok, it does take a lot to prepare it, but once done you can keep it going for years. With maybe just an occasional swop out. I found 8 weeks was long enough for family to say “we haven’t had that in a while”. A few favs I put on once a month,

I also went one step further in having a spreadsheet with the shopping list for each week on meal plan.

that then completely eliminated thinking and made shopping quicker- I also shopped on line when was working full time so I could save those shopping lists and make even quicker.

In terms of cooking- you HAVE to get someone else to cook occasionally. If you do all cooking,why? Your partner needs to step up at least once a week to cook. Then have one ready meal/ takeaway each week . That then gets you down to 5 meals to cook. You might also think about 1 meal a week that, while fresh, is a bit of an assembly job or very quick…spag carbonara, tray bakes etc are really minimal effort, or I go for a piece of grilled fish, new potatoes boiled in jackets (no pealing) and some broccoli and frozen peas. No prep really, a couple of pans and you’re done very quickly.

in terms of getting others to cook, start your kids young. Mine were “helping me” from age 4 with stuff like prepping veg - even a small child can break up mushrooms with their hands into small pieces. A small child can wash veg etc. then progress them, get them interested and skill them up form early age. I would do things like get the, to help me add herbs and spices and get them to smell things, taste stuff while cooking. Never had fussy eaters as they had vested interest at early age. By 13/14 my two were taking it in turns to cook a meal each week from the menu ..so once per fortnight each. By 17/18 I was not “allowed” to cook certain things as their version was better than mine 🤣🤣🤣🤷🏼‍♀️ Who was I to argue? . But in fairness they had a good role model as my ex also cooked well and we split cooking 50:50

Oh and to add to the hate of cooking (I used to love it pre children, had my own food business!), there's cooking at Christmas! After 3 years of hosting my parents and the in laws for Christmas with a small child who hardly saw me all day, I told DH that it's not my/our turn this year, only for MIL to turn around to DH and say 'oh I'm far too old to be cooking Christmas dinner'. She's 60. 😐

Lol. I imagine you posted on the wrong thread?

I love cooking and don't mind making family meals but it's so time consuming and always a rush to get it done that it sort of takes out some of the enjoyment. If I love it and find it hard, it must be so tedious for those that hate it so YANBU

I love the actual cooking and eating, it's everything else that is required that does my head in - the thinking of what to cook, shopping list, finding the time to shop, clearing up etc. It's especially worse in school holidays where lunches come in to play.
Three things - meal boxes, batch cooking and not worrying about variety. Meal boxes like gousto etc really are a game changer.

I used to love cooking, I would spend all Sunday cooking a lovely meal just for me when I was single. Now I really hate the relentless and thanklessness of it. Also have a fussy eater (DS) with very limited range of foods, which is a boring logistical pain in the arse.

i had a mini melt down 2 weeks ago and DH really stepped up and has done all the shopping and cooking for 2 weeks. It’s much better ( though I can do without hamburgers for a while)