To expect DH to cook the food he buys when he goes shopping?

[legacy]

Cleared the fridge out yesterday, and threw out a huge quantity of old, past-it veg such as sprouts, leeks, courgettes.

DH did some shopping (had a list from me), as we had people coming last night and I was cooking, and he came back with a whole load of (yes, you've guessed it...) sprouts, leeks, courgettes...
I said, "I hope you've planned some meals that include those, because I've just thrown a whole load away"

The thing is, that I plan meals around particular vegetables e.g. beef stew with carrots, fish with peas, roast with broccoli etc etc.
I don't like sprouts, and am not particularly keen on leeks either! DH does about half of the cooking, and I know exactly what is going to happen - he leaves cooking until about 20 minutes before it's time to eat, realises he hasn't got time to prepare anything, and then uses up my 'emergency' food like frozen pizza or makes pasta with a jar of sauce .

He does this with meat sometimes too - comes back with strange cuts of meat which require slow-roasting of something, which sit in the fridge till they go off. Grrrr.....

I just think that if these are things he fancies eating, then fair enough, but he has to cook them? One of the reasons I don't buy them is because I find it harder to incorporate them into my 'repertoire' meals...

I don't think the OH in question is crap at shopping though. Courgettes, leeks and sprouts are perfectly normal things to buy. The real problem is that he is crap at organising himself to cook the darned things.

TBH though I think there is a lot of fussiness in this family - gagging on sprouts, children who won't eat courgettes etc! Too much pandering going on by a long shot, and in cooking and planning to everyone else's tastes, the OH's tastes are being subordinated.

I'd cook them up stick them on the table and if people don't want to eat them then they choose from another bowl that night.

It would resolve having unused veg in the bottom of the fridge every week.

The OP has said that the problem is him buying this stuff, so to stop him buying it is the way to solve it, be it by him not going shopping, or by training him not to buy it, which I can't see happening if he keeps buying them even thoguh the OP has said not to as they don't get used.

"if he wants to eat certain things he should plan a meal with them in... not just come home with a random selection of stuff which takes his fancy at the supermarket" are the OP's words, which in my interpretation is "crap at shopping" .

Perfectly OK in my book for anyone to reject sprouts... they are disgusting [vomit emoticon]

But he has a list, what more can she do? Or shoudl she do.

Even with a list he brings home random things that he won't use.

She needs to explain to him, very carefully and politely and slowly (probably more than once) that buying random food is a waste of money.

Lots of men do this. They need to be trained out of it (it's just a bad habit) IMO, not just prevented from doing it by their wives/girlfriends taking over all the chores.

Swapping shopping with something else isn't taking over though.
If for example, the OP strips and makes the beds weekly, or does the ironing, or some otehr job DH will probably hate and she tells him 'Ok, I've had enough of this, if you can't buy food that will be used, I'm going to shop from now on, you can do X instead' then there is no mroe wasted food, also if he hates the job she substiutes so much, maybe he'll learn that shopping is a lot easier than he thought.

That's not how I'd go about teaching my partner to do something .

So I would say to dh 'if sprouts are SOO good for you, but you dn't want to prepare/wash them, buy them frozen', then they can sit in the freezer for years without needing you to throw fresh out once a week. Then they can just be chucked into boiling water, much the same as peas. Ditto leeks.
As for 'emergency' food - set aside a saturday/sunday afternnon and just cook everything in the fridge - make stews/sauces/chop and blanch veg etc. Then keep it all in the freezer...don't have fresh at all.

i love cooking and buying food so i do it all. dh takes ds to park while i shop and does all the cleaning. result.

How odd. If he goes shoppig off his own bat, why doesn't he cook with it off his own bat?

If you always cook, tell him to get the things you cook.

You have an odd shopping/cooking set-up in your house.

No, not odd shopping/ cooking set-up, Pointy - just different?

We don't have traditional male/ female roles - we both work fullish time, so we share the cooking. We also share the grocery shopping. A lot of the shopping is done online, so usually reorder 'favourites' etc, but then 'top up' as necessary during the week - not that odd surely??

Captain - don't see how cooking all day sat/sun helps AT ALL - then I would just end up doing all the cooking, and DH none??

Meal plan (jointly with dh, involve him..) for whole 7 days - itemise all the ingredients needed. Online shop accordingly.

No legacy - you could get HIM to do the cooking one day a week! Or look at it another way, once the cooking bit is done, then all anyone neeeds to do is chuck it in microwave/oven/boiling water. It sounds to me as if you have more of a problem than just having to chuck out off-veg. You obv have a prob with DH picking up his share of the load? If he uses all the 'emergency' food, then why not just buy - emergency food? Then neither of you need to cook, and there'll be no fresh in the fridge.

Men who repeatedly ignore instructions on domestic tasks are engaging in passive-agressive isogyny - the message they are quite consciously and deliberately transmitting is " I am a man. I am too important to be made to do menial tasks like this. You are a woman. You are biologically designed to service me. Sooner or later you will give up trying to make me do any kind of domestic work and just do it all yourself. Because that and the occasional bit of sex is what women are for, and you will just have to put up with it if you want to have a man in your life'.

I think dh feels that way about me and 'men's work' madamez - that I'm indulging in passive aggressive whotsit.

So I changed the wheel on my car - for the first time ever - this weekend, and today I hve put up the noticeboard in the kitchen. I'm hoping he will overlook the holes in the plaster and recognise the giant leap forward in our relationship . And maybe load the dishwasher.

My DH does most of the cooking in the week (he is a SAHD). We have a notebook of staple recipes - a lot are my staples that are now written down, but also new ones that either of us have found.

When DH first started cooking regularly, he would be really badly prepared. But now that he has confidence that he can cook a number of meals well, he finds it much easier. However, he tends to like me to cook a recipe with him the first time we try it, so he knows what it is supposed to be like.

If your DH is buying veg on spec, it sounds like he is interested in food, so maybe you could help him become a better cook?

FallenMadonna_ it's not about what is men's or women's work as such - it's about being selfish and lazy... I mean the OP's DH, not you. FOr one thing you're having a go at doing things you had not done before, secondly you're not repeatedly ignoring your partner's requests or explanations in the hope that the partner will just take over the job and do it for you...

But that's the point though madamez. I sort of was being lazy about the changing wheel thing. Because it's easier to get dh to do it, and it's messy and cold outside and I'd really rather leave it to someone else. So I left it all to dh. No different really than if he left all the inside jobs to me.

But I have seen the error of my ways...

I don;t understand why someone would buy a load of food they have no plans for cooking.

Tell him to stop it forthwith

ooh madamez, i'm going to use that phrase in my relate session tonight!

"Men who repeatedly ignore instructions on domestic tasks are engaging in passive-agressive isogyny - the message they are quite consciously and deliberately transmitting is " I am a man. I am too important to be made to do menial tasks like this. You are a woman. You are biologically designed to service me. Sooner or later you will give up trying to make me do any kind of domestic work and just do it all yourself."

That bit, I mean.

Bossykate: hope it has the desired effect on your DP

Good for you BK - get your own ambush in!

and sorry legacy i do think your dh is out of order!

Thanks all

Not sure about the passive-agressive isogyny bit madamez - although I could see how that could apply to some men I know!

I think for DH it's probably that his aspirations (i.e. cooking leeks! go beyond his abilities right now. When he's in the kitchen I quite often catch him watching celebrity chef programmes, and I suspect he gets temporarily inspired, buys some stuff, and then just doesn't have the forethought, planning ability and motivation to follow through.

To be fair, he used some of the aforementioned veg last night, 'cos I mentioned he'd bought it and should use it...

AND SO

we had a stir-fried mush of leeks and courgettes with some pork chops, mash, and, oh, yes, sprouts.... [gag icon]