To ask what you'd class as cooking?

[Mouldyfoodhelp]

Having a discussion with someone and their stance is: just getting a chicken breast out the pack and into the oven with a few potatoes is good enough cooking, doing the same with a ready meal, or buying a pie.

My stance is that whilst that's cooking in its absolutely most basic sense ( bar the ready meal), it's not what most people mean when they cook. Now I'm not being snobby we have more than our fair share of crap food but I say actual cooking has more processes like let's say a roast even though you're putting a chicken in the oven you're seasoning it, portioning it afterwards and you've got the veg to sort out, Yorkshire, stuffing etc. Other food ideals are for example a carbonara, shepherds pie, lasagne type stuff meals.

And even if some people do just put stuff in the oven I argue it's not literally just a plain chicken breast normally and they generally do some work for the meal.

It's more about expectations of results when each is cooking because I know they wouldn't be happy If that's all I did all the time as well.

I'm guessing we're talking about an adult child, not a partner.

Again, don't want to turn this into another kind of thread but they're of the opinion people tidy their houses once a month and refuses to do some tidying if it's been less than a week and will still moan after a week, on the odd times they clean up after someone cooks they make out they've done that person a favour. This person on a good week will cook once but can go a month without cooking and still complain.

Some people do (people who don’t like cooking and can’t be arsed to learn and are content to eat bland food).

But it’s a bit irrelevant, isn’t it? You don’t need to be right/he doesn’t need to be wrong.

Hear Hear!!!

Give me a bathroom to clean, a house to hoover and a pile of ironing to wade through rather than cooking. Bloody hate it!

Anything above opening packets and dumping them on a plate is cooking as far as I'm concerned. Yes, there is 'proper cooking', which then comes under the subheadings of 'Using some pre-prepared items', 'Using ingredients' and 'Hand crafting pastries from the flour you have just lovingly ground from the crop you harvested in August and cream from Bessie, your favourite Jersey Cow in the field behind the vegetable garden otherwise known as The Incredibly Photogenic Shit You See from Crunchy American Homeschooler Moms on YouTube'.

But if you're cutting things up, applying heat and it takes more than 120 seconds/a fraction longer than fried egg on toast, it's cooking.

Whilst what they're doing might technically be cooking in the preparing food to eat sense, they sound very mean spirited and lazy to me. I bet they're more than happy to eat a well-cooked meal when someone else does it.

Moaning about having to cut a roast chicken up, or mashing potatoes being too much like hard work, expecting everyone to eat plain food with zero effort, not making salad because it's too much hassle to chop a few things sounds like a whiny teenager.

It's not a cooking Vs not cooking issue. We have a couple of freezer to oven dinners a week and it's 50/50 whether we make coleslaw or buy, so I'm not a food snob, but that attitude would annoy me.

It sounds like you resent the level of effort they are putting in compared to the level of effort you put in?

The thing is, you are choosing to do what you do and they want to choose too. I hate cooking. I find it stressy and tiring. Maybe they do too? I never do anything elaborate but do try to use raw ingrediants.

What is the compromise? Does the other person NEED to cook or can they do sonething else? If they do NEED to cook, is it a big deal if they just do the same 5 easy meals on rotation? Genuine questions.

I think getting hung up on what is and isn't "cooking" won't improve the situation.

Your OP asked whether it's cooking, not whether it's fancy cooking or basic cooking. Of course it's cooking.

I think it's completely wrong to say 'That's not what most people mean when they cook. Imo most people cook at a range of different levels of complexity and effort. I'm a pretty good cook. Sometimes I cook fancy things, sometimes really basic things. Mostly in between. Whichever I do,it's still cooking.

I think 'Is it cooking?' was the wrong question to ask, if what you meant was 'AIBU to think it's a bit rubbish that my dp only ever cooks pretty basic meals when I make much more effort?'

I think 'Is it cooking?' was the wrong question to ask, if what you meant was 'AIBU to think it's a bit rubbish that my dp only ever cooks pretty basic meals when I make much more effort?'
Agree with this.
AIBU to think it's petty to moan about having to mash some potatoes and refuse to make salad because it involves some chopping?

It doesn't sound like the OP is expecting 5* complex meals, just a little bit of effort and some consideration to make the meal pleasant for the people eating it.

I guess it is, but its really shit cooking.

Genuinely interested that you would not consider mince, sauce and pasta, cooking, yet your use the word 'cooked' in your description.

@OchonAgusOchonOh - why did you use that word?

Thank you,

I get its AIBU and that people are saying as I did in my OP it is cooking but seeing everyone saying its cooking made me feel I was being unfair and this post whilst I guess I can be accused of hanging onto the supportive posts helps me a little and better explains my viewpoint better on the situation.

Anything that involves chopping, marinating, grating, peeling, boiling, etc- cooking...putting chicken nuggets and chips in the oven or making cold wraps etc -Not cooking.

So normally I make pasta and meatballs I make sauce from tinned tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil and cook down, meatballs from mince, seasoned and shaped, mix through pasta, I'd call that cooking.

I've got an injured back, DH has the flu and we were out all day (me and kids) so I bought a jar of sauce, which I never do and cooked pasta, added frozen peas and sauce and did a pile of IKEA frozen meatballs in the oven. That's probably not really cooking. Kids loved it obviously 😂

What's the point of this thread, OP?

I'm not sure of the question you're asking.

I wonder if you actually want to ask a different question?

If it’s a partner who’s doing it deliberately wrong so they don’t have to do it again that’s bloody selfish esp if they don’t pull their weight elsewhere. Same with the cleaning. If it’s an teen/adult child they either need to learn or do
more in another area of the general work of running a household- maybe all the washing and ironing?

Is this an adult? Why don't you simply tell them to cook for themselves from now on and do your own thing with the other adults in the house. Just take them off the rota and don't cook for them.

To answer the original question no, I don't think most people cook like that for every meal. Nor do most people think you need to clean the house once a month (although of the minority who do, 3 of them are roommates of my dd's)

I agree with this.

If you're doing all that I'd happily cook every night 😂

Team work is about working to your strengths not an exact split. So I cook because I am bloody good at it and enjoy it. DH is better at cleaning windows and mowing the lawn so he does it. We both clean and tidy. Occasionally he will cook or one of our DC ( all adults) will cook but it will be a more basic meal. Thats fine its nice to have someone else do it for a change

It is an adult and we've actually done that for a few weeks the first week they got ready meals for themselves and rolls for lunch, the second didn't get any carbs just protein until I put it on the shopping for them unprompted and they used it but no veg. Whilst moaning about the meals we were having and that when it finished we'd have to have those meals again as they'd missed out.

Mouldyfoodhelp
It seems like it's not the technicalities of cooking Vs not that's got your irritated. It's the attitude.

Take two similar scenarios:

Scenario 1: person cooks some pasta, stirs in a jar sauce. They either aren't a fan of cooking or are busy and can't/don't have interest in making a sauce from scratch. They've put a frozen garlic bread in the oven. They serve up dinner and offer some cheese on top / have a bowl of cheese for people to help themselves (which they might have grated or might have bought pre grated).

Scenario 2: person cooks some pasta, stirs in a jar sauce. They serve it out and when someone mentions some grated cheese, the person huffs and puffs because waaah that involves getting a grater out the cupboard and grating cheese or having to go all the way to the fridge and get some scissors to cut the packet of pre grated cheese open, and anyway I've already cooked a sauce. Most people would have been happy with plain pasta.

Both are pasta and jar sauce, but the person in scenario 1 has thought about others and the person in scenario 2 is like a whiny child.

If it involves heat to me it is cooking

Even heating baked beansto me is cooking I will happily make a salad and eat that for tea but it is not cooking as it is not cooked

Sticking something in the oven is cooking to me or even in the microwave as the heat is the cook part

If it is one of your children so you are concerned about diet and nutrition for them, why not get them off the rota, feed them with everyone else, but only do it on the basis they must do something else - clean up or hoovering or whatever.

If it is roommate, who cares what they eat.

Honestly I’d argue that what tv chefs and restaurant chefs do isn’t cooking- it’s performative food art. Cooking, in my opinion,is the considerably more complex art of keeping a family fed despite rising costs, food shortages and sensory issues, while trying to impart life skills to children.

Sometimes I use a portion of ragu I batch cooked and froze months before. Sometimes I open a jar of dolmio. It’s bonkers to suggest that one is cooking and one is not.