To find cooking so never-endingly tedious?

[fuckinglife]

I used to quite like cooking, and certainly enjoy eating nice food most of the time.

However, I have really run out of steam with meal planning. My DP and I split the cooking so it isn't all on me, and it's just the two of us, but I can never think of stuff we fancy eating for the whole week. End up shopping daily which I don't want to do ideally.

How do you manage to come up with meals you enjoy day in day out?

How do you not get fucking sick of chopping yet another onion/ pepper/ whatever?

Dealing with mild depression and extensive fatigue which isn't helping but thought I'd see if there are any hacks I'm missing. We do cook enough to feed us two days in a row with some dishes and that helps, for example.

Because sometimes we just have cereal, or beans on toast or a buttered jacket spud.
You don’t always have to cook. You’ll appreciate it more when you do. Then always cook double and freeze for exactly the same day next week!

Yanbu and I hate the idea of spending a weekend day batch cooking. I know it makes sense but I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less!

Use hello fresh? You can choose from a whole host of dishes and every ingredient is delivered to your door

Also that is seriously annoying and a waste of life going to the shop every. Single. Day. Eurghhh no wonder you are so done!

Hi me too op, I find that having a good variety of bags of frozen chopped vegetables from the freezer helps, just throw some of these in the pain with oil and some chopped chicken breast etc

I've made a list on my phone of all the meals I've cooked that we like...I refer to that and pick for the week when I'm feeling organised.
When "what's cooking" threads pop up on here I save recipes to try so my list is always getting added to.

Most weeks I'll pick a pasta dish, fish dish, veggie dish etc and try and mix it up.

Yep, that's why I generally don't bother.

Most nights it's jacket potato with various toppings, beans on toast, soup and bread, pasta and pesto etc.

Friday night is fish and chips night ( m@s , with triple cooked chips as we are miles from a decent chip shop), one night baked potatoes with a defrosted chilli or cheese and ham, couple of quick meals like stir fry, gammon and eggs, then other nights a bit more adventurous. It’s a chore, though.

I don't subscribe to anything like this but quite a few friends use Gousto or similar. They have some very good deals on at the start to try and get you on board. I also have a favourite person who I follow on FB as I always seem to like her stuff when I make it. They are mainly midweek type meals. (I think it's called Julia's kitchen). I save the ones I like then can just look through them when I have no inspiration.
One last thing that I know many on here have done for years is meal planning for the week. I have only done it the last few weeks . It takes a bit of time at the weekend but really saves you money on your food bills and you don't even have to think about what to make or go to the shops as you have everything there. I have used a couple of new recipes recently from saved recipes in the plan and mixed them with a couple of usual ones.

I am a v disorganised single parent of 2 teens and I can't believe I have only just got my shit together on this!

It is never ending isn’t it? I do love cooking but am so over having to decide every single day what we eat when my ungrateful family don’t seem to like any foods.

Give your self permission to take whatever shortcuts help, ready chopped veg is fine as is a ready meal if it makes life easier. Batch cooking is time consuming and boring but if you’re making something like a curry it doesn’t really take any longer to cook double the quantity and freeze the extra for an easy future meal.

Frozen onions
Gousto
Fresh tortellini & jarred sauce
Frozen pizza
Takeaway

Hello fresh saved our brains although we found it stingy on the veg and have moved to green chef now

Give it a try it's fun picking the meals together

We do 4 nights as sometimes we fend for ourselves, get takeout or do a buffet thing

I'll do anything to get out of cooking dinner.... including taking a second job so I don't have time and Ozempic so I am not hungry. I am a rubbish housewife.

I feel your pain. I am the only cook in this house - DH is clueless despite me trying to teach him for the last 30 years. He does other chores that more than make up for it so I accepted a long time ago I am the queen of food provision.

I meal plan and shop (delivery) once a week for basics and ususally visit my local butchers at the weekend. We go out to eat once a week and have takeaway every Friday. I tend to do something 'new' at the weekend - or something a bit special - so maybe a steak and all the sides. Sometimes in Winter a roast on Sunday goes down well.

That leaves 4 nights- 2 will be from scratch type meals - spag bol, chicken chasseur, beef in red wine, lamb hotpot type stuff. Other 2 maybe a bought pie/sausages and mash or 'English breakfast' or baked potatoes with toppings or with crispy chicken strips.

I've had 'Cook' deliveries just lately so subbed 2 meals a week with these. DH and DS not that impressed but they never complain ever. They know if they did I would down tools

DS is a young adult and I have taught him how to cook a few of his favourite meals. Both him and DH work long hours outside the home and I WFH so it makes sense I cook anyway. I would live on toast, cheese and crackers, houmous olives wine and salad- and cake and icecream if I lived alone.

Suggestions for preventing cooking from turning into too much of a chore:

• Keep it simple - small number of ingredients, steamed or stir-fried vegetables, no complicated techniques.
• Pan-frying, stir-fries and oven-bakes are your go-to dishes.
• Familiarize yourself with a handful of dishes and learn to do them really well.
• Use different flavour combinations to ring the changes: Asian, Italian, Middle Eastern, Indian
• Herbs, garlic, ginger and lemon juice will enhance many dishes and turn something simple (such as pan-fried chicken breast pieces) into something truly delicious.
• Lastly: listen to the radio, podcasts etc while cooking and try to see it as an opportunity to unwind instead of rushing to get it done as quickly as possible.

I agree it's a chore OP - I used to like cooking but went right off it during lockdown cooking every single bloody meal breakfast lunch and dinner at home without so much as a Pret for lunch or odd meal out for respite.

We approach it:
Full meal plan for the week ahead - we do the meal plan and finalise the Ocado shop on Friday, for delivery Sat morning and that's our meals planned.
Some things are repetitive - Monday evening has just become always pizza and salad. Friday is often fish fingers / scampi, chips and peas - fish is traditional for a Friday, it's mega easy after a week at work, and it's all in the freezer so doesn't matter that the Ocado shop came the Sat before.
Weekends - a bit more adventurous/ time consuming and also couple with we'll plan the meals that need the freshest ingredients then.
Weeknights - quick and easy, slightly more time consuming if will be a day when one of us is wfh, if we're both out / going to have a long day then needs to be very quick.
We make life easier by using chopped frozen ginger / garlic / onions in things.
Have a repertoire of meals we rotate around the above criteria and slot in what we fancy - eg various pastas, stir fries, curries using Spice Tailor as a base, baked fish, mixture of cooked from scratch and things that just go in the oven eg a pie / fish cakes to have with frozen veg on days we want to be really really quick. Some of those are much less exciting meals than others though.

Ha! Hello Fresh is not simpler at all, it involves masses of chopping and IME half the time it doesn't even get delivered at all, they are prone to last minute cancelling.

I get you 100% I've been feeling this lately. Two things have helped. Digging out some cookbooks I've not looked at for ages and meal planning so every night is different. But the big one has been signing up to audible and listening to a podcast/book every night while cooking and washing up. I almost look forward to that time in the kitchen now!

Yep. I awarded myself a year off cooking once ds left home. Sadly I did manage to acquire a boyfriend so we do sometimes cook, but as we're living apart I still get most days eating chickpeas straight from the tin or having cheese and crackers. It's every bit as good as I thought it would be.

Scrambled eggs, jacket potatoes and some sort of protein on toast are all fine meals, just saying.