At my wits end with my amateur chef OH

[justasking111]

He watches Rick stein and James Martin every day. We're supposed to alternate cooking dinner. Three times this week he's fucked up. I buy good ingredients tell him what's for dinner. He muscles in hours before me to prep.

This week he's overdone it. Partridge with vegetables he tipped in crabapple jelly. Was so sweet I couldn't eat it.

Chicken curry half a large carton of creme freiche and god knows what herbs.

Today I was doing shin of beef with vegetables in the slow cooker. He insisted on taking over. I said no potatoes because I was doing dumplings. He said I don't want dumplings.
I've just tasted it. I don't know if he's put in lots of pepper, mustard, cloves or all three. It tastes weird. OH and he's done a pan of potatoes.

He won't follow a recipe because he's learnt it all on the television.

So am I being unreasonable expecting food that I can eat? Or am I just ungrateful?

What the hell? Why?! They’ll turn the gravy into slop.

YANBU that would boil my piss

Buy him a cookery class for Christmas

I think the point is that good ingredients are wasted if somebody comes in and just randomly experiments.

I really would force him - by himself -to eat all the stuff he's messed about with - if necessary it can be frozen then defrosted and he can have it night after night. That might cure him of this foolishness.

Perhaps a week or so of cooking separately - he can only come in and faff about after you've finished - and he'll come to his senses.

I mean, him messing up dinner isn't ideal but at least he is keen. Maybe for Xmas you could buy him a voucher for an actual cooking course? Or some decent cookbooks?

Ha well tbh I'd be intrigued enough to try that if someone served it up...

Make the present decent!

make it a residential weekend!

it's buying yourself two presents. A weekend without Chef & hopefully he'll come back with some idea how to cook!!

Have to say I am cackling at all these blokes who have heard that sugar or chocolate can improve the flavour in certain dishes and are just lobbing it in. My ex was like that with cinnamon - and not every tomato based dish is improved by it believe me.

My other ex who actually was a chef used to put juniper berries in approximately half the things he cooked. I got fucking fed up with those little bastards (although credit to him his meals were amazing apart from that).

shouldn't he get to choose, shop and cook on his nights

Yes.

Within the set parameters of how much money there is spare, what time it needs to be on the table, and what in terms of sweetness, salt, spice and other ingredients is healthy for all the people who are eating it and have paid for the food across the week.

If he wants to do experimental cookery which may be inedible to everyone but him or maybe even him as well, he should arrange to do it on his own leisure time and not with the main family food shop at weekday mealtimes.

My partner of 14 years did train as a chef and then changed to the career he's now been in for just short of 23 years. He still loves cooking though.

My problem with it though is...the state he leaves my kitchen in. Every single pot, pan, plate, bowl, knife, fork etc will be used. He doesn't tidy up as he goes so by the time he's finished you literally can't see any work surface and the floor is covered in rubbish. I don't have a dishwasher (no room for one) so he piles everything in the sink...I've lost count of the number of glasses/plates have been chipped/broken.

Then getting him to tidy up after himself is a nightmare. It's like he doesn't see the mess. I have two cats who get into everything...he will leave the kitchen in a state of DAYS, until I finally crack and clean it up. For a meal that takes at most 10 minutes to eat, I will then spend an hour tidying up after...when I said this to him once, he said 'but it's worth it'...err NO, IT ISN'T!!!!

He also pisses around with recipes too...but has stopped since I stopped eating anything he'd buggered with too much. I love a fancy meal as much as the next person, but sometimes you just want something straightforward and unfucked.

I feel your pain.

That sounds delicious!

He ate the dumplings

I hope you scooped his potatoes out and added your dumplings! The cheek of it

From what OP says, it all sounds delicious. I love creme fraich or cream in curry, I would also probably enjoy the tarragon sauce and also the crab apple sauce.

Depends what it tastes like of course

I wouldnt like my night being messed about with but then he didnt want dumplings and said so, he should have just used the ones he cooked up rather than putting them in the stew

I love to cook and so does dp. So we share the cooking and choose what we want to cook on our nights. The point is that we don't cook things we know the other one doesn't like. Because we like each other and we're not dicks. For example-he loves offal. So if I'm out, he cooks it for himself. He wouldn't dream of cooking it for me.Because, as I said, he's not a dick.

Send him my way with his crème fraîche garlic mash 😀

Oh Christ I've got a pal like this, she makes what she calls "concoctions" which involve her just chucking any old shite into a pan and hoping for the best. I love the bones of her but with all the will in the world the woman can't cook for shit. Last time I visited I was served something grey and sloppy and intensely spicy that might have been some sort of mushroom curry but it looked like lightly seasoned cement.

Luckily I have an iron stomach so I'll eat whatever she puts in front of me happily when she does cook for me, but I couldn't be married to her. You have my sympathies OP.

Honestly I agree. Got some ungrateful control freaks on this thread who would also cringe at any woman who cooks all the meals.

Can't be a good cook without lots of practice and you won't practice without fucking up! If I was learning to cook and my husband turned his nose up at my meals and had a go at me for wasting food I'd wonder where I went so wrong to be with such a disrespectful twat

"Can't be a good cook without lots of practice and you won't practice without fucking up!"

But if you're learning you follow recipes.

You dont have to follow recipes, the recipe isnt always ok. You might follow something to the letter, it be awful and you need to chuck it and order a pizza

Or you might be intuitive and throw things together. Im a good cook, I have never followed a recipe. I love food and get lots of praise for what I cook. OH doesnt like what I like, he doesnt like rich food whereas I do, plus different flavour preferences.

I didnt read anywhere that the partner is throwing out the food

I'd just not eat it and make something else.

If he ate the dumplings you need to LTB! 🥴

God this would piss me off.
There's this thing calling Dunning-Krueger Syndrome, which has largely been debunked...but looks at people who are so ignorant of a subject they vastly overrate their expertise on it.
There is a type. Maybe not scientific but yeah...

@FreeRider when I was a teenager I had a weekend job cleaning a hotel kitchen after lunch. It was horrendous, because the chefs used to finish their shift and walk away leaving the huge catering kitchen in an unbelievable state. They never put a single thing away. Every surface was covered in knives and bits of food and rubbish, and every pan was half full of baked-on food. Absolutely terrible job!

Following recipes is not the only way to learn.

Not to mention, everything the OP has stated doesn't sound awful. It sounds like they have different tastes and I'd rather eat from the plate of someone who doesn't turn their noses up at herbs and spices....