DH doesn't think critically about a recipe as he's making it

[shaniahoo]

I desperately need to rant about my lovely DH, but not to his face since he's just made me a really lovely dinner and I am grateful for that. I am.

But when he cooks from a recipe he sometimes does something really weird because he read it wrong but doesn't notice that it might be wrong and question it.

So this evening we planned a new recipe from a Jamie Oliver book and I left it to him because I was out at an appointment. I said just follow the recipe. Jamie said use frozen mixed onion, carrot and celery but we don't have that nonexistent product so I got those vegetables in fresh. I didn't mention that to DH, didn't think it necessary. He decided to use the frozen mixed veg that we do have in, which is peas, sweetcorn, carrots and green beans. I don't understand why you would see "frozen onion, carrot and celery" and choose to use a frozen mix of completely different vegetables, rather than the same veg but fresh, and also apparently have never at any point considered that might be wrong. See it's not just misreading the recipe, it's also the fact that this veg is getting sauteed in oil and then add some vinegar and cook it off before adding chopped tomatoes. That's a REALLY WEIRD thing to do to peas and sweetcorn and he never considered that it was weird. He does more than half the cooking in our house and regularly makes pasta sauces that start with onion carrot and celery!

The meal was really nice anyway so I limited myself to a brief indignation then shut up about it and enjoyed the dinner.

There have been other times...like one time he made brownies from a jar recipe, and it said to mix together the dry ingredients then add eggs and bake. So because it didn't explicitly say to mix the eggs in, he poured them on top of the dry mix and put it in the oven like that. He said he was just following the instructions and they should have said to mix, but come on you're making brownies here, brownies do not consist of chocolate powder with baked eggs on top.

His visual memory is really bad, like he's a proper "kinesthetic learner" and doesn't seem to picture stuff in his head the way I do, which I've always struggled to understand and I wonder whether it's because when he's doing something he doesn't picture the end result as he's doing it, and therefore doesn't "see" a dish of powder with baked eggs on top of it, or pasta sauce with peas and sweetcorn as a base. Would love to hear from people whose brains work in the same way his does and who can fully understand making this type of mistake!

Hmm I'd agree if it was a stir fry, it was a tomato-based pasta sauce though so starting off with onion carrot and celery is very standard but peas and sweetcorn very not-standard.

You are very generous in describing him op.

I read your op thinking he must be either exceptionally low IQ or just not have a clue about cooking.

I'm sorry for that opinion, but I would consider it very very basic cooking knowledge that onions/garlic/celery/carrot is the base and that green beans aren't a substitute. That is actually bonkers.

kind of funny, i was thinking of sharing this with my dh who cooks and likes to go rogue on recipes BUT i'm not sure he would see the humor...
i'm ever so grateful for grade7-8 home ec classes.

Oh lol, my DH drives me batty with cooking too. It is his executive functioning skills. (Non skills)

Yesterday he made frozen fish and oven chips. He used the oven and air fryer, forgot the peas and covered every worksurface in our large kitchen. He also served it 15 mins late and even later because he doesn't think to lay the table while it is cooking. Freezer food!!!

I think there is a frozen mix with those three veg in it. We get it from Morrisons but never remember to use it. It has a name but I forget it.

Oh thank you! I couldn't find it in Tesco and in the picture he very clearly is using a Tesco packet so I assumed they sold it there!

Chocolate eggs, yum yum my favourite

The brownie thing reminds me of a review I read on BBC Good Food just the other day! It said put chicken between two sheets of parchment paper and flatten with a rolling pin. This very angry woman said it should have specified the paper then needed to be removed because she shoved it under her grill and it caught fire 🙈

I don't think it's a brain thing, I think it's a not having a scoobie about the fundamental grammar of cooking. He needs an abc that starts with the absolute basics but I'm not really sure how you'd go about it. I think you'd just watch Nigella/Delia shows on repeat.

Frozen mirepoix does exist, Sainsburys do it for one, but it's probably not stocked everywhere.

I've done this before... Potentially outing, but I once made a pie with a mashed potato too and it said "decorate with fork" before putting in the oven. I took that very literally and popped a fork on top of the pie before putting it in th oven! The fork came out VERY hot as you might imagine, and much merriment ensued at my misreading of the recipe!

Could it be he’s purposely messing up to get out of doing it again?

I'm going to be the first to mention autism.

I'm autistic and three of my adult children are.

I can easily imagine DS2 doing the brownie thing, and being puzzled as to why the recipe "went wrong".

Not low IQ, if he was then I would understand better. He's an intelligent person. But another way this sort of thing comes up is when he does things and doesn't anticipate any consequences, and the reason I jump to visual learning is that I anticipate things because I picture them. Like e.g. we've gotten a bus somewhere and he might suggest "let's get a taxi home", I'll picture immediately putting DD in a taxi in a car seat and realise we can't do that because we don't have the car seat with us. Things like that that he just doesn't seem to think of.

The brownie incidentvreminds me if this dad following the literal instructions to make a sandwich, except he’s doing it on purpose.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cDA3_5982h8

I feel your indigestion pain.

My DH has a weird habit when cooking from a recipe. If it says something like "cook for 20mins or until golden brown" he will cook it for 20mins NO MATTER WHAT. Doesn't matter if it turned golden brown at the 12 minute mark. He will wait for the full 20mins, staring gormlessly at the shriveled/burnt/dry crap in the pan.

I'll be honest, I really don't know how I would have handled it if my husband did the eggs on brownie mix thing.

Not sure I'd be able to get over that.

I was also going to ask if there could be some neurodivergance?

I laughed out loud at the brownie thing. That was exactly what my ex was like and probably still is with cooking. Anything that was packaged was cooked exactly to the instructions on the packet. So if it said cook for 30 min it went in the oven for 30 mins, not a minute more or less. Nevermind if it was burnt to a crisp or still frozen inside. He had followed the instructions.

Looking back, there were a LOT of things where he wasn't really capable of using his initiative or doing things if it wasn't spelt out explicitly for him. Whereas I've always been the opposite - I can kind of work it out a lot of stuff myself. In the end it caused countless arguments and simmering resentment between us when he couldn't even do the simplest (in my mind) of tasks.

Our eldest DC is autistic and I am now seeing exactly like his dad (my ex). Takes everything literally, follows instructions to the letter and needs the most basic of instructions for basic tasks. Looking back, I was probably a bit of a twat towards my ex about it and I have a lot more patience for DC than i ever did with ex. But my DC is obviously a child and I'm not constantly picking up the slack for him like I was with my ex. I am also encouraging DC to actually take some initiative and do stuff himself which ex PIL clearly never did with ex.

What job does he do?

For my DH it isn't a cooking thing. It is a not thinking very hard thing. I work hard on my loving patience and remember he is tidy in bed (well not actually tidy anywhere mores the pity!!)

I was surprised to see this comment so far down. I have enjoyed this thread so much though.

High IQ, zero practical skills. Like graduates who can't boil an egg.

M & S sells it as well frozen. It's called sofrito. Found that out from a magazine so now have some in my freezer for when I next make my own tomato sauce from a Mary Berry recipe. Was a real pain chopping them all up finely.

DH is similar, although not quite as literal and extreme as some of these examples. Not an IQ problem, just lacks confidence and familiarity with cooking (and DIY, sadly). He can follow a recipe but finds it really hard to substitute similar ingredients or adapt a recipe to what we have. Also poor at basic kitchen economy such as using milk in date order or planning meals to use fresh food up before it goes off, which are second nature to me.

Christ. Does the answer to everything have to be autism here these days? 🙄

The man lacks common sense and basic cooking knowledge.

M and S Sainsbury's and Waitrose all do frozen onion, celery and carrot and it's really useful to have in. I'm back handed with a knife so it saves me a lot of grief. In M and S it's called Soffritto. Other shops often call it Chef's Base or something like that