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!

My ex was like this - literal to an irritating degree. Any multitasking instruction, written or otherwise would have to be given to the nth degree otherwise absolutely no lick of common sense would be applied. For example, I once asked him to boil pasta for me, so he put a handful in a milk pan, no lid, so salt, not stirred, low heat… infuriating. If he did the washing up, he’s literally just do the plates in front of him, no looking for the odd teaspoon or teacup. No drying, no cleaning the sink/sides. Washing dishes meant just that. He’s almost certainly autistic though, but obviously that doesn’t mean OP’s husband is.

When would frozen peas and sweetcorn ever be a better substitute for fresh ingredients of soffritto?

Frozen berries go soft but they’re fine if they’re being cooked - in muffins or cake for example.

This is ds. Leave any gap in instructions because you assumed he'd know something/ join the dots himself, and you get:"well, you didn't tell me x."

And yet, he works out all his gaming shit quite easily. It's botheredness, isn't it?

This recipe started with a soffritto, the components definitely are not interchangeable with other vegetables!

Does he work in software dev or programming by any chance? because testing is meticulous about following instructions.

Right.

A stir fry is completely different from an Italian based recipe!

For someone who cooks regularly that is beyond stupid. It's the sort of thing my husband (very rarely cooks) might do. I have to monitor him closely if he decides to make anything.

For example, he said he wanted to make a slow cooker chicken recipe, so I bought some chicken thighs for him. He ignored those and used the pre cooked whole rotisserie chicken. Twat

I do not believe any of the people who say they would fry peas, beans and sweetcorn instead of onion, celery and carrots in a soup or pasta sauce.

You have to have enough knowledge and experience to know that berries going soft will make no difference in X but will in Y though.

It us possible that given a choice of whether to prioritise the frozenness or the ingredients themselves that someone might choose to stick with frozen stuff.

It’s also possible that he doesn’t notice the differences between types of veg in the way the OP does. He might genuinely think it makes no difference if it’s carrots and celery or peas and sweetcorn. Again, you need to know and care more about this stuff than he may well do.

There are lots of situations where I neither know nor care about things enough to know which substitution is the best one to make. It’s not always obvious which variable will matter most - even if it seems obvious to other people who know more.

Different but related, DH once went out to buy paint for the garage door, we had discussed colour, and had agreed something dark and muted, I said 'maybe like a dark maroon red or something.

I went out and he was speedy at buying the paint and actually painting the door....I returned to a very bright scarlet garage door, like BRIGHT. Apparently there was no maroon paint available. In such circumstances I would have gone for navy or dark green or something.

I said 'that's not muted and dark;', he said 'you said red'.

It was used as a clear landmark for the population of our village for many years!

Sorry, but if I knew someone who made the brownies like your DH did then I would just assume they were completely thick!

When would frozen peas and sweetcorn ever be a better substitute for fresh ingredients of soffritto?

Because he didn't know that they had the fresh so used the only frozen veg mix that they had?

I realise my post looks completely irrelevant, but it was on the theme of one person's appropriate substitution not being the same as another's! Latching on to the 'frozen' part of the veg instruction is like my DH latching onto red. It's like....the least important factor.

What did I just read

I wouldn’t.

But I’d likely make some stupid substitution decisions if I didn’t have the exact right bolts, screws and glues to do a bit of basic joinery because I neither know nor care enough to recognise what the more important variables are.

So I can see how it’s possible that someone thought: I don’t have that frozen veg mix so I’ll just use this frozen veg mix instead.

I also don’t think the outcome of the substitution would necessarily be terrible. It would just be different soup than I was expecting. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The brownies with a layer of baked egg would be a more terrible outcome. In a hilarious, ‘you did what?’ way.

OP doesn’t say he didn’t know just that she didn’t specifically mention she’d for the soffritto vegetables fresh. He can look in the fridge no?

He does half the cooking so he should have mastered this by now.

If you’re doing an Italian sauce recipe you don’t use peas and sweetcorn - in fact the obvious thing would be to leave out the additional vegetables out entirely and just do a basic tomato sauce with onions and garlic.

I don’t know what to say about someone who claims people can’t differentiate between vegetables.

I couldn’t cope! That said, I asked DH to bring in a can of paint from the garage the other day. I was touching up a wall where we’d been decorating. He came back with a can of white gloss. Our walls are not painted with white gloss!!! He knew exactly where I needed to use the paint and it would never have been a white gloss job. He was then annoyed when I told him it was the wrong paint. He’d got paint, you see, hence job done. Idiot.

I've discovered in recent years I have aphantasia, so my visualisation is awful, but that's no excuse for putting eggs on top of a brownie mix rather than inside it. Has he ever eaten a brownie with baked egg on top? No. He's just not exercising his brain enough!

OP doesn’t say he didn’t know just that she didn’t specifically mention she’d for the soffritto vegetables fresh. He can look in the fridge no?

Well I don't know do I?

He might not think to look if he doesn't know that they have been bought?

@Mirabai

And you are telling me this because?

@ValBiro that's funny!

Reminds me of my cousin making mashed potato. Boiled potatoes in water, then mashed them. Instructions didn't say to drain the potatoes, so he didn't. Ended up with potato soup

I think a lot of what we call common sense is actually learning and experience. If your husband doesn’t cook regularly, he doesn’t have that experience.

There are some kinds of DIY I’ve never attempted. I’ve never done tiling, say, or wallpapering. If I attempted them I bet I could make mistakes that were equivalent to your husband and the brownies (eg “apply the grout to the wall”- I would just put whatever was in the pot labelled grout on the wall but maybe you need to stir it first or mix it with water or whatever- who knows?) When you know something it’s hard to imagine what it’s like not to know it.

If you read the first post, OP states that he does at least 50% of the cooking and regularly makes pasta sauces that start with carrot, onion and celery.

I’m agreeing with you! And disagreeing with the poster you responded to.