To give up on dinners entirely?

[Goodgravythisisfantastic]

So bloody sick of thinking about food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, every day, every week, every month. Who cares?

Tonight we had beans on toast with sausages and fried egg. Son (nearly 3) ecstatically happy. I realised everyone is happier with the simpler meals and I'm happier for cooking them.

I'm ready to give up and cook only beans on toast, baked potatoes, tuna pasta, fish finger sandwiches, toasties with soup, and chicken burgers.

YABU- stop being lazy and cook a decent meal ffs
YANBU- embrace the lazy dinners. Everyone's happier. In fact here are some lazy dinner ideas of my own...

Thanks in advance! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

you can't count the same vegetable or fruit again - you can only count the onion once, regardless of colour or make e.g. red onion, spring onion, white onion would all count just once

same would apply if you eat two portions of banana or orange

It’s still so depressing to see people exalting the “5 minutes to the table, bosh, job done” crap that British people love to peddle on here

I’m British but I’m lucky enough that psychologically I don’t see food or cooking as an enemy, a reward, a treat, a chore, “booooring” or anything else but… food.

Eh? I do see it as food. I also sometimes see the thinking about/shopping for/preparation of it as a chore. That’s because I am extremely busy with a full time job, 3 children (one of whom is disabled) and a household to run. There is no shame in finding it a chore.

Well everyone’s different. I’m British too, but l fucking hate cooking.

5 minutes to table would be perfect in my world. Cooking is a tedious chore, my nationality makes no difference.

I’ve made it to 60, despite being a child of the 70’s brought up on sugar sandwiches and fishfingers.

l prefer to do more interesting things than cook.

A while ago i bought a few cook books and made several recipes out of each of them. If we liked the dish i wrote it on a lolly stick. Now i have a cup full of lolly sticks and each week i pull out 7 at random and thats our meal plan. One day i might colour code them or something into chicken beef fish etc so we dont have too much of the same thing but for now thats the extent of the planning!

Fair point. She could add salad if the kids will eat it.

But there are days when circumstances and events leave very little time for cooking from scratch . . . . that's when the 5 minute meals, empty the fridge, (my sister calls it "British Tapas"!), something on toast-type meals can save the day

Aww, well done you.

l prefer to do more interesting things than cook.

I hear this trotted out time and time again by people in this country.

Yet in Spain, France, Argentina, Hong Kong, I’ve met men and women who don’t even allow this thinking because they would rather eat well than have more time. I have lived in these places and loved the food culture - it’s inherent, it’s celebrated.

We celebrate weird things here. We want two people working continuously so that we can afford fantastically named cars called Qashqai or T-Roc, endless holidays, and so we can smash all our walls down to create big island kitchens for show, that we then resent using for longer than 15 mins a session.

I won’t be made to feel stupid for loving a strong food culture.

And I won’t be made to feel lazy/uncultured because I’m busy with my career and n caring for my disabled child and often find shopping/meal planning/cooking a chore.

Enjoying cooking does not make you a superior person.

they would rather eat well than have more time

These are not mutually exclusive. Plus a lot of posters on this thread would probably resent thinking, planning and cooking a whole lot less if the other members of their households put as much effort into the process as they did, and had similar tastes in food.

Imagine being one of a household of four and one week a month, you took your turn to plan, shop and cook the week's meals and everyone ate it all without complaining. Then the other three weeks your partner or teen DC did the same and you could eat healthy enjoyable food for three weeks a month without any effort yourself. (obviously not realistic for younger DC, but DP/DHs could definitely do their share).

What I’m a bit puzzled by are the people who say they can’t be doing with cooking because their children are their priority.

Putting a healthy, varied and balanced meal on the table is essential for children’s nutrition. If your children are your priority, surely it extends to this?

wtf?!

2 people work just to afford to live not to buy schmancy cars.

We’re not in Spain, France or Hong Kong. We’re in Broken Britain with no money or time for anything. Big deal that people from these countries ‘don’t allow time’ for thinking independently. They must be pretty boring people if all they allow time for is cooking🥱

Bully for you that you ‘love a strong food culture’

Like l said l find anything more interesting than cooking. Even watching paint dry.

Tell me more about the microwave marmite cous cous…

Yeah this is what keeps it enjoyable on Fri - Sun for us. Mon - Thurs are basics like chilli, pasta, fish with spuds and veg, chicken with rice and salad etc. I try to do a takeaway style meal like a curry on Friday and some kind of a roast on Sunday, but mixing it up with meat and sides and spices even (eg lamb with Middle Eastern spices and cous cous and harissa roasties) so it doesn’t get boring. I’ll try a new recipe on a Saturday- something a little bit more special for the weekend but not too time consuming.

I’ve also found making more dinner than needed to have the next day for lunch has made shopping and planning so much easier and enjoyable. Also, stuff like lasagne are great for two nights on the trot or freezing smaller portions when you know you’ve got a really busy evening or week coming up.

OP, I’d try and go for middle ground. Eg a burger and chips might become a small chicken breast marinated in a chilli/BBQ glaze in a bun with sweet potato wedges and a salad. Or better quality chunky fish fingers with a jacket potato and loads of veg, or a rice with peas and sweetcorn etc.

But I’ve definitely been stuck in a rut with meal planning so YANBU. Sticking to our routine above helped make it a bit more enjoyable as we actually looked forward to dinner.

Another thing we also do is I’ll pick Friday’s dinner, my DH Saturday, etc etc.

My child is disabled. My priority is keeping him safe from harm. He requires 1:1 supervision at all times. He also only eats a very limited diet. I would love to have hours free to cook lovely, nutritious meals that I know he’d eat but as it is, cooking is a chore. I still do it, but it’s a chore.

For all the people talking about celebrating food culture and loving food/cooking. That’s sort of not the point for some of us. I absolutely love food and used to enjoy cooking; I’m a very good cook.
It’s the continuous grind of producing a limited range of acceptable food, day after week after year after decade. Often for the benefit of others who don’t want to eat it or don’t appreciate the effort.

It’s like saying you love reading and can’t understand why people being forced to read only War and Peace every day for 20 yrs might find it dull.

This sounds very difficult for you but it is also an exceptional circumstance, so doesn’t really detract from my broader point.

Also, there is a difference in tone between ‘I understand the importance of good food but have lots of constraints in my day’ (which sounds like you) and ‘I can’t be arsed with food and would rather play with my kids and have crisps for dinner’ (which a few other pps have veered towards).

If everyone LOVED cooking so much, why do people have maids and cooks in other cultures? I have Asian family who eat very elaborate meals. Do they cook it themselves? No - the maids do it, along with the cleaning and other household chores.

Cooking is a service you can pay for, therefore it’s work. It’s not about a “culture”, it’s about affordability of cheap labour and living costs.

This is a good point. I like cooking but if I had to churn out the same old shite for someone who was regularly ungrateful I’d probably pour it on their head.

I think our broader food environment has a lot of answer for here. If it wasn’t all fried chicken, pizza and burgers then it wouldn’t be so hard to get people excited by nutritious foods at home.

James Wong the scientist/chef/nutritionist says a lot of positive things about tinned food and the fact it can be equally as nutritious as freshly cooked.

Tinned food is considered “poor” but tinned potatoes, tinned ratatouille, tinned anything generally doesn’t contain nasty additives like frozen meals do and can be mixed with a bit of pasta, couscous or rice very easily and quickly.

Do all of that if you find the fancy variety too much of a hassle but be careful that there is salad, other veg and fruit on the menu

there are many no fuss normal meals which involve simple roasting, boiling and not mixing up tons of ingredients

But that's your own fault? Spice up your meals and make food fun