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! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

Yes. I feel this. Cooking something delicious and a bit different for just me and DH on a Saturday night after bedtime is not the same as making my DC’s dinner which ends up on the floor (baby atm) and will prob get pushed around the plate in a few years.

None of those simple meals have much veg in, but totally agree with keeping things simple.

Simple meals are fine as long as they are relatively healthy.

Why not do a mix?

On work days we have the same weekly meal rotation every week:

Monday - stir fry
Tuesday - M&S eat well ready meal (as always working late on a Tues)
Weds - pan fried salmon with steamed vegetables
Thurs - slow cooker chilli con carne and microwave rice
Friday - fajitas

At the weekend when I've got more time I sometimes try to cook more adventurous things/get a takeaway but honestly Monday-Friday I simply cannae be assed thinking of what to cook. I get the same online supermarket delivery every week and do the same exact cooking steps. It saves me a lot of mental and physical effort.

I should add that my kids only eat sandwiches in the evenings anyway, like a PP they won't eat hot food at home. They have a hot lunch at school/nursery. So I just do them a sandwich and some chopped cucumber for dinner.

For 300,000 years, our number one priority was eating.

But now, despite a Tesco on every corner, some people just can't be arsed to prioritise feeding themselves and their families properly.

And we wonder why we have such high levels of ill health, obesity and unhappiness.

And batch cook so plenty of easy stuff to just get out if the freezer but home made and healthy.

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

Genius PP! Everyone, we have a solution!

I know what you mean. Bit different for me as in our household a) we both cook and b) it's just me and DP (and until recently a lodger), but sometimes I do just think 'Christ, do I have to think of/buy/cook/clear up food AGAIN?!'

If I've got time, an idea/fancy for something in particular, or I've seen a nice recipe, I do feel inspired to cook it and I enjoy it. But often it's just a grind.

I'm housesitting on my own at the mo, and mainly having tubs of soup for lunch with some baby spinach thrown in, and filled pasta or fish fingers and sweet potato fries for dinner. Again, I do add fresh or frozen veg to those. But it's rather nice just not thinking about food too much.

Sarcastic or what?

Food is literally the fuel for our bodies and people still want to eat piles of UPF crap

😂

What the fuck are you going on about?

I drive a Fiat 500 and live in a 2 bedroom flat. No kitchen island either. I still fucking hate the daily grind of thinking about meals.

You have zero imagination if you can't empathise with families getting bogged down with endless meal planning. Add the cost of food these days into the mix and you can just throw the whole fucking thing in the bin for all I care.

I know you're all chuffed with yourself for being so haute cuisine and cultured in your approach to food, but you might be lacking a little bit in the empathy department.

I've meal planned for tonight and we're having burgers 🙌🏻 don't panic there's salad and guacamole on the side.

Agree. You choose to prioritise it, or you don't.

You choose to learn quick and healthy meals that can be cooked after work.
You choose to find time to shop for fresh food (I often go out shopping at 7-8am)
You choose to learn what's in season and therefore cheap

I spend more on decent food, and I choose to go without other things that I'd like.

Priorities.

@hayless exactly. It took me an hour to make my meals for the week at the weekend. People are just lazy

I do do a mix. I'm just having a moan ffsssssssss

And your next tip on batch cooking- we have a tiny fridge freezer and that's all we can manage right now. Some people don't have the means. We do pretty well though despite never having visited Hong Kong as per another PP 🙄

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Yeah we’re all uncultured plebs if we don’t like cooking. I used to teach art history, but I’m uncultured because l have a kitchen diner ( not big enough for an island)

Cooking is so tedious. Chop chop chop, stir stir stir, more chopping more stirring🥱And as for the planning😖

You made the rookie mistake of not putting ‘lighthearted’ in your title. Without that, you’re doomed on MN.

When my son is grown up, I am never going to cook "proper meals" again. I will have soup or cereal or nachos or three avocados or whatever I feel like eating, whenever I feel like eating it.

Another uncultured pleb over here 🤚🏻

I abhor meal planning with every fibre of my soul. I don't think that makes me an inferior human. I have many other strengths and enjoyments in life. But sitting thinking "what shall I have for tea every night for the next 7 nights and what specific ingredients do I require for each of those meals" is absolutely categorically NOT one of those things for me.

it's fucking boring feeding everyone until you die

This is the best thing I’ve read on mumsnet in ages 😂 I couldn’t agree more.

Yanbu

I’m an uncultured lazy arsed pleb.

Last night I made: mussels in garlic sauce, oven chips and a frozen pizza (absolutely laden with piles of UPFs). Then home made crumble with fruit grown on my allotment, frozen in my massive chest freezer.

Hated every bloody minute of it!

Who said 'above them'?

It is a chore. I find it incredibly boring even when it's just for me. I don't enjoy cooking.

Why not do simple meals in the week and cook something more interesting, if you feel like it, on the weekends?

If you want to. Or agree with your partner that they will.

‘Above them’ doesn’t even make sense in this context. Surely it should be ‘below them’?
Anyway, I don’t feel meal planning is either above or below me. I just don’t enjoy it.

Oh it did!

Big bowl of lettuce, a few slices of cucumber. A couple of tomatoes. And quartered boiled eggs! And salad cream if you were lucky

YANBU. I used to enjoy food planning but there were years when life with children was busy it became soul destroying.

I'd go with the easy meals for perhaps 4 days and something more balanced on the other days, definitely look at some batch cooking options to become sometimes it's the time that's the issue.