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! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

I just decreed Sunday evening is beans on toast night and didn't get any complaints. I make our own beans so it's a bit healthier but still super easy:
2 tins of beans (black beans and cannellini usually), tin of tomatoes, one red pepper (I use those roasted ones in a jar for ease), onion/garlic, 2 tbsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp smoked paprika and 1tsp oregano. Takes about 2 mins to chuck in a pan then cook for a bit. And it's 5 types of veg!
Serve with hash browns or toast with egg.

She thinks I'm not capable of reaching the lofty heights of meal planning and cooking wonderful wholesome meals from scratch. It's "above me". Unobtainable. Or at least that I've decided that's the case.

My poor son must suffer his diet of fish fingers, beans and a multivitamin.

The loose ones in Tesco are great. Really good sizes

@fassnk great idea

OP I honestly don't know what's the point to this thread. If it's just for people to say you are right I'm bored of cooking what's the point, then just ask for getting that answer.

That's a good point @JacquesHarlow
I'm originally from Spain but leaving abroad for 20 years plus. It's just cultural.

Kids eat food, (any food, same as adults) in other countries. You just don't expose them to junk as something normal. The issue is culture. Making two meals where the adults get good food and children get rubbish. Restaurants offering "children's menu" which is again highly processed junk. Until this is changed culturally there will be thread like this one where people justify substandard food. My own kids always ate the same food as us in smaller portions. It is possible.

Why is lack of interest in cooking ‘lazy?’

Is not liking gardening lazy? Or not liking diy. Isn’t this about hobbies.

OP I honestly don't know what's the point to this thread

What do you think the point of this thread is?

I've told this before on here so apologies if you've heard it before. I was sitting in the garden centre coffee shop when a group of women were loudly commiserating with a woman who had clearly been recently widowed. On and on they went until she declared there were positives, stunned pause and then she said she could have boiled egg and toast for dinner if she wanted it.

Those of you with partners who ask what's for tea – do they not cook?

Well I can only speak for myself, but the point for me has been to make me feel validated and less alone in my uncultured culinary ways.

Thank you, OP, for that. 😅

When I was a child my DM would cook for us, chipolatas, chips and baked beans and replace chipolatas with fishfingers and add peas sometimes in placed of the baked beans.

She cooked shepherds pie, roast chicken (Sundays), liver and bacon casserole, spag bol and other things but the ones in the first para - they're easy young children's meals, you can add more veg if you want to but they're nutritious and most children like them. She had more or less the same. For a quiet life I'd stick with this for now. You can make your own chicken kievs (chicken breast, breadcrumbs, garlic Philadelphia) too or do hamburgers home made. Or veggie options.

You do know you can make your own fishfingers and other processed food if you want to? I mean your beloved chorizo in Spain is processed.

Yes, some children are happy eating a wide range of food and do so from a young age but others aren't happy doing this and their palate gets better as they age. No need to judge people.

Carb, protein, vegetable. That can take the form of tuna jacket potatoes with salad, chicken and rice with steamed broccoli, rice cakes with cheese and cucumber, etc etc. It doesn't have to be a proper cooked meal for it to do what you need.

Same!! I thought that comment was odd too. I don't look down upon anyone who chooses to and enjoys meal planning, what an odd perspective. Quite the opposite actually - I quite envy and admire them! But I will never ever enjoy it myself, no matter how hard I try. 🤷‍♀️

Thankfully I've married someone who doesn't ask. He eats whatever he's given and is grateful for it. And I'm grateful that he does all the washing up and keeps the kitchen tidy. I loathe cooking marginally less that I loathe washing up.

I never cook on self-catering holidays. We just buy bread, cheese and fruit for breakfast and snacks and have dinner in restaurants like we would if we were in a hotel.

Tea is a drink in this house
Dinner is agreed and written on the board.
We share the cooking
No need to ask cos it's on the board

Haha if my DH asked this question I'd think someone else's DH had come home instead. After 9 years he knows me better than to ask this 😂

Ah ok, that makes sense. I guess.

Anyway… taking pleasure in cooking is not a moral virtue. Not enjoying it doesn’t make anyone a bad person, or a bad parent. A lot of the time it can feel like a chore. Even when I lived in Spain for 5 years, it still sometimes felt like a chore. My Spanish husband still often finds it a chore.
You’d have thought that was a fairly uncontroversial thing to say, but not on MN apparently!
I also find laundry a chore. I wonder if that makes me a bad person too.

This is why I've come to love an All Inclusive as I've got older. No need to even think about food.

I don't even mind the shopping or cooking, it's the thinking about it I hate.

I've seen my sister ask her family "what do you want for dinner?" It drives her mad when they just say "don't mind, whatever".

back when I was less uninspired by meal planning (I go in phases) I used to just do themes. So;

Monday- pasta
Tuesday- Mexican
Wednesday - Rice
Thursday- Hot dogs or burgers
Friday- breakfast for dinner
Saturday- supper
Sunday- roast

It took a little bit of the mental load off as I knew the basic starch / base / carb and then would limit my options that way. So a typical week would be;

Monday- chicken noodle soup with bread and cheese
Tuesday- tacos or chilli
Wednesday - stir fry
Thursday- Bratwurst with saurkraut or sausages and mash or burgers with all the trimmings
Friday- scrambled eggs and bacon / smoked salmon whatever
Saturday- soup and toast / crumpets / pancakes
Sunday- English roast or Greek inspired roasted meats in summer

But tbh I'm tired of that now. I am trying to cook once eat twice though and freeze things. I have a mini New Year resolution that the last week of the month (before payday) I don't buy any groceries and just eat out of the freezer.

I hear you OP.

I am on the same boat. I hate the question after picking up the children from school. what’s for lunch/ dinner? what did you cook?

It’s fucking relentless and I hate it. I didn’t want to be a caterer for my children and husband but here we are.

Then the comments: we need to eat healthier (by my husband) we’ll, he barely eTs at home so the conversation should not have to be with me but with himself. Then to consider children’s likes and dislikes I am so sick of it too.

Just ranting, sometimes for dinner is yogurth with chopped fruit, or cereals with milk.

I just need a break, honestly.

I quite like a self catering holiday as it usually means you have more living space (with a living area/kitchen, not just bedrooms) and I like to just buy fresh bread/fruit/croissants etc for breakfast. We eat out at different restaurants for all other meals though, so no cooking.

I know! In our house the conversation is either 'I think it's my turn to cook tonight isn't it?' or 'I've got a meeting/class/etc til quite late, do you mind cooking and I'll do it tomorrow?'

I used to love cooking before children, but then I had the joys of having two fussy ones (serves me right for thinking pre-kids that only bad cooks or lazy parents got fussy eaters!) and now it's such a chore trying to think what to cook. The most annoying thing is that the biggest compliments I get about dinner is when I've given up and given them oven food.

Luckily we have some family favourites we all like that are homemade/healthy (chilli, spaghetti bolognaise, homemade chicken curry - all with tons of veg hidden away in them, or macaroni cheese with veg on the side), then we have hybrid meals where I add something homemade to something pre-made (homemade vegetable sauce with brown rice and swedish meatballs, freezer breaded chicken with homemade katsu curry sauce with plenty of veg), occasional oven stuff (fishfingers and chips usually) and sometimes a nice lazy/easy meal like a jacket potato or egg on toast.

An I completely agree re holidays- if I have to cook it's not a full holiday. We've done a couple of all inclusives and it's so nice not to be constantly asked what's for dinner.