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! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

He does cook since retirement watches James Martin, Etc it's a new hobby for him. We've three spice racks now!!

Then dont cook for him - simple! He can make his own and you make what you fancy for you. Its 2024 and sounds like he’s stuck in a different era.

Why are they just for women? What about men? He sounds bone idle.

honestly, can't a woman have a moan about being fed up of being the one solely responsible for prepping/planning the meals for everyone for years on end without someone turning it into a sanctimonious lecture on food quality?

fuck off.

Of course not, this is Mumsnet 🤣. Any opportunity for people to assert their superiority.

It's great that that works for you. Unfortunately I'd find that too restrictive - I am diabetic and grew up with enough rules re food to want to stick to a food rota. It would drive me to crave off-rota foods. What do you do if you suddenly fancy a curry on a Tuesday?!

Doesn't sound like that good a husband, TBH. His 'attitude to food' is also his attitude to who should be in charge of things considered boring, drudgery, or, as he thinks, women's work – and who gets not to be. because they're way too important or clever or just male.

I can find it really difficult too. Those meals are fine if you add vegetables/salad to them.

We don't really have food like that but I do cook quite simply. Pasta with vegetables, simple lemon sauce, parmesan and salad, wraps with vegetables,beans and avocado, tofu stir fry and noodles. I just can't stand making a lot of mess and I'm so tired in the evenings.

I don't mind so much going grocery shopping but I hate coming home exhausted and having to put it all away.

I just don't...Its based on my schedule/time...so I know if I suddenly wanted a curry on a Tuesday for example, it's my office day so I don't have time to get the ingredients and prep that anyway.

It's true that it only works if u are willing to give up a level of spontaneity, but I prefer that than waking up each morning wondering what we're having that night

I said to DH yesterday I spent about 1.5-2 hours everyday eating, prepping, cooking, thinking about shopping, doing food shopping.

I’ve started buying stuff I can pimp, like a cauliflower cheese where I add broccoli and potatoes underneath and make it a gratin which we have with sausages. DH is driving me dippy as he’s pretty much decided he doesn’t want to eat some of the stuff I batch cook. On the plus side when I asked him to cook the roast on Sunday he got on with it and it was lovely.

if I lived on my own I’d probably just eat toast, make Chinese in large quantities to reheat when I felt like it. I might have beans on toast too.

'when I asked him to cook the roast on Sunday he got on with it and it was lovely.'

Can you imagine anyone saying the reverse: 'when I asked my wife to cook the roast on Sunday she got on with it and it was lovely.'

As a (working class) kid in the 70’s we had homemade ‘burgers’ with lots and lots of garlic, eaten with gravy, cabbage and potato or sometimes potato salad with dill.

I thought it was just some Yorkshire version of a roast dinner and what everyone ate. It wasn’t until I grew up and moved to Germany that I realised that what I’d been eating was a classic meal of frikadelle and must have been something that my Ukrainian dad requested.

I can’t even use the excuse that my DH expects me to do all the cooking. He does at least 60% of it (would be more, but he works away a few nights a week), and I still find the remaining 40% dull and a massive chore.

I’m with you OP.

I never even want any fucking tea! I’d be happy with a few crackers, some tuna and some cherry tomatoes.

One of my favourite easy meals is a fish finger wrap - I put tartare sauce in the wrap, then salad and the fish fingers - I think that is a pretty healthy meal.

I first had that in quite a fancy restaurant (for lunch) and enjoyed it so much I do it at home now. Delicious, especially with extra capers.

I don't think we had cabbage with our burgers (peas) but that's interesting about how you ate them. We definitely had them with gravy. Sometimes with jacket potatoes or mashed potatoes too.

The Frikadelle look very similar to hamburgers but are meatballs.

I've got no idea what else they ate because my grandfather was German (his mum was German, dad was dual national French/English) and he was brought up in Germany until his late teens.

He loved all the traditional German food like rollmop herrings, black bread, sauerkraut, pickled anything and goose at Christmas (but he grew to like English turkey) but I can't recall other traditional German food he liked - his family was very well off until they lost everything due to both world wars but they had cooks and worked for German nobility.

I think I'm going shopping after work for fishfingers. Yum.

OP has said she doesn’t have the facilities for storage of meal prep at present.

You choose to have the children, the least you can do is feed them properly.

I thought it was just me. We have breakfast and some kind of snack mid afternoon, and that's me done for the day. Maybe a banana or cheese and crackers in the evening - but a cooked meal.......neh!

I've read this thread with fascination, as I quite enjoy the meal planning. It's a household job I've happily taken ownership of, handing over stuff I don't like doing to DP.

I do spend an hour or 2 at the weekend listening to podcasts and bumbling around the kitchen to get a headstart - cutting up veg, preparing a couple of meals that can be thrown in the oven or slow cooker, doing a big batch of baked oats and making some bits for lunches.

Yeah, fish finger wraps and sandwiches are all over the place in fancy/trendy eateries! I have had some nice ones, I have to say, with lovely bread and home-made tartare sauce.

@Gettingbysomehow

you’re absolutely right! You can only be a decent parent if you’re chained to the kitchen sink 24/7 making every single meal from scratch

Jog on.

You know nothing about him apart from what I’ve said about his attitude to food. I’m telling you he is a good husband apart from that, if you think he can’t be, fine, please keep it to yourself.