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 suspect DS is like this. He likes a good hit of the nice feelings you get from chocolate or a fruit smoothie or ice cream as much as any kid, but as for actual sustenance he'd go cheese sarnie then a yoghurt every meal if he could. Spag bol at a push.

YANBU and my DH wonders why a self catering holiday is my idea of hell. It involves me having to think of all this stuff but in another location where I don't have a store cupboard and freezer with basics in.

I really appreciate this. Thanks. I need to add some fruit to porridge...

Enjoy your beans on toast! 😊

Luckily for me I only have to cook for myself now as DH has a weird diet, DS is 17 and DD is at Uni. I eat 3 meals most of the time which I have 2 times each a week then a roast. Keeps it simple and I really like all the meals (and it saves money as a repeat). All are well balanced meals. I don't have breakfast and usually have the same thing for lunch each day. Across a week I get a wide variety of veg so I think I am healthy!

oh i hear you OP

My DH and I share the shopping and cooking which obviously helps,but we both work hard to ensure most meals are the result of a bit of effort
Nothing wrong with a soup and toastie night once o a while but I would not want to eat like that every night

Literally the 7th circle of hell

We have roughly the same thing for breakfast.

Dh gets his lunch, kids have school dinners and I either have a jacket potato, sandwich or small portion of night before dinner for lunch.

Dinners I plan mon to thurs. Dh plans fri- Sunday. A typical week would be Monday - poke bowls. Tuesday - omelette and baked sweet potato . Wednesday- veggie curry and brown rice. Thursday home made soup. Friday meat with chips, Saturday curry or Mexican. Sunday Italian or roast.

I basically do variations of those meals.

I hate hate hate hate it all. Hate it. It is a massive chore. And I’m not cooking fancy stuff at weekends either. I just loathe it all.

The days where kids had a cooked dinner at school and sandwiches for tea are my dream. I want to live like that.

100% with you @Goodgravythisisfantastic I hate hate HATE cooking. Even doing ready meals/frozen stuff is a bit boring. I cooked dinner (cook from scratch quite often,) for 25+ years for DH and my 2 DC, and I got so sick of it. Everyone expected a proper cooked meal daily, and me, DH, and our 2 DC, had different dietary requirements/preferences, and after a few years it got tedious.

The turning point for me was when DH said 4-5 years ago - a few days before Mother's Day - 'let's have a nice roast meal for Mother's Day.'

Mother's Day is for mothers. So it was for me, the MOTHER, but I would have been cooking it. He hasn't cooked more than 20 slices of toast in the 30 years I've been with him, and would have had me cook it. I said 'I don't think so. It's my day - like fuck will I be spending it cooking.' We had Chinese takeaway.

I also stopped cooking Christmas dinner about 5 years ago. I have just done a little buffet to pick at (several times.) The other times I have done nothing, and have stuck a frozen pizza in. If DH wants a roast meal, he can fucking cook it.

We do go for a carvery 3-5 days before Christmas and have a roast turkey meal then! Life's to short to waste it in the kitchen.

Even now (just me and DH live at home now,) we just have easy to do stuff..... Frozen pizza, pasta, garlic bread, chicken pie, chips, chicken nuggets, omelette, beans on toast, poached egg on toast, tuna salads/chicken salads, fish chips and peas, cod in parsley sauce with tinned potatoes and peas, baked potato with cheese and baked beans, cheese on toast, chicken burger and salad, nachos and cheese. Also sandwiches with varying fillings, and a Morrisons ready meal once or twice a week, (or a salad from there, or a freshly cooked chicken that we have potatoes and vegetables with.) And we have a takeaway once a month. Occasionally we just have 2 slices of toast for dinner!

I cook from scratch never. Not any more. Got better things to do than waste half my life in the kitchen. If others want to do it, bully for them. I'd rather spend my time in the garden, or the swimming baths, or walking in the woodlands/by the river/by the canal/at the beach. Luckily DH gives zero shits and just eats what he's given.

Making food is mostly shit, it's boring and bloody repetitive. You aren't better because you like it.

Yes! 😍

Also I love your username

Lockdown broke food for me. Having to think of, shop for, make, and then clean up after 3 meals every single fucking day until you die lol. 😭
I've since started replacing some of my own meals with Huel and DC gets school lunches, so I don't have to think about fucking meals quite as much, thank fuck.

I'm with you OP. I fucking despise meal planning and cooking, it's such a waste of life.

I also love nursery days when they feed my toddler homemade fresh meals and I don't have to plan or think of them. I'd MUCH rather spend my precious days off playing with my child than thinking of meals, food shopping, cooking for them, etc.

If I had loads of money I'd pay for a private chef to cook a menu of my choice every evening. 👨‍🍳♥️b

OH is our cook, he enjoys cooking. Somedays we sit down to a full meal (I even put a dress on as if we were going out), other days he'll just make things to graze on and no set meal time. Whatever works for you.

@SabreIsMyFave

I cook from scratch never. Not any more. Got better things to do than waste half my life in the kitchen. If others want to do it, bully for them. I'd rather spend my time in the garden, or the swimming baths, or walking in the woodlands/by the river/by the canal/at the beach. Luckily DH gives zero shits and just eats what he's given.

😍😍😍

I also don't cook Christmas dinner. We go out for an Indian every year 🙌🏻

it's fucking boring feeding everyone until you die

Amen

I made my daughter fish fingers, waffles and beans for tea tonight.. she couldn't have been happier! After school meals are just what's quicker. She'll always have fruit as pudding and eats vegetables at school. Weekends I tend to do a home cooked meal but nothing extraordinary, bolognese, tray back, cottage pie...

I'd honestly do what suits your family OP. You're all getting fed, that's what matters.

I agree with you I’m sick of it I’ve got four kids and the only thing they will ALL eat is fajitas. I do them once a week but I actually can’t eat them anymore I heave.
Pasta they all liked at one point now one doesn’t sometimes I’m cooking three different dinners and my one has autism and he’s so fussy he would eat jacket potato everyday of his life.
Now once a week I do beans and egg on toast which we do all eat except the eldest so I make him cook his own frozen rubbish on that day. We have one day of jacket potatoes now too again oldest cooks his own and as I’ve just started refusing now he’s 17 and I’m tired of it.
We have roast on Sundays which only four of us eat and my little girl I’ve totally given up giving her dinners she has toast and fruit most nights sometimes she will have fish fingers or sausages with it that’s it.
Tomorrow it’s curry but two kids won’t eat that so don’t know what they will eat again.
It’s honestly draining I would eat basic foods if it was me on my own. Friday we have takeaway and it’s my fave night of the week 😂

The dream! 👨🏻‍🍳🤌🏻😘

You need a balanced diet, and watch the processed foods ... your suggestions lacked veg!

Oooooh, might do this - this coming Christmas!

Yanbu

I don’t find meal planning an issue as I don’t really plan. We eat what we want on a daily basis depending on the food in the fridge or freezer. Tend to generally have the basics in stock.

however I will admit we do prefer to self cater on holidays. However the best option for us is a self catering facility but with restaurants on site or within a 5 minute walk.

It's only the last 10-20 years that 'simple meals' have somehow been classed as not suitable for dinner.

I'm 40 and growing up we'd have a couple of 'from scratch' meals like cottage pie, roast etc a week. Other weeknights would be stuff on toast, or fry up, or chicken nuggets with peas and sweetcorn, soup with bread for dipping, omelette etc

Now I read threads on here and people say 'oh well beans on toast isn't really a meal'....what is it then? It's carbs and protein on a plate and it fills your stomach, it's easy to make, enjoyable to eat and cheap.