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! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

Growing up, my mum cooked the same rotation of foods for me that made me happy:

Fish fingers with peas/sweetcorn
Soup and buttered bread
Cod in parsley sauce
Boiled egg and soldiers
Mince and tatties
Tuna pasta
Chicken sandwiches

I grew up just fine and obviously widened my tastes as I got older. My son is so similar to how I was. He likes a select menu, not too restrictive, and all fairly healthy. I'm not concerned.

The sun was out today and I was thinking how I can't wait for the warmer weather. We'll have picnic dinners every day that's warm enough: sandwiches, veg and dips, breadsticks, fruit salads, yoghurts, maybe a thermos with sausages. It will be bliss!

It clearly isn’t a chore to you, but since everyone is different, it shouldn’t be too hard to understand that it is for some people. I’m one of them, I bloody hate planning meals and cooking in general 🤷‍♀️

Glady, if you have any suggested additions please let me know! It took me a very long time to write because when I try and think about what we actually eat my mind goes blank (hence why meal planning was causing me so much upset)

When I think back to my childhood here are some examples of happy memories around food:

Fish suppers after a day at the beach, wrapped in blankets with sand still between our toes.

The little triangles of buttered bread my mum always put next to my bowl of soup.

Eating too many oranges while watching cartoons.

Spooning sugar onto strawberries and cream.

My parents getting Chinese takeaway and me eating only the fried rice and prawn crackers. I loved it!

Taking pocket money to the shop for a bag of vice versas and an irn bru bar.

Empire biscuits from the school tuck shop, and Johnny's onion rings and panda kola at the school disco.

Really long ice poles for 5p in the summer.

Some healthy memories. Some not healthy at all! Food is about more than nutrition and there are posters on this thread who would do well to remember that, for their children's sake too.

You do you! As long as you and your family are happy nothing else matters. We love an easy tea in this house

www.instagram.com/reel/C4qniI0xYHb/?igsh=MXEwNHlycW9tYmh5ag==

Chicken sandwiches with salad cream 😍 always best with left over chicken from the roast dinner on a Sunday. Now I buy a cooked chicken and strip it 😂

Enjoy your new lease of easy meals and picnic days are coming!

We’ve got 3 kids (1, 4 and 6). Husband works shifts so 4 nights in 10 I’m doing dinner on my own. I’ve absolutely given up. One likes ‘saucy food’ such as curry or tacos, one likes ‘dry food’ such as plain pasta, bagels and then the toddler is far more wishy washy. One hates anything potato based, the others love a waffle.

the last few weeks I’ve started going far more simple. Every dinner has a bowl of cucumbers, tomato, olives, peppers etc but then it’s simple things like hot cross buns and cereal, wraps and chicken, beans on toast etc. As long as they eat the veggie bowl (which they all love) I’m not battling anything else. They won’t starve and my evenings are far less stressful when I’m not trying to persuade them to eat more.

@Goodgravythisisfantastic

vice versas! They were so good. They should bring them back

the toddler is far more wishy washy. One hates anything potato based, the others love a waffle.
This made me laugh out loud.
Let's give thanks for wishy washy toddlers and waffle loving kids 😂

You're not wrong.
I'm totally fed up of cooking meals for everyone to turn their noses up.
We recently started doing sandwiches for dinner some nights. Or soup, soft boiled eggs and soldiers.

I batch cook when I can, keeping smaller portions for kids - one standard bolognese can do about 8-10 kids portions in this house as they're not keen meat eaters. Just defrost and cook pasta fresh.

Mine are good salad eaters. I now chopped it all on a board and leave it on there - put it on the table like that for them to pick and choose what they want.
I usually stick fruit on there too if there's room.
Less washing up and it almost looks fancy.

It's relentless OP. I agree.

I'm a single parent and DC do loads of evening stuff. So we looked at everyone's diaries and said on x x x days we will get ourselves "whatever" as we're in and out, and on x x x days, we all have time so we will cook and eat a family meal together.

Everyone is so much happier and there's so much less rushing around. And I don't feel like I'm constantly doing relentless chores.

You wonderful people. I'm glad you're on my wave length.

The Labrador puppy is moulting so badly I need to hoover daily (I don't). Even the white loo is smothered in the bloody black hairs. I'm mulling over whether to shave the beast 🤬🤬

😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆
@Goodgravythisisfantastic

But don't listen to me because I'm done with that life. I'm all about the beans on toast now.
very perfect. Keep it up
@Peekaboobo 🤣🤣
maybe you’ll get some time off near the end for good behaviour

Great post thank you.
I’m at the end of my freezer supply of bolognase & other things & petrified every time meal time comes around because I just CAN NOT BE ARSED

With you OP - it’s the weight of it all (planning, preparing, tidying after). I hate it. We have ‘bits and pieces’ (often called a fridge buffet on here I think) at least twice a week and my children are always delighted with that.

A family of our acquaintance are properly mentally wealthy. The thing I’m most jealous of is their chef and maid. Delegating out all food planning / prep /cooking and clearing up. What bliss that would be.

Won't somone please think of the children! Simpered Maude Flanders

The only problem with beans on toast is that baked beans just don’t taste the way they used to - I assume the manufacturers have reduced the salt and sugar. I know it’s healthier that way, but it is also absolutely tasteless. I suppose it has made them better for me because I don’t eat them at all now.

Sulking? Moi? 😂

Don’t worry. Now that I’m struggling to sort out dinners every night I think back to my childhood and recall that baked beans and boiled eggs (different meals) featured A LOT when I was small. We were perfectly happy.

@justasking111 · Today 14:42

We're both retired, children in their forties. Ready meals, meal deals are for idle women according to DH. I raised and fed three sons. I'm done with cooking.

His mother of course slaved over a stove every day until widowed and alone. Then it was cheese and grapes/apples for her dinner 😂

Sorry, but he sounds like a few people on this thread. Judgy, smug, sanctimonious, and ignorant. Assuming anyone who doesn't cook from scratch, and eat plant based food and massive salads, must be thick and poor, and unable to take care of themselves and their family properly. I'm embarrassed for them 😬

@hayless

@SabreIsMyFave So you have two large supermarkets nearby. Are you still unable to feed yourself properly?

That's correct. I live on dust, ice cubes, shit out of the bottom of the hamster cage, fried holly leaves, and deep fried family-sized toblerones. I'm just totally useless. I burn water, and can't even boil and egg or make a piece of toast. I have to read the cooking instructions on a tin of soup. What am I like eh? I bow to your superiority oh wise one. 👑

I know it involves cooking but this website has helped me enjoy it a bit more again
Slider to adjust recipe amounts for however many people
Cook mode stops your screen going blank
Jump to recipe
No weird random ingredients and the recipes work
Also recommend bored of lunch on Instagram for slow cooker and air fryer stuff

www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Mmm

Dinner at yours tonight then?

Some people on this thread are so flipping earnest.

Nobody can ever post anything, no matter how flippant, about food without all the armchair nutritionists coming out to chastise them. It's so boring.