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! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

@MarkWithaC none of the salads I listed have lettuce in them 😃 , generally I don't follow recipes and don't stress about the ingredients. If I buy lettuce, I just buy a small mixed leaf bag and we finish the whole thing in one sitting (I like it with my standard dressing of olive oil, balsamic and salt.) Or add a few things you know you like to make a salad tasty (for me it would be green olives, or sultanas, or mozzarella). But if I don't have them nevermind, i just know olive oil, salt and vinegar is enough.

It's a lot of veg so it wouldn't fill you up like a cooked dinner so it can look like quite a lot. Also for things like cucumber, I just eat them with Hummous as an appetiser the next day, maybe while I'm making a cooked dinner (I get hungry 😅), or eat them as part of lunch the next day.

I find this type of dinner a lot less stressful than cooking, just have to rinse, throw in a bowl and dress (in fact we often dress once it's in our plate like we would in Italy). Also ready in a lot less time.

I had this type of dinner a lot growing up, not sure if it's standard in Italy or not but i think it's pretty common - salads, quick protein or 2 like cheese/ham/salmon and bread.

Out of that list I'd probably put together 1 big salad (or 2 smaller different ones), bread with one or 2 dips, 2 proteins. It may be because I'm practised but it hardly takes any time 🤷‍♀️

Sorry about the essay 😅😅

I don't mind it. I find the secret is to balance a couple of easy meals with labour intensive. Twice a week we have meals that can be done in the oven or under a grill. At the weekends I do things that require a bit more effort. I enjoy cooking and planning nice food makes me happy.

@OneSpoonyHiker & @MarkWithaC also I don't serve things in plates and then take to the table, just put everything on the table and then we take what we want. Also no need to put everything in serving dishes, for example cheeses (unless it's mozzarella), smoked salmon, ham, jarred veg (peppers, artichokes, etc.), even lettuce can stay in their original container and plonked on the table.
Ok im done 😆

I meant lettuce as an example only but things like having loads of cucumber left, or celery (the bane of my life), stresses me out.
But anyway, yes, I see that with just one salad and the rest bought/in tubs etc, that's a quick and easy meal.
DP and I used to do something vaguely similar that we called a 'deli dinner', which meant one of us would cook peperonata and we'd have it with cold meats, cheese, olives, bagged or bought salad, nice bread etc. Don't know why we stopped really, except we both try to largely avoid red meats now, but that's easily enough got round.

YANBU - I don’t cook “big” meals every night and quite happy with jacket potato, sandwich etc as is my son, do what suits you and as long as eating pretty healthily then who cares.

Wagamamas is one of the places I can take my autistic fussy so and so DD! They do a kid's chicken ramen, just broth, noodles, chicken and a bit of carrot and bean sprouts. Nice and plain just how she likes it.

Totally agree OP!

It’s a chore. “What would you like for dinner?” “I don’t mind” guaranteed to send me into orbit. Every choice, every day, every meal. It’s a chore.

True story: my teen happily ate meat pies with tomato sauce for about a month straight (well, maybe not every night). She pissed & moaned about dinner every night, so I fed her what she liked. Everybody happy. That was a few years ago & she's thriving & funnily enough is the first person to try new foods now.

I’m all for easy meals a few times a week. I intersperse them with fun sharing meals that we all enjoy like Mexican where they make their own wraps and can try new fillings.

For easy meals I do:

• mashed avocado on toast with a poached egg on top
• boiled dippy egg with marmite bagel soldiers
• Toasted pitta bread slices, fingers of carrot and loads of Humous
• spinach and ricotta tortellini in butter with grated cheese

In a friend's old houseshare, the person who cooked the most (he liked it and volunteered) would regularly face this scenario. His stock answer was 'Shite pie, then.'

In my house, whoever cooks chooses.

I was just thinking about about meals when I was at school myself (late 50's - 60s) - we had a hot lunch (eat it or go hungry) with a pudding so we didn't have an evening meal. We had high tea instead about 5pm, which was something on toast (beans, cheese, sardines) or fish paste sandwiches with a slab of cake. Supper at 8 was buttered crackers and a hot milky drink.

My father must have eaten his main meal at work and my mother certainly never ran around franticly cooking dinners in the evenings. Saturdays were fish and chips from the chippy so the only 'cooked' meal we had was Sunday lunch.

My grandmother cooked every day but she never worked outside the home and this was at lunch time as my Grandad and uncles cycled home from work for it. Monday was cold sliced meat (from the Sunday roast) with reheated veg - it was laundry day so no time for cooking. Tuesday was minced meat (from the Sunday roast) made into a cottage or shepherd's pie. I remember her letting me feed the meat into the mincer she had clamped to the kitchen table. Wednesday was liver and onions with mash. Thursday was chops. Friday was baked or poached fish. Saturday was steak and kidney pie (from the butcher). The veg mostly came from the garden. She made the same meals, every week!

@MarkWithaC

In a friend's old houseshare, the person who cooked the most (he liked it and volunteered) would regularly face this scenario. His stock answer was 'Shite pie, then.'

In Scotland, where a sandwich is called a "piece", we'd say "faeces on pieces"

i like cooking but some days cant be bothered yesterday made a chicken and veg stir fry from scratch even the marinade but today nah it was cheese on toast

Can't get worked up about "better quality meals". My initial list is just some examples of easy dinners.

Tonight we had baked potatoes with tuna mayonnaise. Plenty of spinach leaves/salad leaves on the side and lemon squeezed on top. Toddler son had some of my baked potato, sausages and sweetcorn, followed by a yoghurt and strawberries. Fine by me and everyone is very happy.

Tomorrow, I've eggs to use up so we'll have omelettes with plenty of veg and son will have scrambled egg and buttered toast.

I'm not bothering my bum anymore as long as meals are fairly balanced over the course of each week. If we want fancier we can eat out.

Is there not a happy medium? Because of work schedules we do some quick/easy and some that take a bit more work. But the ones that take a bit more work we cook triple and freeze so they, in turn, become easy.

And dinner planning takes us seconds. It's a fairly standard, same routine with some tweaks.

Sunday - roast dinner (left over meat for sandwiches)
Monday - gammon steak, chips, peas
Tuesday - samosas (or something similar) with salad OR something like beans on toast
Wednesday - chicken (flavour differs) with rice and veg
Thursday - sausages, chips and beans or sausage, mash, veg and gravy (depends on what that days workload has been and my capacity for effort
Friday - pasta & sauce (I don't work Friday's so I can make from scratch and fill the freezer if needs be
Saturday - burgers or steak or curry or something equally "Saturday worthy" (usually homemade but sometimes a takeaway).

Because a lot of it is frozen (bought fresh but put in the freezer), we can easy vary it or throw something else in. When/if we start to get bored I go to the amazing farm shop down the road, get some inspiration, try something new and then either it goes into rotation or never again and we remember why we have the basic plan.

Reminds me of the time I did food tech at school..we had to make a balanced breakfast. I made four slices of toast and created a beans on toast tower topped off with obscene amounts of cheese...... Heaven!

I bloody love food and do the cooking so everyone has to eat what I want to cook. Albeit I leave off the chilli for the little ones

Kids love noodles which take 5 minutes with a kettle of water. Add any veg and a scrambled egg (or firm tofu which lasts for months in the fridge) for protein and some soy. Chilli on top for adults. Can add peanut butter to 'sauce' if you fancy

Raised my two children on a combo of home cooked and “ Sod it l can’t be bothered tonight “ meals and they are healthy adults …after a long break acquired another two small children when l remarried and can’t get over the amount of pressure to feed then perfectly and the opinions on ( historically ) kids food like nuggets / chips etc ! l do it with love and so they don’t starve , but I for one find relentlessness of cooking every day an chore and the most boring thing l do at home. I definitely would have a chef if l won the lotto !

it’s the deciding part i hate. if you ask what people want and get an “anything” it drives me up the wall.

I’m with you OP!
quick easy meals always seem to go down waaay better in this household.
I do batch cook now and again and we all enjoy some decent meals but sometimes soup or baked tattie or toast & beans is exactly what we all want.

for me this has been since lockdown, I think when I felt trapped in my own home the only thing we ever thought about was food and it became a massive chore to be catering breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks all day everyday 😂 (when we were normally out of the house 5 out of 7 days for work/school).

anyway, we have 3 specific nights of “easy” dinners due to sports clubs and eat at 4pm and then again 8pm.. so it has to be quick, easy & filling! The rest of the time we wing it

Why are you asking for people's opinions if you're just going to be rude to people who don't agree with you? Just make your beans on toast and go.

I think you'll find some uppity posters were rude to me first.

Now you make your beans and go!

🫘 💃🏻 ➡️

Does it not? How????

It's the bane of my life! I'm a good cook, with a healthy repertoire of meals but planning, shopping and cooking is my least favourite housework task.