To expect DH to eat leftovers twice in a week?

[cityrookie]

DH changed his wfh days this week so is not collecting DD from her club tonight. Usually they get a takeaway on their way home, DS and I eat leftovers from the week. E.g. I made a curry on Tuesday which we all ate and DH took a portion for his lunch on Wednesday. I would normally turn the leftovers into a soup for DS and me to eat on a Thursday evening but today it will be DH and DS at home. DH doesn't think he should be expected to eat leftovers from the same meal twice in a week. I don't see the issue. What does everyone else do with leftovers?

YANBU - use up the food
YABU - it's too repetitive, and you shouldn't expect him to eat it.

I personally couldn't eat the same meal twice in a week.
I'd freeze any left overs for to have a couple of weeks later.

Then he can make himself something can't he !

To be fair it doesn’t sound like he’s refused to make something himself - you’re all jumping a little bit! OP has even said that him getting food wouldn’t be a problem…she just doesn’t want him to. Which is a bit weird!

It's weird to me that so many people can't eat the same meal in a week. Surely something new every night means cooking every night?
Screw that! I'll happily eat the same thing. I usually cook enough for 4 dinners but I have done up to 6 portions and eaten the same dinner practically all week.

There is nothing better than a fresh cooked dinner.

Cooking relaxes me and it’s just a great opportunity to find so many different things to eat.

Perfectly reasonable. We do this all the time. There are only two of us and, even reducing the quantity on a recipe, we often end up with enough for two meals for both of use. Half goes in the fridge and is eaten a couple of days later. We don’t think of it as left overs. It’s just a meal to us. Does you DH sees anything batch cooked and taken out of the freezer as ‘left overs’ too? 🙄

I can get easily bored eating the same thing over several days, BUT, that's why I freeze leftovers. then you're not having them close together, but you have something easy you can just microwave a portion of without having to cook again, and the food doesn't go to waste. the only leftovers I tend to eat the next day are takeaways, or things like Christmas dinner, when leftovers are my favourite part (to a lesser extent, regular roasts, but they don't tend to have as MUCH in the way of leftovers) general roast leftovers I'll tend to make into curries or stews or a pie or similar.

Maybe don't cook so much in the first place so you don't have leftovers?? I'd be more concerned about having curry 3 x in one week perhaps not being a healthy well balanced diet? Not trying to have a go, I know there is never enough time etc. Just looking from a different angle x

I don't see a problem at all but, dame as you, DH doesn't like to have the same meal more than once or twice in a week. Xx

Or freeze the leftovers for another week so not wasted but not close together?

I try to cook a meal so we can have it once, then it’s leftovers once and a lunch for me once. So as there are two of us, five servings. I would not be happy to eat it more than that. Freeze and have the rest for lunches at a later date. That said if you both work full time then he can cook up something different too. I work part time and wouldn’t like to eat something for dinner three nights of the week so I hardly can expect my husband to either.

I hate eating the same thing twice in a week, and certainly wouldn't eat it 3 times, I would honestly rather just have toast or something.

I always freeze leftovers even if it's only a few spoonfulls. I use small containers for that, like 1 or 2 cup(s) size. When I have a few of those in the freezer I make a new - and easy - meal out of them. For you "saving" a few curry leftovers could make a special curry-night dinner 😊 Apart from that, no YANBU, throwing out food is out of the question. Your DH should eat what's there.

Haven't read the whole thread but why are you cooking so much that you have that much leftovers? I never cook more than I need for the one meal, unless I am specifically cooking enough to freeze for next week.

The recipe says it's for 4 and it's whole units of food e.g one tin of chickpeas, one carton of coconut milk, one packet of frozen spinach. We've never managed to eat all of it as a family of 4, but it would be impractical to cut down the amounts.

Apart from the tin of chickpeas it's possible to divide the other ingredients though. I do it all the time as I regularly cook for my youngest who doesn't eat meat, but does eat fish. He will have a meal containing fish and I will have similar, only with meat.

Why would it be impractical? Just decant the cans and use them another day and the frozen spinach can just be left in the freezer?

No need for

I'd find that an absolute faff when I'd be doing it purely because someone was whining about having the meal too many times in one week. Someone else being what amounts to fussy would be impacting me, giving me more work 'decanting cans' when they could just eat the damn food. Fussy because they clearly like the meal, it's just not good enough for them because they don't fancy having it twice in a week.

That said, loads of posters feel very strongly about getting 'bored' with the same meal which is completely alien to me. If I like and eat a meal, my enjoyment of it isn't influenced by how many times I've eaten it recently.

We're clearly all different but your preferences for variety should not impact my workload when cooking. It's way easier to just use a whole bag of spinach for one meal than 3/4, buy more and then be left with a half bag next time etc. And I just wouldn't bother decanting the can. You'd be having extra chickpeas!

If this is a new normal then you could stick the Thurs portion in the freezer and he could deal with thawing it & serving it the following week. Key point here being it's no more work for you. In fact he could eat toast one week and then delay all future Thursday meals by freezing them every week himself.

If it's just a one off I think he should just eat the damn food you made him. There is no need for him to make this your problem.

"The recipe says it's for 4 "
Is this the recipe for curry that provides 7 meals ?
4 on the first day
1 lunch on the second
2 on the third as soup .
I appreciate that 3 of those meals are for children and maybe the children don't eat much , but that does sound as though it's stretched a long way.
I hope that's due to other factors (lots of sides ,other meals eaten in the day ,small appetites) and not to financial constraints .

And then you have twice the work of cooking plus this decanting bs.

I don't find this so odd although with me it's always the other way around - I presumably eat more than the recipe provides for.
Maybe the children don't eat much?

"That said, loads of posters feel very strongly about getting 'bored' with the same meal which is completely alien to me. "

Me too. I mean every meal for the week being the same, yes, but the same meal on three days and not all your meals?
What do most people have for breakfast in the week? Usually the same thing or alternating a few things, no?
People who take sandwiches for lunch often have just a couple of fillings they rotate.

YANBU, it would be unnecessary to waste the perfectly fine food. It might not be his first choice, but like my partner says, food is food, it's to fuel the body, it doesn't always have to be exactly what you want as long as it nourishes you.
If he desperately doesn't want it, he can surely cook something else? It's not exactly your responsibility, you're not his mother😅

@Gwenhwyfar yes ,maybe not that odd! We're a bit greedy in our household .