Husband has ruined dinner

[OnAJetPlane26]

I’m been upstairs packing for a holiday so asked husband to cook dinner, all of the ingredients for a shepards pie are in the fridge/cupboard.
Came down and thought.. That smells nothing like shepards pie. He has poured an entire jar of Passata and half a jar of parsley into the meat.
Im going to beans on toast. My AIBU is this..
YABU.. Sounds fine to me.
YANBU.. He has made bolognese with mash potatoes and gravy.

Are we saying that dried parsley is middle class or not middle class?

And flirting with the dried and fresh variants - is that very middle class?

Guess they're people that never cook from scratch.

Nothing to do with class. More 'I can't cook very well'.

Op, you mentioned thick, but I like it that way so it can be sliced into portions rather than sloppy. I love tomato added, so could have eaten it with no issues, as long as the herbs weren't overpowering, which judging by a few comments wouldn't have been! I like ketchup with cottage/shepherd's pie too on the side! 🤭

Put r carrots onions herbs and a stick cube in a pan, brown the mince and drain and add to pan. Boil potatoes and mash with a good dollop of butter and grated cheese.

Drain majority of mince off, put in bowl, add mashed potatoes on top and crisp off in oven or under grill

The one thing I have had reconfirmed is that there are an awful lot of food snobs on MN.

Not to mention, food narcissists. A LOT of food narcissists.

If you don't know what a food narcissist is, and what horrible things they do to family members regarding food, then there's an excellent chance you are one.

"I went to the trouble of cooking it so I expect you to just eat it and say thank you", is the mantra of a food narc. Dressing it up as being "a grown up thing to do" doesn't change that.

Nobody has any right to demand other people eat food they have intentionally ruined. Neither do they have any right to complain if the victim refuses to eat your shit on a plate culinary science experiment.

Also, as someone who is aware of what a jar of parsley is, I can assure you a half jar sized amount of dried parsley in a meal of any kind for three people would be absolutely fucking disgusting.

I use dried parsley and am definitely middle class... you go have to use a decent amount. I also use frozen parsley and occasionally fresh if the occasion demands it

You've just said he and your DH are eating it, but you're refusing to - "I'm not touching it, grim!"
So how would you even know it's disgusting?!
You sound like my kids when they were small 😁
YABU and sulky just because it's not how you'd have made it.

It does have flavour!

Men… shake my head, shrug shoulders and sigh. Why can’t they just follow simple instructions?!? Nah that would have ruined my night.

So dried herbs are fine, e.g. sage, rosemary, oregano, bay leaves, thyme. Soft leaved herbs tend to quickly lose their flavour once they've been dried. Parsley is one of those.

That's what I thought. I would have thought it perfectly edible with the tomato, but overpowered with the parsley.

Apart from the parsley, I don't see the problem. In our house, a 2-person bag of bolognese comes out of the freezer and we decide whether to have pasta with it, or add mash and a bit of grated cheese on top and put it in the oven for a bit. That's what cottage pie is for us. (One of us usually calls it shepherd's pie and the other says "It's not lamb". We take turns at that.)

I had to have a little giggle there while thinking of trying to get my dc to eat broccoli! Your user name is very appropriate for this thread as well 😂

I love a tin of baked beans stirred into shepherds pie mince
<misses point of thread>

😁

Bit dramatic - I’m sure it was fine. Could have made it into something else. You can tone down the acidity and herb with a sprinkle of sugar. Or counter with chilli flakes (also from a jar!!) and make a chilli instead.

but enjoy your beans!

Tsk. You don't grow your own?

I can only assume OP is noted parsley hater Carrie Bradshaw and she married that English writer after all and is now living here and posting on Mumsnet.

I feel like this is less about the Shepherd's pie and more about the fact that whenever you're already spread thin doing household things e.g. packing for holiday, you ask him to cook dinner (with ingredients you've sourced and already got in the house) and he screws it up by 'doing his own thing'.

And you can't win because you never get a break and unless you're willing to eat an odd concoction, you end up having to make your own tea too.

I hope you're ok OP? I could understand if it was a one off or he didn't know how to cook shepherd's pie/didn't have a recipe (though he could have googled) but from your comments he's done this sort of thing before.

Mental load + physical household load+ a ruined dinner = bloody annoyed and stressed. I don't blame you for being irritated by it.

In future, he needs to stick to a recipe and not add anything else into it or he needs to take on the other household tasks!

I am on OP side here. I have a DH who thinks he can go rogue on food and who has ruined good ingredients by insane choices. Half a jar of dried herb is a lot. Also can’t believe nobody used dried ever. My DH added star anise x 4 I think into my tomato sauce once. It was hideous. I think he thinks more is more.

I would ask why a grown adult even needs ‘instructions’…? Is whipping up a simple dinner such a mind fuck to some men? And why do their spouses enable and mummy them? 🤷🏻‍♀️

He is experimental and likes to add a splash of this and splash of that! My DB is like this. He thinks he is a chef!

@OnAJetPlane26, your good that your DH cooks so well! My DH thinks that everything has to be medium rare, pink or bleu. Raw more like.

He won’t understand that with fresh good quality/ cuts of meat and fish yes, but standard supermarket produce, no!

Northener here. We ave our tea at 4 in t' winter.

I'd have eaten it because he tried.

Because the little baby has to be praised for opening a jar or sauce.