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.

My dh ruined a thai green chicken curry last week. I was furious. Almost all the ingredients were put and it didnt occur to him to get the kissing one out of the cupboard. And i also left out tofu for me to replace the chicken and instead he made me a bowl of tofu. A dry bowl of tofu.

It all sounds unnecessary drama to be honest. Each of those ingredients are perfectly acceptable, they’ve just been placed in a different order. I hope your child wasn’t upset, it could have been turned into a fun meal and a memory for life when Dad made an upside down dinner. You could have had a great for the rest of the meal imagining all sorts of weird combinations.

I think you'd already decided it was disgusting before sampling. It's very hard to taste something neutrally if you've already made up your mind. A nice firm tomato sauce based version sounds delicious

I think it was the combination of picturing a whole jar of passata that then led us to believe that the 'jar' of parsley was a full-sized jar. I was another one of the 'hang on, is that parsley sauce in a jar or what?'

I now have to think what I call those little glass pots of parsley. I certainly don't call them jars... A pot? A tube?

Love that. I wonder if it is just op's dish, the one she always cooks so always has it her way. I think it is almost impossible to please when it is this way as you just get used to the way you make it, and like that flavour profile. Even without the extra tom/herbs there would have been something else. I think the dh just made it his own didn't he.

I made a cottage pie tonight, I've tried numerous different recipes, some involving a tin of chopped tomatoes, some not. I prefer without, otherwise its too much like a bolognese. Tonight's recipe involved a teaspoon of dried thyme. I've realised I do not like thyme 🤢 after this thread I might try parsley next, not half a jar though!

DH made a banana and cinnamon cake once. It wasn't cinnamon he picked out the cupboard though. I can confirm that banana and CUMIN cake will stink your house out for at least a week.

I read it as an indication of an excessive amount of dried parsley - it was poured from the jar instead of shaken out carefully or measured with a spoon to ensure he didn't use too much.

An equivalent would be pouring salt into a pot as opposed to measuring a teaspoonful. No care would be taken about the amount of salt if the salt container was simply tipped over the pot.

I know. You can also buy it chopped and frozen.

This is what I took from the OP too!

They are called jars of dried herbs.

He didn't like being told to make dinner. So he made a rubbish job of it in a kind of getting his own back..by doing it ....but doing it badly. So you wouldn't like it.
Is that how you see it OP? I would see it like that.

Which is weird, I must know what they are called, I worked in a supermarket! I think it was the juxtaposition of the jar of passata that made us all think it must be a BIG jar.

Maybe she tried to pack everything he needed for the holiday. He can just smile benignly when he finds his swimming trunks, toothbrush, and underoos are not in his case.

Maybe they'd shopped at Costco 😂

If you’re using mince, you’re not really making a shepherds’ pie, you’re making some sort of cottage pie.

Shepherds pie is made with leftover meat from a roast lamb joint, using any leftover gravy in it. (Yeah, leftover gravy….).

For mince, stir a bit of flour into the fried-off mince then stir in a bit of stock of some sort. A bit of tomato purée is fine.

But if you like it your way obviously carry on - it’s not one of those things that must follow a recipe. A bit like U.K. ‘spag Bol’.

It didn’t make all of us think that because some of us know we’ve got small jars of herbs and spices.

how can it be your opinion that it TASTES disgusting if you haven't actually tasted it though?

'in my opinion sounds disgusting' would make sense, as would 'that in my opinion might taste disgusting'

Dried parsley tastes of …. Well, hardly anything really, it’s not a herb that retains much, if any flavour, after drying.

There were quite a few people going 'a JAR of parsley?' It wasn't just one or two. Maybe everyone else uses fresh herbs. I dunno.

I shop at various supermarkets without any particular loyalty. The herbs and spices are in glass jars without exception, both branded and shop's own. Can't think of a single example where they aren't. I'm surprised people are fixating on this. My cupboard is full of about a hundred little glass jars. Isn't yours? In fact the m and s parsley I just finished didn't even have a shaker top, its just a screw lid jar that opens completely. I used a teaspoon.

It didn't make 'all' of us think that. The majority of people knew exactly what a jar of dried herbs would look like.

A handful went for the "...sorry? How can parsley possibly be in a JAR?" and followed each other into faux-bafflement. Everyone else - even die-hard foodies like me - know that dried herbs in jars exist. Hell, sometimes I USE them. And so a little light ribbing ensued.

I'm enjoying the "Oh jars! Yes, of course, jars. Herbs in jars, yes, dried herbs. Got it now. Jars..." back-pedalling almost as much as the ridiculous posturing over it to be honest

Yeah, we're all ridiculous. The possibility that phraseology might have been confusing does not occur.

Right. Duly chastised.

Some of them are in plastic pots, in particular the larger refill sizes.

Everyone does, I expect. Even the posters who claimed not to have a clue that they exist.

Hubby once made spag bol with mixed spice instead of mixed herbs ... It's was absolutely disgusting. I struggled through masterfully until he turned round and said "where did I go wrong?" And we both collapsed into fits of laughter. Beans on toast all round. Happy days, gotta laugh 😂