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.

To be fair I have plenty of dried herbs but some things like parsley are ridiculously cheap to buy fresh so never thought to buy a jar of dried parsley, nothing middle class about me. 🤣

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say these people who don't know about dried herbs have never been near a spice section...

It's giving something.

Tattlers are going to bloody love this 🤣

Oh give over. If you cook, you know full well you can get dry herbs. If you don’t, you’re not the cook you think you are.

It might not taste disgusting , your own child has said it’s ok

If I made a dinner that my DH called disgusting and grim, as opposed to just “not my thing, I’ll eat something else” I’d be annoyed.

He hasn’t made something with ingredients he knows you hate, or something completely inedible (he and your son are eating it). He’s just not made a shepherd’s pie.

He's cooked dinner for you and you haven't even tasted it before dismissing it.

Bad form really.

Seems a bit pointless. Just eat it.

I tried a spoonful of his, it was gross.
I started a thread because I wanted to.

Yeah just like those dried herbs you can get? I’ve got it and put it on a lot of meals as a little pop of colour and flavour. You can get rosemary, thyme, oregano etc etc

Gross in what way?

People don't know about dried herbs? Do they just avert their eyes from the wall of herbs and spices in the supermarket?

I'd eat it. Can't see the problem. If you'd have chilli on a jacket potato it's not that far off.

It won't be shepherds pie but it is still edible. I would eat it

I suspect you had no intention of liking it to be honest.

Plenty of people do put tomatoes into shepherds pie - I don’t, but it’s not unheard of. And parsley is a perfectly ok addition - he hasn’t made bolognese if he hasn’t used oregano so it won’t taste like that.

You should try it and unclench a bit, I think. Tomatoey mince with some cheesy mash sounds like a perfectly good dinner to me. Sometimes it’s worth having something done a bit differently from how you’d do it in order not to have had to produce it yourself.

Sure, but handy to have in stock if its all you need and the nearest shop that sells fresh is a bus ride away and its pissing with rain 🙂

What's a supermarket?

You haven't tried it so how do you know it's disgusting?

You eat all the component parts, so there is nothing you don't like, it's just different to what you are used to. I add tomato ketchup or tomato puree to shepherds pie.

Honestly, I think you are being unreasonable to not even try it. My DS sometimes does dinner and we get some weird concoctions that he has found on YouTube or TicTok. We always eat it and say "next time, try it with less chilli" or whatever, if it's particularly weird.

I wouldn't dream of refusing to even try something DH had cooked if there was nothing in it I actively disliked.

I'm not the only one on this thread who is surprised by parsley in a jar. I assumed it was some sort of paste, like the jars of minced garlic and ginger you can buy.

We've got all sorts of dried herbs and spices, but not parsley. Recipes normally ask for fresh parsley, so we buy that frequently. Our guinea pigs also love fresh parsley, so get any leftovers. Not sure what they'd make of dried parsley.

All the dried herbs and spices virgins - are you genuinely meal planning to the degree you buy the same variety of herbs I use in a week fresh each time, with no wastage? Or are you just not using herbs in your cooking? How do you manage without dried spices? Do you genuinely prefer pretending to be purists while in fact creating bland and unseasoned food? Extraordinary.

i am not sure how you think you come across but you sound really mean and demeaning to him. Crack on with your miserable beans on toast.

What tastes disgusting? Is it all the parsley? I agree it's a lot but those jars are not very big and the taste will be diluted by the tomato anyway.
I can't imagine what in it tastes so disgusting? Do you eat Bolognese? Other mince dishes besides shepherds pie?

I think maybe have a read of some of the other threads on here to see what type of vile oafs some women live with.

And then there's your husband who has made a "quirky" dinner that your child is enjoying...

I don't really like parsley so don't use it that often, so if I bought a bunch Id chuck most of it away. I'm the same with coriander. Hate it so have dried. £2 a jar is a rip off I agree! Buy own brand for 80p!

I make cottage pie quite regularly and have a phenomenal recipe that so far, has always led to a clean plate with everyone who’s eaten it (not a brag, not my recipe - I tried several and hit on this one as a winner!)

The recipe has passata/tomato puree in it along with the usual stock, garlic, onions, etc. I’ve occasionally been a bit heavy-handed with the passata and it’s still fine. I also add dried oregano (the horror).

You can balance out the passata by adding more stock/marmite/worcestershire sauce, then reducing.

Are you stressed about getting ready for holiday or are things a bit strained in general? Just asking as this sounds like a massive overreaction tbh.

Aldi, you haven’t answered OP whether your DH knows how to make cottage pie? Does he regularly cook - has he made it before?