Modern phenomena - Cooking too much!

[speedymama]

My DH thinks that I cook too much! At the weekend, I made shortcake biscuits, bread and butter custard pudding, vegetable soup, curried beef patties, lentil dahl as well as cooked a chicken roast for Sunday dinner with roast potatoes, stuffing, veg and yorkshire puddings. I also did a lot of gardening (mostly digging and weeding), housework, reading, went walking with 2yo twins and DH, played with and read to DTS, and spent evenings with DH.

DH thinks that I spend too much time in the kitchen making freshly cooked food and that I should use more convenience food. I have nothing against convenience foods and will use them when I am pressed for time. However, I do enjoy enjoy cooking for my family and experimenting with new recipes.

Interestingly, DH always eats what I provide.

So ladies, in the modern era, is there such a thing as spending too much time in the kitchen?

Not if you like it!

I love cooking too, I go in waves with it where I can't be arsed and then suddenly I get really into it and spend hours cooking. Do you involve the kids in the cooking? My dd (nearly 4) loves it and helps out all the time.

I am a bit like CD. i am going through a manic cooking phase atm

Its lovely to cook your own stuff, and you know what is in it

No, just think of the good it's doing your family not eating pre-packaged processed food, and to cook so much, I'm guessing you enjoy it. Where's the harm?

I too love cooking, it's so rewarding, and I've always believed if you like eating, it's natural to like cooking as you get to cook what you want, add your favourite things, get the wonderful smells and taste it of course as you go along!

And as the countess says, it's great to get the kids involved too.

i don't like cooking much, my mum was always doing something in the kitchen and never seemed to rest, it put me off! but wish i could get more into it.

if you are spending ages like bree from desperate housewives getting the icing on the cake just perfect, then yes, you are aspending too muc h time, but if you make stuff that is getting eaten, then no, its admirable.

Hmmmm.

If you spent all that time cooking, maybe your dh is politely telling you he is feeling a little left out?

Could it have something to do with the fact that while you are cooking in the kitchen your dh is having to look after the kids - thereby upsetting his carefully planned weekend TV watching / napping?!(I am thinking of my own DH here!) I too love to cook - but I know that while DH is more than happy to eat it, he does not like the time it takes.

I am rather fickle in the kitchen. Will have a phase where I am constantly making batches of soup and fresh bread, house immaculate and me feeling like Nigella
Other times (rather more frequently if I am honest..) I find myself rushing to create meals in a hurry and my only creative input is due to having to adapt a recipe when key ingredients have been forgotten/consumed by DH!

DH is studying for an MBA so I am looking after the boys as well as cooking whilst he studies. On Saturday I made the biscuit mixture whilst the boys were having their breakfast and cut out the biscuits whilst they were having their afternoon nap. I made the soup and lentil dahl whilst they were having their lunch and finished them when they went for their nap. I made the bread and butter custard pudding whilst they were having their dinner. I actually made the beef patties on Friday whilst the boys were napping (2 hour naps still).

On Sunday, I prepared the chicken for the oven whilst the boys were having breakfast and then I was in the garden digging and weeding with the boys so that DH could study. Later, I had to ask him to watch the boys so that I could prepare the rest of the meal. Sunday afternoon I read for half an hour before going back in the garden with the boys whilst DH finished the digging (we have created a play area in the garden for the boy's play gym).

I personally think that I am making profitable use of the time whilst the boys are contained in their high chairs or are napping by cooking. I suspect that DH would like me to take the boys out of the house more so that it can be quieter for him!

DH did "make" dinner on Sunday. It was the vegetable soup I had made followed by ham salad and then the bread and butter custard pudding. So he actually "made" the salad.

I love spending time in the kitchen!

Like you, I like to bake and cook.

So relaxing, to try out new things and make snacks for the kids and lovely meals.

I don't like 'convenience' foods - they take nasty to me.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy for your DH.

I work one full time job and another part-time at home. DH works evenings and weekends.

Yes, having the kids out of hte house would be nice, but you know, that's life w/young kids. Too bad, so sad.

They go to bed and he can study in peace then.

As for studying, well, so, my dad had a full-time job as an engineer and went to night school to get his master's in petro engineering when he was 35.

He STILL took us two girls out w/him for 4 hours every Saturday.

It can be done.

Life's tough, he needs to learn to deal.

Speedy this was a very well-timed thread! I am going through a mad cooking phase at the moment as a result of 1. being pregnant and 2. reading the Joanna Blythman 'Bad Food Britain' book, and there is definitely some tension between dh and me over this.
I appreciate that when you are, as a couple, very busy and short of free time, you have to share the decision about how much time you're going to spend preparing food, because time is a shared commodity just like anything else, but I was very struck by Joanna Blythman's comment that in England there can be a bit of an assumption that time spent preparing food is time wasted: when you compare the time we spend cooking with the time spent by other countries (who have healthier diets) it's pretty minimal.

(Things came to a head slightly when I bought a pasta machine at the w/e - I'm not proposing to give up eating dried pasta or anything, but I was a bit miffed at dh's reaction - after all, I don't think anyone in Italy would regard the occasional bit of lovely fresh pasta as a waste of time!)

Speedy, if you're looking after the kids and cooking, I don't see how he can complain - in our house I mostly make dh look after dd while I cook, so he has more right to object than your dh.

(just noticed I put 'England' instead of 'Britain' - sorry Expat and anyone else in Scotland & Wales!)

I know what you mean Expat. DH also forgets that I do work 3 days a week plus I'm studying for a diploma plus I have just been appointed as a NED for my local NHS Trust plus there is keeping the house in order.

Cooking gives me a sense of satisfaction in that I am being creative and experimental as well as improving my culinary skills. I'm also hoping that the boys will learn that cooking is an essential life skill and as soon as I can, I plan to get them cooking too. I have tried already but two 2yo boys equates to chaos so I'm waiting until next year when they will hopefully be more controllable

To be fair to DH, he does cook a very good pork chop roast dinner

What's wrong with your husband?!

Mind you, you made all that in one weekend? You must be a dervish.

Next time you go shopping buy nothing for dinner but own brand no frills yucky ready meals, then he'll change his mind!

I am always in the kitchen. To me it isnt drudgery ,its my hobby!

I love going on holiday and eating in hotels etc but by the time I get home again I am positively itching to get cooking again.

You are right Kathy, I don't think people in this country spend enough time cooking. One does not have to spend hours in the kitchen. I had to point out to DH that last Wednesday he went out with his friends drinking in London and I use that time to cook meals which I froze so that way I don't have to cook on the days I work.

Fresh pasta - now that would be heavenly!

Avalou, I did that when I had to go into hospital once and he complained that the ready meals I bought for him were tasteless and a waste of money!

Speedy - yes, we somehow manage to find time for other things, like going out drinking or (in our case) vegging out in front of low-quality tv for an hour or two every night....

(The pasta was amazingly quick - 5 mins to make the dough, then it rests for an hour, then another 20 mins to run it through the machine, but bearing in mind that was a first attempt it ought to get quicker.)

I love cooking too.
My dh isn't into cooking himself {although he loves the end result and is great at the tidying/washing up} but neither of us considers it to be wasted time.

Usually he is in the kitchenwith me,chatting,reading the paper and sharing aglass of wine.

Ithink these are our best and happiest times actually.

I love spening time in the kitchen, i used to bake loads before but since having dd i spend less time. Sometimes, baking on my own is calming. In the evenings we normally cook together, help each other. Dh loves cooking and i let him cook a few times a month. He is got own specialities. As long as you happy thats the mean thing. May be you try involve him,too. Or ease all busy cooking and sit with him with glass of wine[ blossom hill smells wine] and enjoy quite evenings. No much help really