Please help me meal plan for a SAHD who can cook but can't think!

[gaelicsheep]

DH is more than capable of preparing and cooking simple food for DS (3) but he just can't conjure up meals from whatever's in the cupboard/fridge in the way that I take for granted. I try to have ready-prepared DS-sized portions in the freezer as often as I can, but this has fallen by the wayside recently as I've just not been organised enough. Does anyone know of a meal planner that covers a month or so that would give us a start? It preferably needs to cover lunches and dinners. I don't have the energy or brainpower just now to start from scratch!

X-posted thisisyesterday. We'll have a talk this evening and see what happens. He knows I'm always at the other end of the phone if he needs help - I've talked him through making a cheese sauce in my lunch break before now. I think he is keen to take on more responsibility - perhaps I'm holding him back.

thisisyesterday: if I went away, which would only happen if something really bad were to happen, because I wouldn't go on holiday on my own and we couldn't afford for DH just to take time of work to allow me to be away, this is how it would go:

if I took the children DH would live for the entire time on Asda ready made vindaloo and pilau rice with the odd pizza or chilli ready meal or, perhaps, a cheese and pickle sandwich thrown in for variety. If the kids stayed at home (if I was taken ill, hospitalised or something) they would live on sausage rolls, pizzas, oven chips, tins of beans and meat sandwiches. This is what has happened every time that I have had to be elsewhere for any reason at all. It is also how he was when he lived alone, although, it was more take aways that ready meals in those days.

It would be completely unrealistic of me to ask him to cook for the family anyway. He works 2 jobs, 6 days a week, often 7, is never home before 7:30, and, because of the situation with his main job at the moment(he works for the SLC), 4 nights a week he isn't home until 10pm. He is out of the house a minimum of 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Cooking is my job, I am a SAHM. Why should I expect my OH to go to his work, work and travel the hours that he does, and then come in and make a meal? That would not be fair on anyone. On the odd day that he isn't working, he needs a rest. It wouldn't be fair to expect him to cook then, either. It is a task that I do willingly and is an integral part of my role as a stay at home wife and mother.

On the other hand, if he were a stay at home dad and our positions were reversed, then he would learn how to do what I do. But it wouldn't happen over night. I plan, shop and cook for a family of 7 who all have different preferences about what they eat. SOme have Asperger's which really affects their eating. It is not an easy task for anyone to undertake and has taken me a long time to manage as effectively as I do. It would entail a very steep learning curve for my OH and would need a lot of input from me for a good while, before he would be able to go it alone. i think that Gaelicsheep has the right idea by trying to talk things through with her DH and do things jointly for the time being until he gets into the swing of it.

I think the key here is that if one person does all or most of the cooking that persno should be the one who shops and fills the cupboards. That way they know what is there and what they intended to do with it.

I think cooking 90%+ of the family meals (which is what I do) is an onerous task, heavy on reptition, time-consuming and dull. To be expected to do all the shopping and planning as well as the cooking is just hideous.

How can you cook them if someone else plans them? That would be worse in my book, to be told 'here are the ingredients, you are making spag bol tonight'. Boooooring.

gaelicsheep, you and dh sound on the road to making him self-sufficient in the kitchen. I understand it being not as straightforward if you are in a reluctant WOHM/SAHD situation. Good luck with it.

I have collected easy-cook recipes over the years. From cookbooks, newspapers, magazines, internet (including mn!) and keep a scrapbook. It gets easier with time. I trial a new recipe every now and then. Keeps things interesting and family on their toes.

stressedmum, i rather suspect that if he had to, your dh would and could cook for your children.

no-one on here is suggesting you make him. our responses are generally to the OP. funnily enough.
i didn't see anyone anywhere telling you that you should make your husband cook everything when he works full time.
just that if eh didn't and was in a position where he needed to cook that actually he would be able to.

he may choose not to. but he is not incapable, just unwilling

I really like "kitchen revolution" for meal planning - it has a years worth of recipes in it. I wouldn't follow it to the letter but I like some of the leftover ideas, and it is definitely more imaginative than the one you are moaning about.

Not sure that it is that frugal on ingredients though. I.e. some of the recipes are reasonably expensive.