Does it take you long to prepare a meal?

[Buddleja]

Saturday nights in the Buddleja household is 'make-away' night (cause take-aways are not in the budget)

So tonight DH deceided he fancied a prawn salad - seeing it was a nice hot sunny day and I went for a chicken curry (because I think salads aren't dinner and are for wusses - God it's like we're a reverse couple!! - and also I'm a Brummie

So he starts his salad about 15 mins before I came into the kitchen and his toing and froing around the kitchen as I start making my curry - wash rice - start cooking onions - start making sauce - chicken in - finish sauce - sauce in - stir then simmer - pour glass of wine - 30 mins later eating curry and rice - DH still tooing and froing [confuse]

Now I'm not a made fast eater but I'm 3/4 of the way through the curry by the time he FINALLY sits down with his salad

Have to say I'm slightly baffled!!

No real reason for this post other than to release my bafflment somewhere

my dh does all this tooing and froing too. not me though.

what was in his salad?

I take ages
part of it is that everythig I make has loads of vegetables in - so your curry would have been full of them
but i think i'm just slow - people say "chop a few veg" - takes me hours

Well ruby he had;

Prawns (obviously!)
Marie rose sauce (he made this)
lettuce
Red pepper
corgette
cucumber
spring onion
tomatoes
cheesy potato (?)

Ohh StealthPolarBear I didn't mention I had red pepper (went in with the onion) and peas (lopped in near the end) OK - not exactly loads of veg

Hmmm maybe that's it he's a slow chopper upper even though it's a bonkers bannanas long time for a salad!!

Men are rubbish. Mine is anyway. He has cooked me one meal in our whole time together (7 years), he said it took him a week to plan, a day to shop and another day to cook. It was nice but not THAT nice! I cook for at least five every night and normally get dinner on the table within 30 mins, with my 14mo 'helping'. AND I set the table.

PS when do I get my prize?

Yes you do debka, and a gold star.

He does cook but not very often - mostly because it takes so blooming long!! 60 mins for pasta n sauce covered in cheese is a bit bonkers really - espcially as it'd be something like that I'd suggest for a 'in later than expected kids need to eat now' dinner

It takes me ages to cook the sort of food that my family like. Things like fish pie, where I have to peel loads of potatoes, boil them, mash them, infuse milk, poach the fish in the milk, make white sauce with the milk, boil eggs, chop parsley and then finally bake in the oven. While I prep veg to go with it. And a crumble or something for pudding. It's cheap, it's healthy and my DH and DDs wolf it down, but boy am I exhausted!

I have realised that for my own sanity, I have to downscale my expectations sometimes, and have even on occasion bought pasta sauce in a jar!

I hope I wouldn't take that long to cook a salad, but I do think that vegetables take a long time to prepare, if you want to do it properly so that
a) they are all the same size
b) I have all my fingers intact

DH is a good cook but he takes much longer than me to prepare anything.
He is always amazed that I can cook a meal from scratch very quickly.
As a student I worked in a restaurant kitchen so I can speed peel and chop

DH takes forever. He insists on doing the spuds for Sunday lunch. If they're roasting then I need them in the oven by about 1pm. He will start faffing with spuds at 12.30ish. They'll get into the oven by 1.30. I have no idea what takes him so long.

He says they only take 10 minutes

Nutter.

there is no cooking in a salad. it takes a few minutes max.

My DH is an OK cook, (taught by me) and he does cook a couple of times a week, usually at the weekend, but he uses every utensil, pot and pan he can lay his hands on, not to mention baking trays. Every surface has splatter of whatever sauce he is making/using and there is mess all over the kitchen.

weirdo that he is. At least he tries... sigh

I think we might be married to the same man Jux - I have experience the same with roast spuds and also get the very inaccurate estimation of time it actually took