How oh how can I tell Mr Inferior in a kind tactful and above all EFFECTIVE way that his culinary repetoire is deeply limited? Tell me that, eh?

[motherinferior]

I fully concede that I tend to cook the same things a lot. But DP - who only learned to cook about six years ago after taking up with me, in any case - currently cooks about two things in the week. Nigel Slater's chicken supper thing (somewhat neutered by DP's preference for skinned chicken breasts) and spaghetti bolognese which he learned from his mate Tory Ben. I have sort of tried sort of tactfully (by my standards) to ask could we not have the chicken thing every time he cooks. Hence the revisitation of Tory Ben's spag bol. Oh, and sometimes, to be fair, he does do some sort of pasta sauce variant. But it's deeply limited. Especially as DP has Prejudices against various foodstuffs including risotto. And cous-cous. And given my limitations in the areas of Tact and indeed of Relationships, please can you give me some suggestions for nudging him into a wide variety of gastronomic experimentations? Because quite seriously, it is beginning to get me down.

Oh and while you're about it how can I get him to cook more of our fresh veg delivery?

Cook together!

Start subscribing to Good Food, pick a recipe, wave it in front of him.

Buy a good bottle of wine. Pop the cork, take out the ingredients, put on some music, take him by the hand and inform him that you will be cooking together.

Right. Those cookbooks are a very good idea, Enid (especially the Naked Chef one); we do have Real Food, as indeed the entire rest of Nige, on our shelves, so I could sort of tactfully leave them around, lolling open provocatively at suggestive recipes; sadly, the point with DP's basics is they don't actually take many ingredients - I could, I suppose, do a dawn raid on the Ocado list but frankly I'd rather he bought more stuff; sounds like tact is the wrong way to go (phew).

I'll suggest we Try Something New every week, and then promptly add 'in the kitchen', I reckon.

ha ha at in the kitchen

Good Food. Get him Good Food. As a gift, for being such a sweetheart. Thought you and I could have fun w/this.

(It would really help if he wasn't so damn sensitive about the whole thing. I feel I'm trampling on a tender bloom if I even reach for the salt. Which is often, when DP cooks.)

If Jeremy Clarkson wrote a cook book, that'd help, of course.

Buy main ingrediant, leave for work with 'can you do something with X for tea tonight?'. Point him at MN if he REALLY stresses - sure someone here could come up with a lovely, but foolproof reciept!

how about Gary Rhodes - keep it simple - great food, easy to cook...

BTW - LOVE this thread...
I get decent meals out of dp by throwing my toys out of my pram.....- he's a can cook, can't be arsed to cook man

Nah, he just needs a wee nudge. He might really enjoy a cooking class as a surprise gift.

My DH LOVED his!

And the payoff was huge.

Oooh, no, steer clear of Gary Rhodes.

Never trust a thin cook.

Oh try Keep it simple - its great! - not so keen on his others too much like HARD work..

Send dp to live with me - I'll happily eat the same thing every day of the week, for years (drives dp mad)

Oh, you want serious advice? OK, take it slowly. Do a deal with him that you will both add one new recipe to your repertoire every fortnight, or even every month. Sounds slow, but in just eight weeks he will have doubled his repertoire! And gives him time to really get used to a new dish, so not disturbing his comfort-of-the-familiar thing.

what about next time you go to a restaurant choose something delicious and say - oooh do you think you could recreate this at home? and make a big deal of writing down the ingredients. and getting him to guess what's in it etc
might that work

Stay away from Nigella, too! She is fiddly and poncey - all these faffy ingredients and sifting and the like.

Gary Rhodes is a twonk.
imho
(sorry, poss OT)

Hester, VERY good idea. Even one new option would be quite delightful at the moment.

Beg to differ ...but back to problem, - hows about The Family Cookbook - Hugh Farmersmarker-wildman.....its good, its 'simple', its fun, the idea is to involve the kids!...

orororororor
you could do a Can't Cook Won't Cook challenge
chuck him a punnet of strawberries, a black pudding and some quinoa and he has to cook something while you ane the inferiorettes all cheer him on.
and then you give him marks out of ten.

Consider this, mi, to cheer yourself up - at least you find what he does cook edible. This to me suggests there is hope. with my DP I have given up entirely because he lacks tastebuds and common sense to such a startling degree that he is always convinced that if you put 14 times as much garlic (or insert any other strong flavouring here) as is called for by the recipe, it will end up 14 times as delicious. And to him it probably is. So he cooks his own food. And I cook mine.

harps - isn't that taking the 'challenge' a tad far - his b*ll&cks could be shriviling (sp) at that!

the newest jamie oliver one is best imo - some dead simple get gorgeous recipes for: chilli (best I have ever eaten), guinness and steak pie, a brown ale variant on the steak pie, a nice spag bol (better than Tory Ben's I bet!), various easy fish things

real food is great but you ave that alrewady
do you have slater's fast food?

alright then start with something simpler:
some radishes, a beetroot and some gooseberries. Oh and some coal.

Another vote for Simon Hopkinson, btw, you could suggest it as "nice to read in bed" - which it is in a nothing to do with bollocks kind of way. And the food is not "funny" or full of odd ingredients but reading the recipes does make you hungry.

harps - meal for a pg woman? MI you're not, are you?

Oliver sounds as if he has the right sort of Bloke Yet Easy flavour, doesn't he.

I was going to ask as well how to get DP to be a bit less meat-centred but I reckon that's going it, really.

NO I AM NOT, Blackduck.

oh one step at a time - (the non-meat meals, not the pg )