Do I have to have dinner 365 days a year

Have you managed to implement any changes yet Jb2022?

I know I'm a bit late replying and it matters also where you live, but have you looked into those meal boxes? Everything comes prepared you just have to cook it? A lot more variety there.

Maybe buy him a simple cookbook for new ideas. Get new spices or try a new sauce.

You maybe thinking just bread and cheese is sufficient sometimes a d s full blown meal is sometimes too much a.

I am still boggling at spending an hour preparing a meal and an hour clearing up.

Two people and a cooking repertoire of 7 dishes?

It would drive me mad if I had to eat the same dinner day in, day out, too!!
Could you possibly find him a couple of easy cook books, to add variety? Watch cooking on tv or YouTube? Or send him to cookery classes?
Isn't there anyone, a relative, friend or neighbour, who could offer him advice or who you could go to for a different meal at least twice a week?

I suppose he must enjoy it to do it every day, or why wouldn't he be willing to batch cook or have the odd takeaway etc. Doesn't mean you have to eat the same as him every day though, why not just get other stuff for yourself? Then he can either cook less or freeze the extra portion for another time.

NightSky2 we are lucky to have good husbands, so that’s why we put up with all this palaver. I like the sound of your meal suggestion.

Biscuits, cheese, apple or banana also would do me well.

Ironically my husband only weighs 10 stone and eats very well.

Finally I have brought him over to the Charlie Bingham meals as opposed to a joint, chicken, chops etc. which we still have but less often.

NanKate

I fully understand Jb2022 my DH is a traditionalist and likes a proper Sunday Dinner every week! I told him some time back how much time it took preparing all the veg he likes (potatoes, parsnip, beetroot, carrots, two lots of greens) so he said he would do all the veg preparation, which I am grateful for, but I still cook the bloomin’ meal when I would like to be just reading my Kindle. I’d be happy with a poached egg 😀

I’m lucky I have a kind, thoughtful DH so I just put up with it.

Sounds just like my DH except that mine doesn’t like beetroot. Always green beans and broccoli. He does like his parsnips and carrots as well and a tomato. I’d be happy with just the greens.

I like the occasional fried egg on toast, very nice with a little sweet chilli on the side.

I don’t say anything as he does so much of the cooking and he is very helpful in other ways too. I’m very lucky.

I think it’s all the fuss every evening. Two hours of the day cooking a simple meal. The cooking and then the cleaning up after.

Why can’t you tell him you just don’t want to eat like that every day. Is he a difficult man as a lot of them can be. Suggest having a nice salad for a change. Does he do all the shopping as well.

I fully understand Jb2022 my DH is a traditionalist and likes a proper Sunday Dinner every week! I told him some time back how much time it took preparing all the veg he likes (potatoes, parsnip, beetroot, carrots, two lots of greens) so he said he would do all the veg preparation, which I am grateful for, but I still cook the bloomin’ meal when I would like to be just reading my Kindle. I’d be happy with a poached egg 😀

I’m lucky I have a kind, thoughtful DH so I just put up with it.

Love Brenda from Bristol 😀

NotSpaghetti

I think Jb2022 has gone away.

As Brenda from Bristol might have said “Not ANOTHER one?”

Some days, especially if I have to drive a long way, I survive on cake and coffee. Proper food has no appeal on such days.

On the other hand, eating dinner out has little appeal. I am usually disappointed when it happens because I feel I could have made whatever it was better.

So, yeah, I think I get it, Jb. Rigidity of routine could get one down, especially with an inability to get out of the rigid routine because of health issues.

All the best.

I think Jb2022 has gone away.

I'd see if he'd be willing to prep a range of salad ingredients. I keep a load in the fridge and just help myself when I fancy eating - sometimes a lunchtime 'main' meal and just a snack later.

I'd just hate having a set, predictable, cooked meal every evening. I worked with a chap who did. He knew exactly what his dinner would be for each day of the week - how incredibly boring!

I think the takeaway idea is the way to go too. Let him cook his own stuff (if he really has to) and order in something good.

Now that I am on my own, I do not always eat as healthily as I did when DH was alive. Latterly he was not well enough to cook, but we certainly had his choice of meals, like the OP, for dietary reasons. ( type 2 diabetes, difficulty swallowing.)
Plain dinners, half the plate full of soft vegetables, with mashed potatoes, non fatty meat or fish, but always a sauce or gravy.
Yes, sometimes I managed to persuade him to eat a bit differently, spag bol, or a rice dish.
Some days it would have been easier not to have a “dinner”, just beans on toast or scrambled egg. Maybe this is what the OP means?

Norah

Foxygloves

I still don’t understand (be patient, a Gran of very little brain) what OP means by having to have dinner every day of the year
Three course, silver service?
Evening dress?
Don’t we all (give or take other time pressures) have an evening meal 365 days of the year?

Or am I missing something?

Of course we mostly all eat three meals a day, in home, 365 days a year - apart from holidays, work, other engagements.

I finished off that five vegetable curry tonight - it said serves 2 but the recipe made enough for 4, served with rice.

crazyH

Jb probably is fed up of her DH pottering and clacking around with pots and pans, every evening.

"If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen" as the saying goes.

Or can't stand the clattering!

Jb probably is fed up of her DH pottering and clacking around with pots and pans, every evening.

Foxygloves

I still don’t understand (be patient, a Gran of very little brain) what OP means by having to have dinner every day of the year
Three course, silver service?
Evening dress?
Don’t we all (give or take other time pressures) have an evening meal 365 days of the year?

Or am I missing something?

Of course we mostly all eat three meals a day, in home, 365 days a year - apart from holidays, work, other engagements.

I still don’t understand (be patient, a Gran of very little brain) what OP means by having to have dinner every day of the year
Three course, silver service?
Evening dress?
Don’t we all (give or take other time pressures) have an evening meal 365 days of the year?

Or am I missing something?

Ah the bliss of not cooking an evening meal and eating whatever I want when it suits me.
I sympathize with the OP.

Foxy - pity we aren’t neighbours. We could cook for each other. I’m in from a meditation group (ooommm) and heating up a Charlie Bingham meal for one because cooking the sea bream, new pots and veg proved beyond me

Foxygloves How many of us remember

Sunday roast - beef, chicken etc
Monday -cold meat
Tuesday -mince
Wednesday and Thursday -something else
Friday - fish.

Routines need not be indicative of anything other than convenience.

THAT ^ I totally agree with Foxy.