Bored with food

Money_saving_maniac

Thank you for all of your input, which has given me a lot of ideas. I think to a large extent I am a prisoner of my own expectations and want to give him food he will like. (Left to himself, the other half would just eat yoghurt/cornflakes/Dominoes, so I can't not be cooking for him.) I think partly I am also just bored bored with cooking after 30 years straight of it,especially as it has mostly been food I would not have made left to myself.

So I think I am going to actually start to divide the week into two - half of the week I'll make the food he likes, and the other half will be food that I like. I think that will be a step change forward.

Thanks to all of you who posted

[Deleted User]

Or how about one night his sort of grub and the next night yours .My late OH was also a meat and two veg chap,but I didn't mind as he compromised, and a couple of times a week would eat what I liked I do eat meat ,but not in huge quantities and I love veg of any sort.My OH never could honestly say he enjoyed a salad, but I would add perhaps a small amount of chicken or a steak to it so he still had his meat but also a salad in the summer.
Now I just have to cook for myself I will happily eat salad summer and winter ,but will also make a veggie lasagne or chilli and the surplus I will portion up and freeze.My meat consumption has dropped off over the years and is not such an important part of my diet, and a meat free day or so per week is often quite nice I do enjoy fish and cheese and eggs as well and a quiche made with cheese,eggs, veg and perhaps a small amount of crispy bacon bits is nice and just as filling as a huge chunk of meat

MMF007

MSM, if he would eat yogurt, cornflakes and pizza if left to his devices he is not that bothered about meat, is he? So he has an aversion to more veg and slightly less meat, if you are cooking.

As others say there are ways you can eat what you like but it is extra work for you and still does not help OH eat more healthily. There are great ideas up-thread, but I think, as you said yourself, you are a bit fed up of cooking. I know the feeling, and i like cooking, but sometimes I just get in a rut. If you can, treat yourself to something you really fancy to eat (a small amount of an expensive ingredient, a new recipe, even, dare i say it, a ready meal), just so you can have one night away from the stove!

Will he eat peas or sweetcorn, or a small portion of softened peppers with courgette and onion fried with seasoned strips of steak or chicken and maybe ovenchips on the side? Beware of overwhelming him with a plate full of veg, make the change slowly, slowly....

BTW, I could barely stand salad for years but now i love it. I just make sure to buy ripe tomatoes, not ones that are hard-as-bu11ets, nice leaves not just iceberg, a good coleslaw and I ring the changes with other ingredients. Would he manage a small salad with his pizza??

Petethespider

For me it's been a long slow slog. DH was very much meat, tatties and veg man, he had never in his life eaten anything like bolognaise, curry, Chinese ( chicken fried rice and gravey it's not Chinese )

So spag Bol , first I started him on the traditional all mince one, then started to add mushrooms, then grated carrot, then the lentils, slowly over time he now loves spag Bol which contains very little mince

Same with a curry. Started off with plain chicken or lamb or whatever. Once he got the taste of curry he will eat anything curried. Even vegetarian and vegan curries

Funnily enough he does like a salad. You know the old fashioned ones we had on Sunday's in the summer? A slice of ham and an egg with lettuce tomato, cucumber and a spring onion and salad cream ? Well he still likes his salad as plain as that but will take salmon or trout along with it after having tried mine and realising he's not poisoned And for a man who can't boil an egg, give him a wok and he will chuck together a pretty good Chinese dish, which are usually packed with vegetables. Oh and the BBQ. Let him BBQ a burger and a sausage and he will eat salad. He's now discovered he likes halloumi grilled on the BBQ and the burgers are often turkey burgers

Slow slow changes and it's surprising what someone will eat after deciding back in childhood they didn't like it so have never eaten it since

Money_saving_maniac

MMF007 wrote: »

MSM, if he would eat yogurt, cornflakes and pizza if left to his devices he is not that bothered about meat, is he? So he has an aversion to more veg and slightly less meat, if you are cooking.

That is very insightful and I think you have hit the nail on the head, I never thought of it that way before! I can get him to eat peas and sweetcorn, he quite like sweetcorn but not peas much. However sometimes they just migrate on to his plate because I put the dinner on the plates, if he is allowed to serve himself he will have none of them :rotfl:

Money_saving_maniac

Well having thought over the comments on here I will give you an update.
I decided that it is time that I cooked some things that i would like and also try out some veggie stuff with minimal veggies.

Today I cooked a vege pinapple fried rice with cashews, spring onions and red pepper in and it was a hit, he started off with literally two spoons of it to try it and if there had been anything else on offer that would have been it.
As there wasn't anything else, he ate that (his face was a picture and i really thought he didn't like it. But he helped himself to a plateful after the sample, munched his way through it and went through the following stages
'It's not bad'....'It's ok'....'it would be better with some meat in'...'that was nice, we could have that again'

And I felt really enthused about cooking something entirely new that I'd never even heard of.
Let's hope it's the first of many victories :j

Does anyone else have any similar kind of veggie thing that doesn't have a lot of veg in?

suki1964

Yayyy go girl

DH likes pasta dishes. One in particular that's pretty much a hodge pot but very healthy is what I call salmon pasta

Get a finger of hot smoked salmon from lidl for around £3. It looks tiny but goes far. Or if not Tesco does a pack of them for around £4.50

Boil pasta of choice

Whilst that's cooking, saut! up a bunch of diced veg, some peppers, some onions ( spring onions are good) mushrooms, courgettes, whatever you like in a good dollop of olive oil. Then stir in some dairylea type cheese and a good gloop of sweet chilli sauce. Stir in the cooked pasta with some of the cooking liquid to keep it slack, handful of peas, when all hot, flake in the salmon. Serve with a good smattering of Parmesan.

This is my Saturday cba to cook dish. If I don't have salmon then I use chorizo or even bacon ( needs to be cooked first). Just a tiny amount of "meat" but it's so tasty it really doesn't matter. I also love to stick in sliced olives and a few capers

Spendless

Money_saving_maniac wrote: »

Today I cooked a vege pinapple fried rice with cashews, spring onions and red pepper in and it was a hit, he started off with literally two spoons of it to try it and if there had been anything else on offer that would have been it.

That sounds lovely and something that would work in my household of 3 meat eaters and 1 vegetarian. Do you have a recipe?

MallyGirl

I find a roast is a good way to get lots of veg in DH and DD. There will be meat and potatoes (maybe roast but maybe new or sweet) but then there will also be at least 2 green veg, roasted butternut squash, roasted onions, maybe carrots, maybe roasted cauli, etc. The meat becomes a minor part of the meal and everyone has rainbow plates
as long as there is gravy they will now eat most veg in this way.

I don't eat eggs & cheese so DH doesn't get fed these but he knows he could always cook for himself if he wanted them. He rarely does as he always says that he gets 'menu envy' of whatever I have instead! Over the years I have introduced more veg, spicy foods, less salt, far less processed food mainly because I wanted to eat healthier.

Money_saving_maniac

Spendless wrote: »

That sounds lovely and something that would work in my household of 3 meat eaters and 1 vegetarian. Do you have a recipe?

INGREDIENTS for 4


4 eggs, beaten with a dash of salt
Medium/large chopped fresh pineapple
1 large red pepper, diced
1 large green pepper diced
chopped spring onions ( bunch)
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
150 unsalted cashews
cold cooked jasmine rice for 4
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 lime, quartered
Salt, to taste
oil (i use olive oil)
sesame oil (only if you have it anyway)

Scramble/omelet eggs. make sure they are in pieces. Set aside.
Fry the pineapple chunks in a little oil till they caramalise around the edges.(will get juicy and squishy)
Add garlic and chopped peppers. Fry for a bit longer. Add in the rice. Add in the cashews and the spring onion. Add the eggs back in. Stir and heat. When you think it's ready add the soy, how much to add depends just on what you want.
Serve with a lime wedge.

Easy peasy