Harry does the same thing, Dex215. Drives me nuts sometimes but then I just fix whatever I want. He's really easy so it honestly doesn't matter to him. I get tired of the daily routine, though. I'd much rather cook for company--then I get excited!

Should we go on strike? ;-)

When I had family to cook for, I really enjoyed meal planning and cooking.

Just me,now, so I eat my main meal out for lunch, daily and oatmeal at nite.

Count me in as a hater too! After 30 years of marriage and 2 kids, how inventive can you be with a chicken lol. I'm out of ideas on everything! I used to love cooking, but now I find it a chore. I do however love to plan, prep and cook dinner parties or any party for that matter.

Now I have to figure out what to cook tonight....sigh...

YES!! ME!!! Most days I don't even go into the kitchen. I am SO glad that I don't have to figure out what to fix each night.

Hey, you've gotten in 50 good years. Get a divorce now so you won't have to cook.

anybody else hate cooking dinner? and lunch, and breakfast, uh, yes. Always have, unless it's a big family dinner and I just go nuts--I cook everything anybody requests. It's not a matter of "what do you want for dinner?" here, it's a matter of "where do you want to go eat?" I'm pretty happy w/ anything as long as someone else cooks it. I've NEVER enjoyed it. Too many years of kids and not enough $$$$$, so HAD to cook. Those days are gone. Yippee!!!! I have a clean kitchen. LOL We often eat out twice a day. My idea of hell, is dying, and going to hell and being assigned to be the cook. LOL

Fifty-two years here and yes, I get tired of every day cooking. I do love dinner parties and luncheons but every day gets tiresome. In my case, DH would go out every night if I wanted to but getting dressed up, doing the hair and putting on make up seems like too much of a bother. Not to mention that I'm disappointed more times than not when we go out to eat.

Patti's what's for dinner post usually gets me to thinking about what we're going to have. Thanks Patti.

I get too tired to cook a big meal everyday. I also don't like to cook if there is only me to eat a meal. Most of the time, I do not cook supper as my husband would rather pick something up for himself on his way home from work. Oh, been married almost 58 years.

Sue

Georgysmom, I hear you about getting "cute" to go out. Going out too often destroys the specialness of it. DH wants to go out for breakfast or lunch more often than I want to. I think they are bored.

I do sometimes ask him to make the decision about dinner. More often than not it is stew in August or some such stupid thing. I want to grill outdoors, and my menu is limited, but then, I'm one of those who can eat leftovers without a problem. I just get brain dead when I have to think in the summertime. Winter is so much easier, and I love cold weather and am looking forward to soups, casseroles and stew.

I remember my mom dreading my father's retirement. She always said it wasn't her retirement my any means. Just like when we had a place at the shore when I was a kid -for her nothing changed but the location. Now, wizened as I am, I realize how we took her for granted. My father was no better. He would be sitting reading a book and say "Elinore, get me a cup of tea." I never thought a thing about it until my sister in law heard him say it and was shocked. My brother does the cooking.

Me too,i hate cooking any meals,always have and always will.My sisters tell me it's ok,because i got the sewing and crafting gene from our gene pool,and several of them got the cooking gene.

DH now does all the dinner cooking,and has for the past few years.I love it and appreciate it.It's so nice to hear"dinners ready".
Kathi

I thought it was just me! UGH! I'm sick of meal planning too and I was talking to my cousin that's been married about 25 years and she's feeling the same way too. Trying to come up with something different but then just cooking the same old thing.

Yes, I am sick to death of cooking dinner. DH would eat out every night, but I don't wish to because restaurant food is not as healthy as home-cooked food. He is diabetic and eats poorly in restaurants. So I cook.

I've always hated making dinner. I hate thinking about it, planning it, doing it and cleaning up after it.

I'd be very very happy if my husband was the cook, but he hates cooking too. He won't even tell me what he wants to eat. :(

I don't mind cooking at all if someone else cleans up my mess.
Thank goodness for DH.

I'm tired of cooking all the time also.
I plan tomorrows dinner tonight and I will mention what we are having tomorrow as we are eating.
DH and DGS are too easy too please. I'm the one that always go over board.
DH will cook if I ask...but the mess is too much, so I do it and clean as I cook.
I'm so ready for a night out!

I ask Mike everyday what's for dinner. He is good about making suggestions. During the summer he does a lot of grilling. I have been using instant potatoes that taste like the real thing. I have also been using canned veggies and find that they have really improved. Also Mike will eat just about anything so that gives us a bigger variety. Sometimes we go out for lunch but mostly eat at home. We also still have a teenager at home to cook for he isn't picky either.

I also love to cook for company but don't have friends over as often as I would like.

I don't have to clean up the kitchen or put the food away, Mike does it every night. So I really can't complain as I have it easy. We have been married 44 years.

me, I love kitchen gadjets but I'd rather eat every meal out. It is not so much the food but the the fact I'm out of the house and with othe people

I feel sorry for all of you. Think of me who is a cook in a restaurant 8 hours a day and then has to come home and cook. My husband is very picky he'll eat hamburgers and scrambled hamburger and lots of pasta without any sauce on it. Chicken but only fried. LIpton chickene noodle soup. Plain steak We just got a 1/4 beef from a friend thats the only reason we have some steak now. Pork chops or ribs with garlic salt on them. and thats about it. No sauce on anything Mashed or baked or fried potatoes. For veggies its green beans or corn and van camps pork and beans. Thats about it a great variety isnt it. He is also a diabetic. O and he eats eggs fried and oatmeal and white bread and oatmeal and wheaties and large shredded wheat

Vannie, you're so funny. If we're in hell together, I'll be the one washing an endless stack of pots and pans!

Bengardening, I will never complain again. I don't know how you do it!

I use to really enjoy cooking and my kids were never real fussy. Maybe it was because we were so active with their activities and they either ate it or went without. Now, I try to give us a variety. DH really like to eat at the local cafe every morning, and for senior lunch. I go because he ""pouts" if I fuss. At night it is a variety and he is pretty good. As to his cooking?? HA HA or anything else. I don't care for cooking but do NOT like housework .

I don't find cooking enjoyable. It's more like doing the laundry, although I kind of enjoy doing laundry. lol

I cook because I'm around the house more than anyone here and we're hungry. I appreciate that dh is a very busy farmer so I don't ask alot of him in the kitchen anymore. When he has time he'll wash dishes and never complains if he has to pull a meal together for himself but I'm just not motivated to whip something up for the fun of cooking.
Making a new dish for a gathering is about the most excited I get about cooking, ever.

I have hated cooking dinner for some time now. DH has gotten so fussy and everything botherd him it made it impossible to cook for him. Now it's even worse, he has to have very low salt and no sugar and he is burnt out on everything. I am at a total loss these days.

Really hate it, and in the summer he grills. I haven't eaten meat in 30 years, so it's chicken or salmon..Gets really old and my menu basically is the same every boring week. In the winter I do oven meals.We eat out Friday and Saturday nights...never during the day.

From most of the responses here, it is not the 'cooking' but the deciding what to cook that is the problem. Years I got help with that from a little story that I read in Readers Digest. The woman in the story related that when she asked her husband for suggestions for dinner, his reply was always things like, "whatever you want to fix", or "I don't care". So when she put foods in the freezer she labled them, 'whatever you want to fix' or 'I don't care'. I actually have some such labled items in the freezer. It started as a joke, but to this day, I will put some made ahead soups or casseroles in the freezer labled that way. By the time I decide to use them, I have often forgotten exactly what is in the container. By the time it's thawed, we are both surprised and there is no turning back. It is whats for dinner, like it or not.

When I got divorced my husband asked to go thru my recipes because his new wife didn't know how to cook. How do you like that?

I also dislike everyday cooking. I do like company cooking. but now I have to plan on a meal that I can do most of the preparing the day before.
Hubs and I will have 57 yrs, Sept 10. I don't ask him any more because he always says any thing will be OK. I do have to say, all these years, he has been easy to please, and I know what he likes and doesn't like. There are so many things I really like that he doesn't so if I;m feeling energetic, I'll prepare two different meals. I have found that I have to decide in the morning, when my bio-rhythms are perking, what we'll have for supper, because by aft-noon, if I try to decide, I can't get my head wrapped around the subject. Then it's.....pancakes again.lol

I like your story Gazania. I can't believe your X asked you for recipes Ellie 45! My husband has never cooked, he does know where the silverware is and the plates and will help himself to food, such as cake or pie if it is in plain sight. He will not get anything out of the refrigerator and heat it up for himself. He is a very picky eater compared to most.

Sue

I hate cooking. Hate.It. I will only cook under extreme duress. I feel the same about cooking as I feel about scooping litter boxes and dusting furniture (both on the bottom of my "favorite chore" list).

Luckily my DH loves to cook, so I let him. If I were single, I'd eat mac-n-cheese or cereal for every meal. Not kidding.

A couple of years ago I went on a diet and as part of that, I started planning meals out a bit. I realized that deciding what to have for dinner had been stressing me out all out of proportion with the impact of the decision. So, I started planning out for longer periods and realized that it just made life easier for everyone, but primarily for me. ;-)
We don't have such an extensive repotoire that it is really difficult and if plans change or we decide on something else, fine - it is all written in pencil.
The other thing that has made the dinner situation easier is that I started freezing more. Two pots of beans, soup, jambalaya take just a tad more effort than one.
I do need to throw some new things in the mix and some meals are seasonal, but at least I don't get agitated over what is for dinner every day. Try planning a one month dinner menu - and we repeat - Sunday is always pasta night- and see if it works for you.

Who was it, years ago, that decided that it should be the female of the species that should cook??? (Are you listening, bengardening?)

When my kids were small and my husband worked, I was fortunate to be able to stay home for 6 or 7 years, so I thought it only right that I should cook. I never said I liked it though! It was just a fair division of labor. I did make sure both my sons learned how to cook though, and since both live the bachelor life they are able to feed themselves and girlfriends quite well and enjoy doing it.

I've been living alone for over 20 years now and seldom cook for myself, but do enjoy baking. Yes, both my sons are proficient bakers, too.

Ellie, that's too much about your ex!! Did you give him the recipes?

My youngest son is a great cook and likes to bake also. His wife is so lucky. My youngest daughter is also a great cook and absolutely loves it. Actually, I like cooking when I'm in the mood, I hate the clean-up.

wow, how did you girls get your hubby's to be so helpful in the kitchen?? lol. I don't mind the cooking part, it's the deciding part..........

Maxmom,
I agree and I know plenty of household in which the men are the primary cooks. Around here, I do most of the real cooking but a lot of that goes into the freezer.
He is great with rice, pasta, salad, homemade oven fries and reheating frozen beans, soups and stews. He prepares dinner more often than I do.
Ellie, I hope you told him to take a flying leap. (or something worse)

I like to cook IF I have menus planned out. If I don't know what we're having when I get off work, it's "fend for yourself" I try to plan out a week to ten days worth of meals. Makes it easier to plan a shopping list. Once in a while I toss a pad at him and tell him to give me some ideas. That man can toss out ten meal ideas in a heartbeat! LOL
Sounds like I've got it pretty easy ... he'll eat anything I put in front of him (and tell me how good it is and "thank you" - every time!), he does all the shopping, I do the cooking and he cleans up and puts food away.

My mother loved to cook and prepare elaborate meals. Not so much her daughter. My son and SIL are the cooks in the family. My dad wouldn't have been able to make an egg.

Geez, Ellie! Your ex managed to insult both you and the new wife all in one sentence.

I do write out "menu ideas" for the week, but just make a list so I make whatever off the list when I feel like it.

My BFF is my seal-a-meal. After we have a meal once, or maybe twice, I seal the rest and label it so on nights I don't want to cook, I don't have to. My garage frig has the top half of the freezer full of meals, broth, etc. So full, in fact, that when I pulled something out the other day about 5 other bags fell out (one hit my foot). Decided we have to started eating mostly from that this week. The food tastes just as fresh as when I cooked it originally.

All that helps, but it's still a PITA to cook every night :-0)

My grandmother was an awful cook and a worse baker. My mother was a career woman, not necessarily by choice. I will not cook anything that requires a long list of ingredients or a multitude of bowls and pans. I eat to live, not the reverse, and anyone in my household has to be OK with that or learn to cook.

I think I both 'inherited' this attitude and learned it. I've worked for hours to create a holiday dinner, only to see it vanish in 15 minutes. Yes, it was GOOD, but please...the effort isn't worth the very temporary result. At least after I CLEAN, the result lasts a while!

My DH will eat 'whatever' -- and thank me. Diner may be *dull*, but it always tastes good and is a balanced meal. DS happily married into a Family That Cooks, and came thisclose to obesity before turning that around.

I don't like deciding either. So once the kids were out of here I just tossed stuff together. Last couple of years, DH has taken it over. He went on a diet and making/planning his food for the day helped him a lot with staying on plan. So he has taken it over and enjoys it.

I still feel guilty of not doing it much anymore though.

After I got divorced I was living alone and occassionally I would invite a lady over for a home cooked meal rather than going out someplace. My problem was that although I love to cook, I didn't have a clue what the ladies might want to eat so I hit on a solution that worked great for me.

First off, I planned meals that are easy to make individual portions such as stuffed baked chicken breasts, chicken cordon bleu, Steak Florentine, Stuffed baked pork chops, Fried chicken, baked fish, broiled salmon, BBQ ribs, meatloaf, my own oriental stir fried shrimp & chicken, Saur Braten, Roast beef, lamb chops and smoked turkey, along with some sides such as shrimp fried rice, rice pilaff, wild rice, my own succotash recipe, and even some twice baked potatoes.

I would devote an entire day to cooking and when I cooked I made at least 8 portions of each item and sometimes cooking two or three items in the oven at once. When they were done I put them up with the Seal-a-Meal and popped the portions in my freezer, but not before I had plated at least one portion long enough to take a picture of it, before I sealed that portion too.

I then sat down to my computer and made up a menu.

When the ladies showed up for dinner they would ask, whats cooking? I would simply hand them a menu and say, "Pick our what you like".

The first couple times I presented the menu I got some silly looks, but they were gracious enough to stay for dinner anyway, but after that first experience they all said they wanted to do it again. When they started telling other women in our social set what I did suddenly I had lots of ladies scheming a way to get an invite....LOL

Now that I am with Jan, I still enjoy cooking like that, and it is so convenient to just go out to the kitchen and select what you want.

I love to cook and don't mind cleaning up the kitchen but I hate figuring out what to make. My hubby is another of the 'whatever your want to make' guys. He will eat anything I give him, and thank me for making it, then help me clean up the kitchen. He's a good guy. If he would just tell me what he wants to eat!

Bengardening, your hubby sounds like a dear friend of mine (now deceased)! He ate spaghetti that had a can of tomato soup as the sauce, boiled hot dogs, spam, vienna sausages, dippy eggs, watermelon, ham, corn on the cob and brussel sprouts.

I love cooking and I love to eat MY cooking! :0) I'm thankful I have someone who likes MY cooking as much as I do! Fewer leftovers......more to cook!!! lol

Geez, lazypup. It's too bad Jan is in the picture. I was ready to throw 52 years to the wind! LOL

When my SIL was married for 25 years she told her husband she had cooked for the first 25 and it was his turn now! He took over almost all the cooking.

I get tired of cooking though luckily my husband will eat almost anything. I tend to do simple things with plenty of fresh vegetables. I will also do those bag meals where you dump it in a pan and heat it up. Sometimes I make a big salad and add some chicken or salmon to it.

One thing I do is eat early. I like to eat about 5 or 5:30. Dinner is over and cleaned up by 6 or so. I like that, it's not hanging over my head all evening.

My husband claims he likes to cook and I wish he would do more of it.

Luckypup, I like you. What a sweet story. You couldn't possibly have a brother just like you.

You gals should have been here for supper tonight. Last Sunday we were stuck here in the house while that hurricane passed over so I spent most of the day tinkering in the kitchen. One of the things I prepped was German Saur Braten. Saur Braten has to marinate at least 72 hours so today was the big day, when I finally cooked it...

Supper was Saur Braten, German Red Cabbage and twice baked potatoes and a big loaf of home made Swartze Brot (Black bread).

Sounds like we all need to join some sort of supper club. Something like 4 families/couples get together & list everything they like to cook & cook well... make a schedule and either trade frozen dinners or rotation of a meal fixing enought for everyone... I've seen a couple of clubs, where you get together & cook in bulk & share..