In normal times, we ate in restaurants a few times a week and our more elaborate home cooking was reserved for when we had company for dinner.

For daily fare, the prep of which is just dinner, we trade off but we both prefer tasty and fresh food prepared with a minimum of embellishment and a minimum of prep time. We both like to cook but neither of us views it as something we like to spend more time than necessary doing. What can be found at the dinner table most days is meat or fish or pasta, a veggie, a salad, and maybe a potato something once a week. Sometimes soup instead. No rice or other grains. Sometimes, dinner is just salad. We rarely have dessert and more accurately, never have dessert. We like it but don't need the extra calories.

I'm not sure what people are referring to when they talk about planning. The shopping list is what we see looks interesting or that we think we want to have for main courses for the coming days, veggies get bought based on what's available, and salad is salad. It's all mix and match based on what we have because almost everything goes with almost everything. We don't keep a large amount of food in the pantry or freezer so we buy what we're soon going to eat.

I still enjoy cooking, but I am so tired of figuring out what to eat. I subscribed briefly to one of those meal planning sites, maybe I should do that again. Added to the issue now, we are both retired and my husband is home most days for lunch. He's easy to feed, and not at all fussy, but there does need to be something available.

I've always thought that the desire to stay in your own home until you die was not for me. I've told DH, by the time I'm 80 years old I intend to be living somewhere that has a dining room!

Elmer, my menu plan included things that might be used in a marinade or a sauce,like vegetables, fresh ginger (I’d never bought fresh gingerroot before), and condiments beyond mustards and white or cider vinegar. I bought vegetables I’d never tried before, and used them. So often before, I’d come home with fish and chicken, and $200 of groceries, and have no idea what to make that I hadn't made 4 nights before. I could buy vegetables that wouldn’t get used. With my menu plan, I bought a greater variety, and it all got used and enjoyed.

I made dishes in styles I’d never made before.

I really get frustrated now when I think, like last night “oh, I think I’ll make such-and-such” and have all but one ingredient, and no substitute. A menu plan would help me.

Im right with you. I live alone and honestly dread cooking. I tend to make enough for several meals when I do cook which helps but would like to just have all my meals out. I have thought about trying one of the services that deliver meals to your home like Blue Apron or others. I think I dislike shopping and cleaning up as much as I do cooking. Im sitting here right now trying to figure out what I'll do for dinner tonight.

Someone I know goes to a retirement home every evening for dinner. Just pays for the dinner and also has company.

Judy, I didn't know you could do that. What a good idea.

Satine, can you gather some friends and take turns cooking big meals and sharing them? A friend and I used to do this several years ago. I always claimed hers were the best dinners, and she claimed mine were... because the other had cooked! I'm not sure if this is something to consider during this pandemic, but I really enjoy another person's home cooking.

I'm the primary cook in my family, and yes, I'm growing a bit weary. My family really has no idea how much time it takes to plan, shop, prep and cook a meal.

Judy and Annie, I agree totally. As I have gotten older and especially as the weather gets hotter, I lose all desire to be in the kitchen in the evenings. We eat a lot of BLTs. And I keep watermelon, cantaloupe, fresh peaches and other fresh fruit around too. I don’t mind whipping up a small batch of egg salad, chicken salad or tuna salad when I am in the mood for some. Other than that, I don’t care. I do cook something now and then, so dont think it isn’t done. I incorporate whatever is fresh from either my own garden or the farmer’s market as a side dish or a salad. I just plan more for something that will last for a couple of meals. Winter seems easier for that.

I do not like leftovers beyond a single meal. When younger my food was a base that you added something to it each night. By the end of the week you added enough water and if it would match whatever was in the pot the leftover wine that people left at my apartment to make soup. I do use herbs and spices with a light touch. Even if I have a list of must purchase the stores that I go to will have loss leaders that are unadvertised so I end up with them. We used to eat a late breakfast/late lunch after the gym and varied the places so I seldom at the same thing in a month. Dinner was a meat and two of some type. When I was working about 8 we would have some type of sweet and coffee. Then coffee that late would relax me now I could be drinking water. During the winter time it is a can of soup or a frozen entrée with added veggies.

I have the patience to prepare two to three nice meals per week. Before Covid that worked out fine. There are many great restaurants in my area. Now I feel like I cook for a living. After this plague I will cook even less than I used to.

I used to love everything about cooking, from the planning to the clean up. I was an adventurous cook and have quite a cookbook collection that I would read like a novel. I started to hate cooking a few years ago for a variety of reasons, but the main reason is the planning part as I don't know what to cook anymore. Honestly after 40+ years how much more can be done with a chicken lol. DH's contribution to cooking is grilling, but that's only meat or fish, I do the sides. Often times in the morning we will having a craving for something we want for dinner, but as the day rolls on, the craving is gone and we'll end up having cereal or sandwiches. I have hundreds of recipes pinned on pinterest, but haven't tried a single one.

I tend to eat things like scrambled eggs and broccoli, or canned salmon mixed with pasta. Last week I did tomato sauce and froze it. I usually have beans I cooked in the freezer so I add them to pasta. Olive oil and lemon is the dressing. Blue menu has canned beans that have almost no sodium. Sodium is the big problem with prepared foods. Why do we have to struggle with that? You have to check the serving size -- the label shows 200 mg of sodium -- great! The serving size is 2 Tablespoons! Sure we should all cook from scratch -- and that's why I mostly do that! But before the lockdown I went out to eat a lot and I'll bet I got a good dose of sodium that way.

For myself, I make a big salad with 5 or 6 vegetables, toasted nuts, avocado, a bean (garbanzo or whatever I have on hand) and a citrus vinaigrette, and then a frittata. I make enough to last a few days--and both taste better as leftovers anyway. Homemade soup in the colder months, and I'd be perfectly content with doing just a couple of days of meal preparation each week.

But my family...I have had young adult kids home during this pandemic who have spare time to exercise and develop their hunger, and I've gotten into the cycle of making them healthy but more complex meat-based meals. Really... what else can you do with chicken? Before the pandemic, I got a taste (pardon the pun) of how much easier empty nester cooking can be. Now, I'm back to cooking for family again. It's my own fault, though, because I should have gotten them more involved from the start. I didn't because I initially was nostalgic about doting on them and cooking for them. It wore off sooner than expected.

This makes me feel so much better! I thought I was the only one who no longer liked to cook. I don't have much of an appetite a lot of the time, luckily my husband no longer wants big meals now that he is retired. So we keep it simple most of the time. Salads, sandwiches, omelets, sometime just cereal and fruit.

Feathers11

For myself, I make a big salad with 5 or 6 vegetables, toasted nuts, avocado, a bean (garbanzo or whatever I have on hand) and a citrus vinaigrette, and then a frittata. I make enough to last a few days--and both taste better as leftovers anyway. Homemade soup in the colder months, and I'd be perfectly content with doing just a couple of days of meal preparation each week.

~~~\

This sounds great -- I should say that I start my day "healthy" -- a green smoothie freshly made and usually follow with oatmeal, flax seeds, hemp, fruit, kefir nuts. After that I figure pretty much anything goes. I made a pot of chili a few days ago and froze in portions. Use it as a sauce on pasta, cornbread, rice.

I wonder if there's a fly Lady of cooking?

I like to cook but I don't like to spend hours and hours on prep. I don't mind doing a one-day-a-week cooking marathon and then freezing the meals in smaller portions though. In fact that is what I often do. I do like my vegetables for the most part to be fresh cooked. I will say that zucchini works in dishes that are frozen or fresh for me. I'm 63 and not yet tired of the rotation of meals. I do wish my Curries would come out nicer.

Plus it wouldn't matter if I got tired of it or not. I can't eat out at all except for at one pizza joint and any breakfast place that serves medium boiled eggs and steamed veggies.

For myself, after cooking for over 45 years, and big meals always, I too am tired of it. Now, we tend to eat out a couple of times a week, which is a nice change, and if I am really lucky, I can convince him to do a dinner....otherwise, its whatever I happen to be in the mood to cook.

I get that tired of cooking stuff...I really do.

It's not that I dislike cooking, it's more a lifestyle change. DH and I have different tastes in what we really like to eat. We could compromise with limited things we both like but that gets old. I do better controlling my weight by grazing and eating mini meals throughout the day. He's happy eating pizza, a burger or a frozen dinner followed by snack foods.

He's an early riser and makes a hot breakfast for himself. I'm a late riser and and I'm happy with a piece of fruit and a granola bar or a sandwich made of leftover meat or whatever.

I am often away from home during his dinner hour. When I ride I don't like to have a full stomach so I delay eating lunch until late afternoon at times. He likes to have his evening meal around 5 or so.

i miss eating out where we can go to a real restaurant and each have whatever we like. This shelter in place stuff is really getting old.

When I was on my own I loved cooking and baking. I didn't have to plan meals of have to have dinner ready before 6. When my brother moved in I didn't mind cooking so much, he didn't care what time he ate dinner. When my cousin moved in she likes to eat before 6. Since I am up most of the night I liked cooking dinner around 8 or 9. Living alone I just looked in the fridge or cupboard whenever I was hungry and decided right then and there what I was going to cook. I hate meal planning except for holiday dinners. It is also hard to cook when someone has dietary restrictions. Onions cause migraines, no chocolate, no pineapple (I use a lot of pineapple in my cooking) nothing with soy so that means no already prepared foods, no nitrates so that means no bacon or ham unless I buy specialty bacon or ham without nitrates that is not always easy to find. I love onions but to make 2 meals with different ingredients is not something I want to do. So I told my cousin I am going to make something with onions she can take her portion of ingredients and make whatever she wants. I told them I would cook meals Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and Sunday, the rest of the time they can fend for themselves. My brother doesn't cook anything, he is happy with a bowl of cereal if I don't cook but then I feel guilty about not feeding him because he works during the day. haha do you know just about everything has onions or onion powder in it. I have to buy 2 ketchups, mustard, bbq sauce if I can find one without onions She won't eat mayo because she thinks the eggs are raw even when I tell her they are pasturized but yet she eats runny eggs. I have reached the point now that I take stuff out of the freezer and let my cousin cook dinner for herself and my brother. I will make myself something later. I used to love cooking, not anymore. My poor kitchen aid mixer hasn't seen the light of day for a year now a haha.

Back when I was single, my classic dinner was: Steam some broccoli. While it is steaming, grate some cheese onto a paper towel. When the broccoli is done, dump it in a bowl, sprinkle the cheese on top and cover with the paper towel to help it melt. Top with hot sauce -- voila, dinner! Simple eating, living in a third floor walk-up and a car-free walking lifestyle kept me healthy and in shape without needing a gym. When I got together with my husband, I figured I should make more than one thing for a meal. Also, I wanted to learn how to cook meat. But I still only know how to cook one thing at a time. I tried Blue Apron and the instructions totally wrecked my nerves. Juggling three or four things at once is hard! (Also, every other instruction was add more salt, add more oil.)

70 is right around the corner for me. since i lost my husband almost 13 years ago, i rarely cook. really, the only time i cook a real meal is when my son, his wife, my grandson are coming out to spend the day on the farm.

heck, i cook more for my dogs than i do for myself! haha

For those of you in households with other "adults" (including teenagers), I don't get why meal preparation winds up being the responsibility of just one person. Anyone who eats has responsibility to share the work and shouldn't need to be asked to do so. If you treat adult kids (of any age) like kids, that's how they'll act.

I can't say this for a fact but I'm pretty sure that our ancestors who farmed and lived in villages didn't do any meal planning. And they didn't eat meat every day either. As far as I know there would be a pot on the fire and things would be cut up and tossed in periodically. It might cook all day. There was so much other work -- washing really could take a whole day or two -- "variety" was what just happened according to which vegetables were in the pot. As a matter of fact I have a cousin who grew up in those circumstances; I should ask for more details. And there are still people living like that of course.

This says it for me, hahaha

So glad I'm not alone. My mother if I remember never got tired of putting out delicious meals every day. Even before COVID, I was getting bored with the same old same old. We don't eat meat and haven't for over 30 years so that's not the problem. We used to eat out twice a week in the pre-COVID days and now it's going to five months since that happened. We get takeout three times a week and even that is getting old.

I don't mind cooking if I am caught up on my outside work, but the heat takes a lot out of you and by the time I get in at evening, I am too whooped to care or to eat. I am usually in bed before dark. We don't eat out very much since moving up here. Haven't found any place that we really like. I am sure there are some places we would like, but I am at the point I would rather eat my own cooking than go out and not like the food all that much.

I have always "hated" cooking. Hubby did the cooking for us, but now we are both elderly, handicapped, and just can't stand for any length of time in the kitchen. We rely on frozen dinners and soups, and take lots of vitamins. I think we will have to look into "meals on wheels". We have nobody who could bring us meals.

I like to cook big and have leftovers for a couple of days. During the lockdown I cooked almost everyday, because with everyone here for lunch, there wasn't much left over. My kids do most of the gardening these days, and DD will cook more with the stuff she raises. Last night she made a big pot of garden chili (zuchini and squash), so I'm not cooking tonight. Thank goodness--I've been trying to do some yard work today, and it's so miserably hot I keep coming in to take breaks and cool off.

rob333, I got kinda misty-eyed when I read "my adult son" instead of "the boy". ;)

I've got the same affliction. When the kids were growing up and I was going to work 5 days a week, my did a lot of meals. Now, we are retired, and my wife retired from the kitchen. He ankles are bad so she can not stand more than a minute or two before going into pain. Cooking at out house has stopped. We eat a lot of frozen dinners - no prep there as long as the microwave holds out. We have different tastes, so its each to his/her own. Usually, we make ourselves one main meal a day and snack for the rest. About every two months, I'll make a pot of chili and that is good for 4 meals. It is good chili, though. I've got to find another item to fix. I do a good skillet of fried potatoes, but that is off our list these days. We both have retired from cooking and have gotten joyously lazy!

blues...., it used to be that a pot of beans was cooked on a particular day of the week and that pot of beans would find it's way onto the table in the rest of the week until they were gone. This was a common old fashioned way of life.

Cooking up a pot of something very basic that can be simply served as is until it has been finished or that can be easily altered into something else and served some other slightly different way is a good practice.

I am thinking of reviving the pot of beans once a week thing. I have bought Goya beans for decades and believe that they are the best canned beans in the market. Now I am finding them unacceptable on moral grounds and I am. undecided just where to place this or how to react, or even whether to react. Why can't these CEOs just keep their personal politics to themselves and not taint their brand with it? What a fool!!!!

Dallasannie -- we don't have Goya beans here -- or at least I don't think so. When I buy canned beans I get Blue Menu brand -- almost ZERO sodium! They may be a President's Choice product. Not sure. I sometimes cook a pot of beans from dry and then freeze them in packets to add to chili or salads or soup.

Our British friend would recount the routine menu his DM followed. It started with the Sunday roast, which eventually became hash. It was the same, day by day, right down to any side dishes. It reminded DH of summer camp songs about set menus.

I have bought Goya beans for decades and believe that they are the best canned beans in the market. Now I am finding them unacceptable on moral grounds and I am. undecided just where to place this or how to react, or even whether to react.

I think the market will take care of that for you. Goya products are now flying off the shelves.

"Goya products are now flying off the shelves."

Stores are removing them from shelves? Good idea, they'll sit there forever otherwise. The American public isn't as stupid or foolish as some think.

I don't eat canned beans, but when democrats boycott a product for a reason as benign as this....I go out and buy it. I bought some of their frozen products and I liked them very much and will continue to buy them.

I think it is very foolish for any company to endorse candidates from any political party.

I guess it was ok when he worked with the Obamas yrs ago.

you're wrong Elmer. people are buying the products to support him. I will too.

the left thinks only they have free speech.

You don't seem to like to listen when someone says something you don't want to hear.

I'm not on the left. Everyone has free speech. Having free speech, however, doesn't permit lying, making things up, and unethical conduct.

Left isn't anyone that isn't far right... to the rest of the world. Only extreme right thinks a dissenting opinion is defined as left. Some people are conservative, but don't support him. That doesn't make them left. Moderates aren't left. There's a lot that's left of alt-right. That includes centerist, right, and left. The US is made of many Americans. Most of whom aren't alt-right extremists.

Its not the cooking I am tired off. I enjoy cooking and even enjoy the shopping. Its the before and after. That is,deciding WHAT to make and the cleanup. Even the cleanup is less annoying than trying to decide what to make. SO almost NEVER requests anything specific and is no help.

I hated cooking for a few years in my 50s. It just seemed like a lot of work and then I'd have to eat the entire thing myself. Even freezing and eating later is a pain with a small freezer. I also hate the clean up. I'm getting back into cooking again, though. Baking too, a little bit. I just made some banana nut muffins to eat and freeze for later.

I bought a bread machine back in March or April and delivery keeps getting pushed back. It is now coming sometime in August. I'd cancel the order and order from somewhere else but I'm afraid it will start the whole waiting period over again and I won't be better off.

You don't seem to like to listen when someone says something you don't want to hear.

I listen, but I don't always agree with or like what I hear (read) and sometimes I speak up.

you don't like that when it isn't in agreement with your views.

I have no problem with thoughtful disagreeing opinions.

Opinions where people are only repeating comments they heard that are obvious falsehoods or lies they've heard without giving them further thought - different story. Try it, there are a lot of lies and fabricated thoughts circulating, practice on trying to tell which is which.

Here's a hint - the phrase "fake news" will lead you in the wrong direction, that's one the liars have fabricated to try to discredit truths they don't want to face and can't dispute.

I totally agree with Elmer and the stupidity of the President to promote a product for gain. This has no place in the Oval Office. I'm a New Yorker and grew up in the same neighborhood as the President. Mr. Trump was a sleazy character his entire life and anyone who lived in NYC knows it. He was always in the news. We were shocked he won. He was never anyone would ever think could be President. If you were a New Yorker you would know about him and his family and understand what I'm talking about. It's totally non-political. He is, and never has been a good business man. This has nothing to do with left/right politics. I was going to vote for Romney.

I'm 71 and now living in Florida. I hate cooking, planning meals and, now with the pandemic, sick of having to run to the store to shop. I'm tired of not being able to get together with friends for happy-hour, dinner out, going to meetings I enjoyed. Everything is Zoom now...not the same.

Hubby has developed multiple health conditions over the past year which makes cooking for him difficult. I always loved to cook but the heat in Florida, the difficulty shopping in a State where 50% of people refuse to wear masks makes me very nervous. I can live on cereal, my husband can't. So its a daily chore when I still have to clean the house, do laundry, do the gardening, finances, shopping, etc.

Now our adult son has been staying with us after getting laid off from his job, so I have to figure out what to make for him and what my husband can eat. If our son stays any longer, I'm putting him to work around the house.

So, yes, I am sick of cooking and planning meals.

Jane

I used to cook a lot of different things when I was still with DH. Now I just don't have desire. I found some great Chinese frozen dinners that I keep in freezer. I also have frozen White Castles. Last time I used crock pot was 7 years ago lol.

mamagoose,

Don't worry he'll always be my boy. You'd have to hear how affectionately I say it. I'm a doter, and he knows it. I still say c'mon little guy time to go. He's inches taller and weighs far more than I do, so he KNOWS it's just silliness. No worries, I greatly respect him

Jane_NY, I'm a New Yorker who knows what you are talking about with Trump. I moved to the city in 1982, right around the time that "Dump Tower" opened. I remember how it started as a very expensive rental, beautiful on the outside, but with notoriously cheap finishes and corners cut on the apartments. At the time, I worked in an office with a pregnant woman whose husband's small company was involved in building it. Trump plunged her family into debt with his standard M.O. -- underpay but promise a lot of work. Then when the work is completed, don't pay the final bill, and tell the small businessperson to "go ahead and sue me." If you look into his business history, you'll see that he's constantly having to work with new people as he burns others in his wake. And remember the beautiful sculptural frieze on the Bonwit building that was torn down for Dump Tower? The one he promised to the Metropolitan Museum, but instead destroyed into rubble?

I remember talking among a bunch of women about our worst date. One recounted being asked out by a guy who hid being married, was a boorish bore, and against her wishes, insisted on taking her right to her door while insulting where she lived, and then kicked her little dog in the face when he came to the door and sniffed Trump's shoe.

I remember when he announced his upcoming divorce to the newspapers before telling Ivana and his children. My friend's daughter went to school with Ivanka at the time, and said everybody felt sorry for her. I felt sorry for Ivanka when she was about 15 and trying to be a model. She was tall but far from model quality. This was before her chin and breast implants, and you just know that the other models who had to work to get where they were must have treated her with contempt. It seemed to me to be kind of cruel to let her go through that, especially when they didn't need the money. But Daddy liked models.

With all the money he made or ripped off, the only charitable thing I can recall Trump doing for the city was when he renovated the public ice rink that you can see from his apartment. Even then, he had to plaster his name on it.

If there was a public figure from, say, Phoenix, whom everyone from Phoenix said was sleazy cheater and not to be trusted no matter how they appeared on TV, I would be inclined to listen to the people who knew him.

I learned long ago that when someone doesn't trust, it usually means that they can't be trusted. I think of this every time I hear him whining about "fake news."

judipudi -- I'm glad you broght up the tendency of people to accuse others of their own familiar faults. IDK if Trump is the 'pot' or the 'kettle'. (In the old saying, one accuses the other of being dirty, AKA black. Isn't that an ironic turn of phrase, considering Trump's blatant racism!)

Tonight DH and I are having a frozen dinner bowl (Frontera brand) supplemented with leftover steak, plus some artisan bread, Irish butter, and a little salad. Last night was pork chops, fresh squash, and a roll.

I recently made a roast loin Mexican style. I already had a can of Goya black beans and a package of Penzey's dried chilis in my cupboard. So, I let them duke politics out over the meat in the oven.