Am I the only WOHM who does not cook?

[Anonymous]

DH is saying we (meaning me, really) need to cook "a real dinner" more often. Right now we really don't "cook" -- the baby is still on jars and the three year old gets frozen veggie burgers, frozen tofu "chicken nuggets," pasta, scrambled eggs, or something like that -- only things that take under 10 minutes. Sometimes rotisserie chicken (we buy those precooked ones at Harris Teeter) or I put a pre-seasoned chicken breast in the oven. He always gets a veggie too (steamed or frozen), and fruit/yogurt for dessert, and he is a great eater, so I don't really feel very bad about it, because it seems like a pretty healthy dinner to me. If we don't eat what he is eating, we'll have a sandwich or cereal or a Lean cuisine or other frozen entree, or probably once a week we have fish -- just seasoned and put in broiler. Nothing fancy. I just feel like the few hours between when we get home and bedtime is better spent playing, reading, etc, than cooking.
But DH is making me feel sort of guilty about it. Are other WOHMs managing to do some real cooking? I don't want to cook on the weekend and freeze, either, because weekend time is precious family time......

[Anonymous]

Try crock pot recipes - takes 10 minutes to prep in am and cooks all day while you work.

[Anonymous]

I am a SAHM (well, I work part time from home but the time commitment varies and is usually quite minimal) and I don't do a lot of cooking! We have "easy" meals (pasta and prepared sauce, pre-breaded chicken breasts that we cook in the oven, etc.). About once a week we'll do something in the slow cooker. If we both worked full time I can't imagine we would cook huge meals. Even with staying home it isn't that I have no time to cook, but I don't feel like spending my "free" time cooking. I'd rather spend it with my baby. And, when the baby naps I'd rather spend it having a little "me" time (if I'm not working).

[Anonymous]

I am a SAHM and I don't really cook either. We have some kind of easy-to-cook meat and frozen steamed veggies, or chili w/ cornbread, or soup and grilled cheese, or something from the crockpot, or breakfast for dinner... I'm not a cook, what can I say.

[Anonymous]

I work outside the home and I cook "real meals" a couple of days per week. Although it's more effort, cooking after a long day work relaxes me. My daughter eats dinner before we do, so I cook while she eats. I was also motivated when my Dr. told me I had pre-hypertension. (I'm 32, workout 4-5 times per week, and have always been slim-- so I didn't have the usual lifestyle changes to make.) Cutting out tons of processed foods actually brought it back to where it should be. Now that I've started watching my sodium, it's shocking to see how much you can easily consume if you aren't careful.

[Anonymous]

I work PT and don't spend too many mornings at home all morning (I work in the pm). I do a Crockpot meal once a week, breakfast for dinner once a week (my kids LOVE that). We order out once a week (or go out to eat). The rest of the nights are baked fish, chicken, potatoes, rice, steamed veggies or pasta. Sometimes I buy prepared meals at Trader Joe's. That's it. If my husband had a problem w/ it, I would show him where the pots and pans were. We both work so why should it be only my job to cook? B/c I am a woman. If he ever said those words, he would regret it. This is 2009.

[Anonymous]

OP, I don't cook because my husband prefers to do the cooking. Because he knows that if it were up to me, I would prepare the same kinds of things you make.

So thanks to my husband, I actually eat very well and gratefully clean the kitchen afterwards (and carry the weight on a bunch of other chores he doesn't like to do). But I'm with you -- I wouldn't spend that much time on it myself. Tell your husband that if he wants to eat better, he should take some cooking lessons! (What is he doing while he's whining about this?)

[Anonymous]

Nope, you're not the only one! We do a lot of easy-prep meals from Trader Joes and we do the pre-cooked Purdue chicken strips at least once a week. (They're expensive at Giant but quite reasonable at BJs and actually pretty healthy and tasty with the right sauce.)

If it really matters to DH and to you, why not try an experiment for a few weeks where each of you takes one day to prepare a "real" meal. That'll get you two nights under your belts, and if it seems like a real boost you can consider adding on a third day a week. But I wouldn't push yourselves to make huge resolutions or changes right away. And I would not take this on yourself. If DH wants better meals he should also play a role in making them happen.

BTW, I'm also a fan of the crock pot. There's a great blog -- I bookmarked the chicken recipes: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/search/label/chicken

[Anonymous]

I work FT outside of home, and make the same type of meals you do. Every other week or so, I muster up energy to cook a "real meal" and make a lot so it will be leftovers for a few lunches and another dinner. I second the PP who makes breakfast for dinner - this is a nice way to shake things up, and my DD loves eggs, veggie sausage and fruit, and it's a quick and easy dinner. When I steam veggies (which is about half the nights), I make extra, so there are again leftovers that I can just zap later on. I have about 3 1/2 hours per day with my DD, and I don't want to spend any more time than I have to making dinner. DH is usually not home for dinners (he has her in the mornings, so works on a delayed schedule), so knows enough not to comment on what I make - he knows what she is eating is usually very healthy.

[Anonymous]

OP, not exactly what you asked, but "real meal" is a little bit of a loaded term. I dont 'cook' like I used to pre-kid (I enjoyed it) but I also dont buy much in the way of prepared foods - I have a pretty good roster of very quick 'homemade' meals. As one PP noted, there's lots of sodium and other stuff I prefer to avoid in prepared food, so I like to start with ingredients that have been processsed as little as possible, but I also have better things to do than cook fancy meals. But a pkg of turkey meat, a handful of chopped onion, some bbq sauce and 3 minutes of patting = 6 turkey burgers, which cook as quickly as frozen veggie burgers, freeze perfectly in patties and defrost overnight (hell, make 2 pkgs at a time!), and make a 'homemade' meal (with a veggie, of course, plue lettuce/tomato/avocado/cheese on the burger if you're feeling ambitious). Or spaghetti with sauteed zucchini, garlic (through a press - 5 secs) and parm cheese, which is about 10-15 minutes longer than the jarred sauce, but if you do it while the water's boiling, the time-to-dinner is the same. Bag o' salad on the side. Homemade marinades for chicken breasts and flank steak are also keepers - 5 minutes of mixing oils, vinegars, seasonings, dried herbs, pour on in the morning, grill at night. I have about 6 or 7 meals I can get on the table with 20 minutes or less of work. Admittedly my younger days as a cook make me a little faster with a knife, but if you (or DH, who maybe should be the one to take this initiative since he is the one who cares) start with some very quick and easy recipes, you might find you like it enough that 15 or 20 minutes doesn't seem like a big deal. IMHO, the trick is to ask your friends/family/acquaintances that are good cooks for their fastest recipes - even the best cooks have a few, and they're usually more realistic than those cooking mags or books that tell you something will take 15 minutes but must assume you have a prep cook to do the 1/2 hour of slicing and dicing before you start!

[Anonymous]

I actually know a lot of working husbands who do the cooking.

[Anonymous]

When I was a working husband I did all the cooking. Why? I got hungry sooner than DW. Plus, she didn't think about food until it was way too late to do anything other than microwave something or eat some cereal. So I sort of got left holding the bag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is saying we (meaning me, really) need to cook "a real dinner" more often. Right now we really don't "cook" -- the baby is still on jars and the three year old gets frozen veggie burgers, frozen tofu "chicken nuggets," pasta, scrambled eggs, or something like that -- only things that take under 10 minutes. Sometimes rotisserie chicken (we buy those precooked ones at Harris Teeter) or I put a pre-seasoned chicken breast in the oven. He always gets a veggie too (steamed or frozen), and fruit/yogurt for dessert, and he is a great eater, so I don't really feel very bad about it, because it seems like a pretty healthy dinner to me. If we don't eat what he is eating, we'll have a sandwich or cereal or a Lean cuisine or other frozen entree, or probably once a week we have fish -- just seasoned and put in broiler. Nothing fancy. I just feel like the few hours between when we get home and bedtime is better spent playing, reading, etc, than cooking.
But DH is making me feel sort of guilty about it. Are other WOHMs managing to do some real cooking? I don't want to cook on the weekend and freeze, either, because weekend time is precious family time......

Does DH feel guilty for not cooking? Sounds like if he doesn't like the menu, it's in his power to change it.

[Anonymous]

One of my New Year's resolutions was to cook dinner more regularly. I have been doing a big roast every other week in the crockpot -- veggies on bottom of crockpot, 2 packet of onion soup and the water for it, roast on top, 8 -10 hours on low heat. That gives you roast and veggies for dinner for my husband and I for that night, another serving of roast and veggies, plus a night or 2 of open face roast beef sandwiches. I took the broth from the last roast and left over veggies and used it as a soup starter to make black bean soup -- easily 3 nights worth of dinner from that.

I also make chili on weekends periodically so we have a meal from the chili and then I have a meal or two more from the leftovers.

I have also discovered the joy that is taco night. My picky eating kid goes wild for them.

[Anonymous]

What does this word mean, "cook"?