I’m in the middle of Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants and I love it!!! During my travel last week I read half the book, AND listened to TEN episodes of a podcast called The Rest is History. Four episodes on the murder of Franz Ferdinand, and then six episodes on The Road to the Great War. Between the book and the podcast, I was fully immersed in life in Europe before and during WWI.
Since I’ve been back, I can’t seem to find large chunks of time to read, and it’s frustrating. I just want to sit down for a long afternoon and finish this book! Sigh… the first week of school is hard.
Eating
Okay, here’s the thing. I’ve come to the realization that I hate cooking dinner so much that I don’t want to do it anymore. Why do I hate it so much? GLAD YOU ASKED.
It’s too much work to plan the meals, get all the ingredients, spend time cooking, and then spend more time cleaning up…. all for a meal that some of us don’t even like that much. It’s gone beyond “irksome”- it’s a colossal waste of time and energy.
We just don’t all like the same thing. I want simpler meals, without white bread, pasta, or rice, with no sugar, and I don’t like plant-based “meats.” Over the summer, my son and husband took over some of the cooking, which was GREAT. But I didn’t feel like I could impose my demands on them, since they were the chefs, so I either made my own thing, or reluctantly ate a dinner that didn’t really agree with my “sensitive” digestive system.
If I cooked, I either had to modify the meal to suit everyone else, or incur the wrath of the family (everyone is still trying to recover from the fried rice made with brown rice instead of white.) Even if I can manage to make something we’ll all eat, my daughter will- at best- declare that it’s “tolerable.” It’s incredibly unsatisfying.
The new plan is this: on Sunday I’ll make a “regular” dinner (I already can’t even think what that will be, but I’ll figure it out one night a week.) I’ll also meal prep simple things like roasted vegetables, marinated tofu, rice, quinoa, some simple sauces, and I’ll have cans of beans and chickpeas on hand.
Monday-Thursday, dinner will be bowls, made of anything people want from the prepped items. You don’t like quinoa? Fine, have white rice. Or pasta. You don’t like the tahini sauce? Take the peanut sauce instead. And if anyone wants something more elaborate, they can cook it and clean up after themselves.
Friday will be takeout as always (thank God) and Saturday my husband can cook, or we can finish up anything left over from the week. If I can pull this off, it will save my sanity.
I didn’t exactly get it started this week- again, the first week of school is so hard. But I’m making simple dinners, like Nora’s Easy Chickpea Curry (I doubled the recipe and we’ve already eaten it twice,) I have my eye on Nora’s Buddha Bowl and also the marinated tofu from her Poke Bowl. This weekend I’ll do the meal prep- again, nothing too complicated because I also don’t want to spend all day Sunday in the kitchen- and next week we’ll start our “easy bowl dinner” journey!
Does anyone have any suggestions for EASY sauces that could go on a bowl?
Who has read Fall of Giants?
25 Responses
Fall of Giants was terrific for me too… (Thanks, Engie!)
Sorry about the dinner angst, Jenny. Do you have a Trader Joe’s nearby? I like their Eggplant and garlic spread, Corn and Chile Tomato-less Salsa, Vegan Kale, Cashew & Basil Pesto, Vegan Tzatziki. It comes pre-prepped, so hopefully it’s convenient.
HMM!!! Great ideas. We have a Trader Joe’s about 20 minutes away, and I’m due for a trip. And the family is probably more likely to enjoy a Trader Joes sauce than one I make.
I’m sorry about your dinner angst! It sounds like a lot. Honestly, grocery shopping and preparing food and then cooking the food and figuring it out every day, it is a lot of work. I find myself spending literal hours every day just doing food-related things. I am sorry there’s so much strife around your cooking. That would do me in. The one thing that keeps me going is that everyone loves (or says they love) what I make. Well, two things keep me going, I like eating, that’s the second thing.
I think your plan is a good one. I serve a LOT of stir fries and bowls around here, and I’ve always made it a bit of a “choose your own adventure” where people can add what they like to it. It works really well for us. Another super easy meal is just cold tortilla wraps, and I set out sliced veggies and avocado, plus cheese and chicken for the guys (not appropriate for your house, but works for us), and then a variety of spreads like hummus or salsa. It takes maybe 15 minutes total and everyone is happy.
In terms of sauces, I often make some kind of mixture of oil, vinegar, and something savoury. Sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, add some garlic and ginger, that kind of thing. Or olive oil, apple cider and balsamic, garlic, something like that. Tahini sauce. I can’t think of anything else right now.
Good luck with the new plan! I also hate fake meats and I really don’t think they are good for you either. I often will saute cubes of tofu and that’s a popular thing around here. Oh, and nuts! I love adding nuts to everything.
Ooh- I like the wrap idea. That might something to throw in there, when everyone starts complaining that all we have are bowls. Thank you Nicole!
PREACH JENNY PREACH!!!! There is a bit more to the story, but basically I stopped cooking dinner earlier this year for exactly these reasons. There’s a line between feeding the family and being treated terribly because you aren’t a full time professional chef who’s only purpose in life is to please everyone at all times. In my case I live with two grown men and a senior in high school so….
I’ve had a decent amount of reading time and I’m about 40% of the way through with 11/22/63. I’m perfectly happy taking my time with it. Of course there are other books that I want to read, but they will be there afterwards.
Oh, I hope you’re loving that book! There was a lull for me at one point- I can’t remember exactly when- but then the story really picked up again. Overall I loved it.
I’m glad you left this comment, because I was feeling guilty about not wanting to cook for my family. But you’re right- I’m not a professional chef, but the other eaters in the family acted like that’s what they were expecting!!! Hurumph.
I do not trust any recipe that calls for onions and doesn’t require at least 20 minutes just for caramelizing them. I was excited about the Easy Chickpea Curry until I saw the five minutes for onion. UNTRUSTWORTHY, Nora Cooks!!
My husband did not eat the dinner I prepared for him last night. So he had to figure out his own dinner. I was planning on that same dinner as leftovers tonight and I am still eating it – he’ll be on his own again. I know it’s different when you’re dealing with children, but my job is serve food and if he won’t eat it, that’s on him. I don’t know. I guess I feel like I’m an enabler in my own home if I start short-order cooking. *sigh* Thank goodness we didn’t have children!
Hahahaha, well guess what- my daughter HATES onions, and that’s a big bone of contention. She will immediately reject any food with onions, even if I’ve chopped them up TINY and I think she won’t notice. So, I just leave them out. You can make the chickpea curry without them! Personally I think it would taste better with onions, but it was just fine this way.
My hubby doesn’t cook but he’s content to eat cereal or PB&J. lol
I don’t mind cooking in the winter but hate it in the summer… a lot of salads and take out or eating out.
That works! I think any adult who doesn’t cook is obligated to eat cereal or pb&j at least some of the time.
Ugh I feel this meal angst so much. We don’t all eat the same meal in our house which I don’t love but I do not want to eat like a toddler so it’s what works for our family. I do feel a lot of, well, shame, about how my kids eat but Paul is a very very particular eater so while we try to push his boundaries when we can, he’s a 4th percentiler so I need him to eat… So I plan meals that Phil and I will eat and Phil is very good about coming up with ideas. I used to come up with the ideas, grocery shop, and make the meals but that really shifted after we had kids. Now we come up with meal ideas (and Phil is often the person suggesting the meal ideas), he grocery shops, and I do the cooking (he does the grilling). It’s nice to have a better division of labor. But it’s still a lot of work to come up with great ideas. And I wish there were more meals that everyone would eat! That used to be lentil enchiladas but both boys stopped liking those. Womp womp. They do eat pasta pretty well and then I have mine on zoodles. I make 3 meals/week and we live off leftover or simple meals like eggs or something like that. And then for lunches I typically would eat a salad but I got so burned out on salads and was kind of dreading eating my packed lunch so lately I’ve been eating something chickpea based.
I have read Fall of the Giants and I LOVED it! All 3 books are so excellent!!
Oh, it is SO HARD with little kids! I know some people insist that everyone eat the same thing, but sometimes that just doesn’t work. Just so you know- my so Paul was a pretty great eater, and we did eat mostly the same things when he was little. Then I had my daughter, HA!!! She was so, so picky. I tried so hard, but eventually there was a phase where she ate a ton of Dr. Praegers Chick’n nuggets and… cringe… french fries. She’s honestly still a big problem as far as cooking family dinners BUT, she does eat much more of a variety now and eats certain- but not all- vegetables. She outgrew the nugget and fry phase. So- don’t worry too much, and don’t make too big a deal out of it. They all grow up just fine! And Paul will broaden his horizons eventually.
Easy sauces:
If you have a food processor: thinned down homemade hummus is a pretty big hit around here, as is a spinach pesto.
Bowl+sauce suggestion:
The last couple of weeks, my family has been enjoying a California Roll-inspired bowl: rice, imitation crab, avocado, cucumber, splash of rice wine vinegar mixed into the rice. The sauce consists of thinned-down mayonnaise with a small amount of chili-garlic sauce added. My kid doesn’t like the vinegar or the sauce, but is happy enough with the rest. The sauce really packs a kick for the grown-ups, so we’re steering her away from it for now. If you’re vegetarian or catering to vegetarians, maybe think about the types of vegetarian sushi you like and take a page from them?
Thank you Alice! my family does like vegetarian sushi. I think a sushi bowl would be a big hit. I’ll try it and report back!
Love the idea of choose your own adventure bowl meals, Other options for this kind of template would be tacos, and pizza. With young kids we do these kind of meals often! I know you are not such a fan of too many simple carbs, but you could do a taco bowl on those nights for example (pizza could be a gluten free base or something?): just brainstorming 🙂
I definitely get burnt out coming up with dinner ideas, and I only have to make it for myself! For easy sauces, I really like a lot of the ones Trader Joe’s has, but lately I’ve been obsessed with their zhoug sauce. It’s like a pesto consistency but made with cilantro and it’s kinda spicy. I’ve been mixing it with chickpeas and vegan feta, but you could add the TJs tabbouleh salad in there for something extra!
I have not read Fall of Giants, though I have it on Audible. Pillars of the Earth was one of my FAVORITE books – I’ve read it twice in English and once in Spanish, and hearing you and Engie talk about this series had me thinking about revisiting Ken Follett myself. I think I’m going to listen to A World Without End (loosely related to Pillars of the Earth) in Spanish though, because I need to log some serious hours in that language again. It’s like 50 hours long so I need to figure out when to start it…
I think your dinner plan sounds solid, I hope it works out. I’m sure you’ll keep us posted. My husband actually does most of the cooking for us (I make the kids meals), and I’m very grateful for that because I really do not care about cooking and would probably heat up frozen food most nights if left to my own devices.
sorry to hear you find cooking a headache. I am doing meal prepping on weekends for breakfast and lunch so it’s easier for us during the week. Super simple things like rice, bean, tofu, a dressing, chickpea salad, so it’s easy to put together a bowl kind of meal. Since I started the vegan thing, eating became easier somehow. Husband is also eating what I put together or prepare something himself.
Hope you find a way to make it work for all of you and less stress.
Oh Jenny. I feel your dinner feelings so acutely. It is an endless thankless job that requires so much thinking and planning and prep work and ugh. I love your plan for bowls that everyone can customize! I will add Japanese BBQ sauce and pesto to your list of sauces (sauce is the most important part, obv).
“Monday-Thursday, dinner will be bowls, made of anything people want from the prepped items. You don’t like quinoa? Fine, have white rice. Or pasta. You don’t like the tahini sauce? Take the peanut sauce instead. And if anyone wants something more elaborate, they can cook it and clean up after themselves.” LOVE IT. I need to do them same.
I don’t have any dietary restrictions to work around, but I’m just over meal planning in general. It’s a summer thing for me. I can easily throw meals together in the cooler months because I love soups and crockpot meals, but summer leaves me clueless. I hope your new plan works out!
I have so much angst around making food for MYSELF, I would be totally lost if I had to feed a family. And especially when the family has OPINIONS about what you’re making. Gah.
I think you have a good plan here! My new goal is to try to make something on Mondays that I can eat as leftovers on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then Thursday can be something fun like nachos or pizza. I still need to figure out the weekends, though. I just want to eat fun stuff!
Um, your family imposes their dinner desires on you, you absolutely can impose your wants!!!!!!!
I vote Trader Joe’s, too. I just did my shopping there instead of Publix (unfortunately, I don’t really live close to the TJ lol)
I really just wanted to leave support comment about your wants are valid! 🙂
I feel very lucky that a) I don’t have to cook for four people (because I can see how everybody has their own demands) and b) that my husband and I agree on a lot of food decisions. It makes the whole ordeal much, much easier. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to plan/cook for people with different tastes and sensitivities.
Jenny, this is what I do for myself every night. Assortment of veggies, a bit of lettuce, hummus. + if I’m feeling adventurous or hungry, extra protein. It’s the easiest thing ever. Go for it. You won’t regret it. And just remind your daughter that college is approaching – and you will not be there to cook! 🙂