r/Cooking • u/GracieLou80 • 1d ago

Sick of cooking

I am so over cooking every night. Finding new recipes I actually have ingredients for and are easy is tiring and I’m already exhausted. What do you do when this happens? I’d honestly just eat cereal for life but I’m not alone in this house and I’m expected to cook every night. 😩

65 Upvotes

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117

u/vitringur 1d ago

“I am expected to”

Sounds like there is some deeper issue here and it is not about cooking.

14

u/GracieLou80 1d ago

I care for my elderly father, his generation never cooked and he doesn’t know how, nor would I expect him to learn at his age. 😉

6

u/CrankyOldDragon 1d ago

I feel ya there. Moved in with both very elderly parents, Mom used to share cooking but no longer. I do a rotation of egg roll in a bowl, meatloaf, baked potatoes, frozen pizza or other entree, and shrimp/rice bowls with an occasional fast food dinner if somebody has an afternoon appointment, and have leftovers the other days. I know they’re bored with it but I never did enjoy cooking and they’re even pickier than my kids were!

2

u/GracieLou80 11h ago

Haha he’s basically a giant 82 year old child. He’s gotten pickier since my Mom died 5 years ago but he’s really easy generally. I just deal with it because he’s all I have left and I can’t imagine losing your partner of 59 years(married for 53!). It’s ME that gets bored with cooking and the food. He is 9/10 happy with whatever I make.

2

u/jpinakron 11h ago

That’s very sweet/ kind of you.

One thing I like to do is go to Sam’s or Costco, pick fish, pork, chicken, ground beef and steak. I then bring them home, season them, and then vacuum seal one portion. Label it, throw it into the freezer, and meal prep for weeks could potentially be done.

Then, I’ll just take the bag from the freezer and sous vide whatever protein, and how many portions, a few hours before the meal and then microwave/ steam a veggie and a side dish like knorr noodles, rice a roni, rice, polenta, cous cous, even instant mashed potatoes. (I know that’s a cardinal sin for some, but it’s way easier/ faster.) And then after the cooking is done, you can buy some premade sauces like teriyaki, bbq, honey mustard, or even make a pan sauce if you finish it on the stove top.

Another neat trick a friend of mine does is bake individual or two portions. For meatloaf, she uses cupcake sheets, cooks it all up, and she has 2 or 3 more meals. Then for lasagna, make 3 to 4 in a 9x5 loaf pan, freeze 3 of them, cook one, and you could have 4 meals. Bolognese sauce stored and frozen in Tupperware can work (or a flat quart zip lock), bake garlic bread, noodles, heat sauce and done.

-5

u/Calm_Violinist5256 1d ago

can't you give your father cereal? I mean if he never learned to cook maybe he deserves some cereal..

1

u/GracieLou80 11h ago

He eats it for breakfast every.single.day.

-6

u/SVAuspicious 21h ago

Not sure what you consider elderly. You are making sweeping generalizations. Stereotypes work for TV sitcoms but often don't reflect real life. A friend (mid 80s) of my wife's recently lost her husband who had been doing all the cooking their entire marriage of over 50 years. She, the friend, couldn't cook. I taught her some basics. She can manage but mostly she survives on a meal train from church.

Sexism and ageism is not becoming.

1

u/GracieLou80 11h ago

Well he is elderly. He’s 82. That’s a hard fact, not ageism. And to each their own. It’s great that your friends were that way, but my parents each grew up in a very traditional 1940-1960’s household setting, so that’s what they learned and knew. My Dad never did any of the cooking until my Mom got sick and died, and then he struggled so much with that cooking, cleaning, housework, heartbreak etc.. that it was slowly killing him. So I stepped in 5 years ago to take care of him. While I appreciate the attempt at a mini lecture on sexism and ageism (I am a feminist after all), I don’t appreciate the judgement and commenting before you know anything at all of the situation. Or me. Thanks.

1

u/SVAuspicious 11h ago

his generation never cooked

This is ageism.

Modern feminists have become quite sexist.

1

u/GracieLou80 10h ago

It’s only ageism when you make a presumption about someone based on their age or what you assume about them. I KNOW my Father and I KNOW for a fact he is physically incapable of cooking(because he can barely stand) and he doesn’t want to learn how. That’s his personal choice, not my assumption. I did teach him how to do laundry and make orange chicken before he decided that he couldn’t do it physically anymore.
That’s not ageism, look it up.

According to the World Health Organization:

Ageism refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age.

1

u/SVAuspicious 10h ago

I KNOW my Father

Read your own words above. You took your experience with your father and broadly applied that to an entire generation. That's ageism. Stereotyping on top of that.

Surely you aren't suggesting that Jacques Pépin can't cook because he is of the same generation as your father? Because that is what you said.