Wedding Non - cooking soon to be wife

[galvana]

Hi blissfulbride
I love this post. I too, don''t cook. EVER.
I told my fiance this on our first date. I lived alone after college for 10 yrs before I moved in with him. I ate mostly salads/premade chicken and take out.
A few times a year I will make my fiance''s favorite dish, its called "favorite chicken" and its very very easy. He gets that for his birthday, our anniversary, and thats maybe 1 other time. He jokes that its his one meal a year! lol
He rags on me a lot that i dont cook but he also is fine with doing the cooking. We try to eat very healthy so most of our dinners are something protein he cooks on the grill and then vegees or salad for me, & if he wants a carb (rice, potato, etc) he''ll make it himself.
I am lucky in that he is so fine with this but to be honest, im not going to change either (i dont think).
Many people that i tell this too think its the most bizarre thing they have ever heard. But, it works for me.
I didn''t grow up in a home with a mom and dad making dinner each night so i never learned how to cook, and here i am.

We do however, go grocery shopping together.

 

[appletini]

I love to cook and DH loves to eat and has learned to cook since we''ve been together. I do think this is a shared responsibility. Why don''t you take some cooking classes together, that way you can both learn, have a fun date together, and then can try a recipe together at home.

If he won''t cook at all, then he at least needs to do all the dishes and clean the kitchen.

 

[princesss]

I''m with trillionaire...the best thing to do is just have a bunch of spices. They''re expensive at first, but last ages! Just think about what you''re cooking, open the spices and sniff. If it''ll taste good, it smells good. If it''ll taste bad, it''ll smell bad. Think of/start cooking a new meal and different things smell good/bad! It''s magic.

 

[lala2332]

Bf live sin this tiny old apartment and his kitchen just never seems clean...mainly b/c its dark and just gets cluttered so easily. I never cook anything more than pasta or tacos there.
I think the easiest way to ease into cooking is to watch the food network, esp. Rachel Ray''s 30 minute meals. That way you can see what the food is supposed to look like as it cooks. However, her 30 minutes, is my two hours! Cooking just takes me forever.
George Foreman grills are amazing. Even I will cook on those. Another good idea is to get a whole roasted chicken from the grocery store and then you can just make some sides, and then the next day put the leftover chicken on a salad.

I cannot wait to have a nice kitchen. I''m dying to start learning how to cook. I''m going to look into a couple of classes I think, just to help kick start the process.

Just thought of this: I don''t know if you could/or would want to do this, but i bet you could call up to a local arts/culinary school and see if a student would come teach a class to you and some friends. THey would probably like the money and would still be learning and so not be too fancy or expensive and they would be able to answer a bunch of the basic questions

 

[Italiahaircolor]

I love to cook, for me it''s a sort of therapy. After a long day of work, I go home...pour myself a tall glass of green tea...and make a really nice dinner.

But, thats me.

I''m Italian, so cooking is part of my DNA...I was practically raised in a kitchen. But if cooking isn''t for you, that''s okay. However, I would give it a fair chance if it is important to the man you love.

See, I have always viewed relationships as give and take. Even if that meant stepping outside of my comfort zone.

Have you ever considered taking cooking classes at a local shop or store? A lot of them offer classes for beginners, and on top of learning how to make killer pasta or whatever, you may actually broaden your friendship circle by meeting other cooking novices (think about how much you''ll laugh over your mutual misadventures in the kitchen???)

Cooking at home does save money. Eatting out on average costs my husband and I $30.00 (with tip, plus we do not drink). If we ate out 9 times a week (including lunches on the weekend) we''d be paying out $270.00 per week....and that is not including lunches during the week independantly or breakfast on the go either. Now, when I grocery shop...weekly....I pay approximately $180.00 for 5 complete meals, plus snacks, drinks, and whatever else happens to make it into my cart. We still eat out on the weekends, including breakfast, lunch and dinner. But, I feel like, even with that expendature, we''re coming out on top money-wise.

And as an added bonus, I feel that I''m actually serving my husband clean food...I always worry about "what" I am actually eatting when it comes to dining out. I am an absolute wreck, truth be told. I obsess over what actually touched my food! Did the chef wash his hands after his last restroom visit? Did he spittle on my food while talking over it? I cannot stand the mystery!

So, in closing, I wouldn''t give up on cooking 110%....there are exciting places you can take it...try it, give it a fair shot!

 

[bootsiekin]

Hi everyone,

I also dont cook! I think mostly because I am a very picky eater and dont really "enjoy" eating like a lot of people do..anyway the problem arose because he doesnt really cook either. Almost all the meals we make, we end up making together and they are all really simple things like bean burritos, baked ziti, even eggs and potatoes...and I do have to agree on the slow cooker - my mom MADE me learn how to make a few things with it and it is really easy and turns out good every time. So we made a list of things we "know how to make" and when we dont know what to have for dinner we just consult the list and pick something. I definitely would suggest pasta - its hard to mess that up and all you need is a box of noodles and a jar of sauce!

 

[iwannaprettyone]

Learn.

I never used to cook, FI and I have learned together and as a bonus I NEVER, NEVER have to clean dishes or the kitchen as he does that in return. We have a blast going to the store, prepping food and having a glass of wine (or four).


I started with chicken on a George Foreman and have progress to all types of foods, even curry! lol

ETA: I work 50-60 hours a week and I am a full time Grad student.

 

[sumbride]

I learned to cook when I was a senior in high school and my mom tripped and broke her ankle. She was in bed for months. Dad was out of town for a lot of it, and pretty useless in the kitchen anyway. Mom got tired of pizza in about a week. So if there was to be dinner, it was up to me. I''m so grateful for that, and I''m a much better cook than she is! I do love cooking, but I''m also exhausted when I get home. I commute 4 hours a day, round trip. There are days where I literally can''t hold my head up on the train ride home. On those DH knows dinner is on him.

DH knew how to make a few things, but he learned to cook when I got pneumonia last year and was told not to get up off the couch/bed for 3 weeks. We have an open floor plan house so I''d be in the living room watching tv and he''d be in the kitchen cursing up a storm, chopping, banging, smashing things. And then he''d say "HOW LONG?" and "WHAT DO I DO KNOW???" and "IS THIS DONE? CAN YOU TELL?" And it was REALLY annoying to be asked yet again how long to cook potatoes in the oven and at what temp, but he learned. He LEARNED. And if he can learn, anybody can! Now he cooks with very little instruction, very few questions. He does the whole meal usually, though I sometimes step in to help with sides. Ironically, when it''s my turn to cook, I almost ALWAYS do the whole meal, unless there is grilling involved. Funny how it''s assumed I will, but it''s more that I don''t like extra people in the kitchen when I''m working. I get very non-verbal and will grunt and push him out of the way if I need to.

Now we have a great balance and it almost works out to every other day for who cooks. He was griping about how the dishes are always dirty recently and I said "Well, I guess since we don''t do prepared foods anymore we just use more dishes." He said "Oh. Yeah, I guess that explains it."

When you''re really busy though, Trader Joe''s has some fantastic ready to eat or ready to heat food. The mushroom risotto got me through my exhausted nights living alone.

Just try it. It''s not so bad.

Oh, and DH does 99% of the grocery shopping. It''s on his way home from work before he picks me up at the train.

 

[phoenixgirl]

Learning to cook has been my goal this summer. I''ve been planning meals and trying several new recipes a week.

Certainly I never subscribed to the idea that I had to be the one to cook, especially during the school year when we are both working. DH is a better cook than I am, and when we lived in our condo and I did all the cleaning, shopping, and laundry, and there was no yard work because we there was no yard, well, I would be darned if I was going to worry about cooking too. And DH didn''t care enough to cook more than once a month either, so we didn''t eat very well.

Now that we have a house (which the Merry Maids clean) and DH is busy with the gardening and improvement projects, I don''t feel annoyed if he doesn''t cook, especially during the summer. And anticipating being a SAHM some day, I figured I should learn how to cook more than meat + pasta + cheese.

I''m not saying that if you''re a SAHM mom you need to do all the cooking and cleaning on top of taking care of the little ones, but I recognize that when we drop to one income we won''t have the $ for the Merry Maids or take-out every night. I''m cool with that.

DH''s mom was a SAHM who didn''t cook or clean. FIL became quite the gourmet chef as a result. She''s just lazy. When SIL had MIL''s first grandchild, MIL drove down and demanded that her son bring her drinks in a little girl voice with her feet propped up. SIL had had a C-section and MIL didn''t fold a single piece of laundry, cook a single meal, etc. To be fair, my dad was never good at helping when my siblings had babies, but he always had work to focus on while there, and my mom hasn''t worked in 35 years. I think he honestly didn''t know how to help, and it wasn''t wrong of him to leave that stuff to my mom since she wasn''t working even though they''d been empty-nesters for years. I guess my point is that couples should divide the work equitably, and there''s nothing equitable about a man who has to get three jobs to support his four children and SAHW also being the one who has to cook and clean.

OK, sorry for the tangent/rant! It''s actually in my favor that MIL was such a poor example in the area of cooking and cleaning because DH doesn''t have any expectations of me in those regards.

P.S. I''ve been using EatingWell: Healthy in a Hurry and EatingWell Serves Two for most of my cooking this summer and I couldn''t recommend them more. They really are healthy, tasty, and not that hard to follow. Sure, you have to buy tarragon and lime juice and stuff you probably don''t have on hand for some of the recipes, but then you''ll have it for the next time. I just discovered their website, so if you used two chicken thighs for one recipes and are wondering what to do with the rest of the chicken thighs that came in the package, you can search their website for more recipes using that ingredient.