“I’m not going to eat that!”
“I don’t like that!”
Yep, I hear this out of both kids quite a bit. If my husband feels the same way, he at least never says it out loud. Finding a meal that pleases everyone is almost impossible.
I think the only one they agree on is homemade pizza and even then I still have to customize it to everyone’s taste. (Sausage for everyone but Lexie and onions, peppers and mushrooms added for me.)
I sometimes dread deciding what to cook for dinner. I usually plan our meals two weeks out. I don’t decide necessarily what to have each day but just meals that I plan to make so that I can have the ingredients on hand when it comes time to make them. This list stops me from staring in the freezer trying to decide what to cook.
Now while making a list of meals does help, the hard part is actually coming up with the list. For a while, I really struggled with it and felt like we were having the same things over and over. I ended up putting the name of all my recipes into an Excel spreadsheet. It is broken down by what type of meat is used. Next to each recipe, I list the cookbook/page, how long it takes to make and other notes such as it freezes well.
But having the list, doesn’t stop the constant worry about who will actually like what I am making. It seems no one in my family likes the same thing…Jase loves pasta casseroles, but those aren’t my husband’s favorite. Lexie doesn’t eat beef but is fine with chicken, and my husband is a meat-and-potatoes type guy.
And then the kids’ tastes keep changing. While Lexie used to love beans, now she rarely will eat them. Jase used to love this chicken dish I make and now won’t eat it. There really no way to please everyone – unless it is pizza night.
It is a challenge to cook for this group and while I try to offer things that the majority likes, there is typically someone not happy with what I am serving. My mother-in-law use to make separate meals for her family to please everyone. I refuse to do that. This isn’t a restaurant after all. Sometimes I will make some mashed potatoes for Lexie since that is her favorite but basically, my rule is if you don’t like dinner, have a bowl of cereal or a hot dog. (Jase will eat the hot dogs but Lexie thinks hot dogs are gross.)
Sigh…now to decide what is for dinner and wonder who will be complaining that they don’t like what I made.
A real problem for alot of families. My mother used to fix a meal and if we didn’t like it, we had to fix something on our own….usually peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Don’t fall into the everybody gets their own meal idea. Makes you a short order cook and very tired.
It’s why I cook for myself. On the few occasions that I’ve cooked for my family, they (except the wife) didn’t like/appreciate what was put in front of them.