Submitted by asterism in AsterismOvershares

Long ago wife and I split cooking responsibilities equally, which worked well. But now (because of my work schedule) she does the vast majority of the cooking. But she is not a good cook so I'm getting tired of eating bad food. But if I give even a single helpful suggestion she gets all defensive. So most days I just make my own food, which works ok because she wants to eat non-vegan stuff sometimes. But god damn you ever eat soggy pasta with half cooked store bought sauce? or you ever had a totally unseasoned taco (I mean she literally just puts some beans in a pan and then opens up some canned tomatoes if I am lucky she'll make some rice)? Because I eat those a lot.

All this to say, any easy way to help wife not suck at cooking? If the answer is no I will carry on making my own food which is just fine too.

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lettuceLeafer wrote (edited )

So most days I just make my own food, which works ok because she wants to eat non-vegan stuff sometimes

Damn I know your wife isn't great but she is like the 1 percent of adapting to their vegan partner. Most omnia especially men throw a fit. Actually a ton of people stop being vegan just due to constant pressure from their partners. No study or anything just a lot of anecdotes. Her adapting so we'll is actually super duper caring.

Soup is easy as shit. You don't have to worry about cooking to much. You just kinda cut stuff up, put it in pot and make sure it doesn't boil over or run out of water. Stuff like dried split peas and lentils are honestly the only dried foods I can tolerate waiting to cook without a pressure cooking. Also since ur new to vegan if u start to cook beans you can be super lax on food safety though you have to worry about lectins. Like if u cook beans in non boiling water u basically poison yourself.

Stir frys are also fairly easy though honestly I stopped eating it because oil and doing stir fry with no oil is hard to not burn. Honestly just eating like random whole foods separately is pretty good. Anything other than that and soup requires some cooking ability.

And to clarify oil is completely vegan I don't eat it because I'd rather eat plant foods with way better nutrients per calorie. But for most people eating oil isn't a big deal if ur not anal retentive like me. So stir frys are nice. I mean they are season stir and fry some and I'm shit together haha

Also have u gotten the new vegan bloating and farting yet. I'm surprised you didn't comment on it.

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asterism OP wrote

You know I probably paint my wife worse than she is. In part because I have no one to complain to so a lot ends up here. Like I can't complain to my friends because we share friends so that'd be weird.

Yeah she is super caring and she has seen me through some tough shit and like I have changed so much since we got married and she is still here which is kind of impressive honestly.

and my in-laws, who aren't great, their response has been pretty amazing too and they have gone out of their way to make stuff for me and they are like the only people that haven't given me a bunch of bullshit questions about being vegan either.

Also have u gotten the new vegan bloating and farting yet. I'm surprised you didn't comment on it.

I mean I am coming up on a year of being vegan now. I probably did post about it under my previous incarnation. I mean I go through bean burrito kicks and then it gets super bad.

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lettuceLeafer wrote (edited )

Holy shit really? Omg I had no idea it had been that long. I dont really keep track of past timeless so that's prob why.

Also complaining about you wife is cool. Tho I def had a very skewed idea of how u viewed her.

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asterism OP wrote

All people are complicated as is my wife. Its hard for me to square with the fact that she can be a bigot, especially when I have children with her. and It wasn't long ago that she did something that I swore I would never forgive. but then I saw her change as soon as she realized how awful she was being. and she fixed it and I honestly believe nothing like it will ever happen again. and that's really rare I think. So yeah at times I have probably hated her. But the weird thing is I can hate her and also really care for her at the same time.

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ghost wrote

My father never ate anything my mom cooked. Apparently he never ate anything his mom cooked either. Once he got old enough, he would just go cook himself dinner. Usually it was a hot dog or hamburger, but with my mom it’s fish (which she hates and typically won’t cook) or a sandwich. Idk… it worked for them, I guess.

I do most of the cooking but I have most of the allergies, so when I cook something I would consider bland for normal people, I suggest condiments for my spouse. Like I can’t eat tomato or onion so our tacos are pretty bland (I do have one safe seasoning packet that’s awesome though), so he always puts salsa on his, and we keep salsa and taco sauce in the fridge so he can spice his up separately. We’ve done this with some other condiments and foods, too.

If you’ve got an electric slow cooker, could you premake soup or chili so that it cooks while you’re working, and your spouse doesn’t have to do it? Or you could tag team it, where you put something in the crock pot and then tell her it would be good with some other thing (salad, and put all the veggies that need cutting in the same spot in the fridge so it’s easy to find, or biscuits and use bisquick because that’s hard to fuck up if she likes baking, etc)… maybe if it’s more of a team effort she’d be into it?

Could she maybe not know how to cook, and maybe grew up with overly critical family? Like if you showed her an easy recipe and made sure the ingredients were in the house (and phrase it like “I’d really like to try this on my day off but it looks easy and if you want to give it a go tonight, feel free”?), do you think she’d try it out?

I always used to take legit gentle criticism super personally because I come from emotionally immature parents who traumatized the fuck out of me. Now it’s easier. But fwiw, if you’re eating at least some of the bland stuff she cooks, that’s love and I’m sure she notices.

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asterism OP wrote

I have a slow cooker but I never think to use it. Maybe I should go that route that is a good idea.

The tag team idea is great too because you pretty much called it with the hyper critical family and everything.

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__0 wrote

My partner is a lot pickier of an eater than me, and they were quite intimidated by cooking when we met, sometimes it’s good to find something easy and simple that you both can agree upon. Roasting some vegetables in the oven with salt and pepper and a little bit of oil is dead simple and pretty tasty it’s easy to get a good variety of food in and it’s pretty cheap as well.

Our go to right now is

1/2 Yam … cubed 2 Carrot … chopped 1/2 zucchini … big chunks 1/2 eggplant … pretty thick

Also marinated firm tofu takes an hour to soak up the sauce can’t remember exactly what my partner puts into it but I think it’s mostly ginger honey and soy sauce?

You really can’t go wrong, just throw it into the oven for about 17- 20 min at a reasonable temperature and give it a check to see if the consistency is how you like it.

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asterism OP wrote

I am still experimenting with tofu (I don't use it often in part because I don't know how I like it.) and I am getting close to perfecting my fried tofu.

But it has literally never occured to me to bake it.

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Bezotcovschina wrote

Baked tofu is great. I don't marinade it, just cut into small-ish cubes 1,5-2 cm, mix with spices (some curry mix do it for me) and starch and bake it at 200-250 degrees Celsius for 10 or so minutes. I can't get enough of this.

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Fool wrote

you ever eat soggy pasta with half cooked store bought sauce?

I lived on frozen pasta like this for a month. We cooked a big bulk before the second kid was born, then it tasted horrible and my partner refused to eat it, so I kept eating it every day until it was gone, since I don't like wasting food.

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