I'm here just to rant a bit because I figured I'd had my say in the initial discussion and didn't want to beat a dead horse.
I was in a forum discussion about a woman who was appalled that someone called in to a cooking show (they have phone-in cooking shows? Maybe this was a "letter to the chef" or something, I dunno) saying that her family refuses to eat the same thing two nights in a row. It isn't because they don't like the meal the first time, or they think the food is gross re-heated, just because they don't want to eat the food a second night. The caller's husband brings himself home a pizza, her three sons whine and have sandwiches for dinner.
The woman posting was appalled that the chef agreed that, yes, eating the same thing two nights in a row was boring.
What did she expect her to say? I put in my two cents that, yes, it was boring. I wouldn't do such a thing myself if I could help it. There are certain foods that are in increased rotation from time to time (potatoes need to be eaten before they rot), but I certainly don't eat potatoes for two weeks straight.
The way I see it, hers is a problem with an incredibly easy fix: don't serve the exact same meal two nights in a row. There are a lot of ways to avoid this, it just takes a little bit of thought and preparation.
I got jumped on by a bunch of women: those children should learn to eat what was put in front of them and be grateful. In an economic situation like this, they should be happy to have food at all. No one should have to come up with creative fixes to make everyone happy. How dare they criticise her hard work? I let it go at that, but I think this is an incredible over-reaction, which is why I'm ranting here instead.
If "hard work" involves moving dinner from the fridge to the microwave, I don't think that's to be applauded. If this were a one off situation, yes, I could see berating your kids. "Oh, gee, sorry we had this last night too, I think you will live." But if Dad's bringing home pizza, this sounds like a constant situation, and there's no excuse for that on Mom's part.
The way I see it, there are options that will make everyone happy- Mom can do next to nothing for dinner prep, but you don't have to have the same meal two days in a row. What's so wrong about that situation? It keeps everyone happy, is just as thrifty, etc.
I do agree the kids shouldn't get sandwiches. If they don't want to eat dinner, tough noogies. I was a picky kid. After numerous dinner time battles, my parents pretty much left me alone. Food was made available to me, the decision was mine to eat what I would. If I wanted to eat, that was my decision, if I was hungry, I decided to be hungry.
Sure, there are families on the current version of the meatloaf and red cabbage diet from A Christmas Story. (I don't even know what it is now, Ramen, or Mac and Cheese?) This doesn't sound like that sort of case. I think if you've got food sitting around the house as a dinner alternative, and if Dad thinks pizza is an OK investment, your personal budget is probably not on that scale. And anyway, the food can go back in the fridge for a couple more days before it goes bad. If the argument really is "we just had this," give 'em something else. Big deal, they can have what they just had later.
I think the main problem is that this woman made twice as much food as necessary in the first place. With just The Boy and I, I've periodically made too much, but there's never enough to feed both of us a second time. I'm cooking for two, and end up cooking for three, not four. If this woman has made enough to feed a family of five twice, she's doing something wrong from the outset.
With a lot of foods, if she knows she's going to have half of it leftover, she could simply freeze half of it before she puts it in the oven and *viola* (yes, that's what I said), she has dinner for another night later that week or next. It's not going to go mold in the fridge, it's going to taste exactly the same, and you don't have to have it the next night.
When I was a kid, we rarely had anything left over after dinner. If we did, my Dad ate it for lunch later on. So the concept of leftovers is a bit foreign to me anyway. If you don't make more than you need, you won't have more than you want. Which sounds like a weight loss programme and a money saving plan rolled into one, doesn't it?
If you're having leftovers because you're too busy to cook, same thing. Have food on hand that takes little time to prepare. We keep a couple three dollar frozen pizzas for this. I also keep bacon, rice, and tomato juice in the kitchen and pre-diced vegetables in the freezer. If I forget to thaw meat, or haven't entirely planned dinner, I can throw something together with those ingredients that doesn't take long to cook at all.
If I don't have half an hour to prepare dinner, I don't have time to eat it either. I might as well just go through a drive through. Kinda why it's called fast food.
Who said dinner has to be a hot cooked meal? Go ahead and have sandwiches.
We did this all the time in the summer when running the oven in our un-air-conditioned house was not a fun prospect. Dad bought loaves of Italian bread, lunch meat, cheese and vegetables. We made our own sandwiches, and Dad had the leftover cheese and veggies for tacos or spaghetti sauce later that week, three dinners out of the same list of ingredients, but hardly the same. And it's cheaper than Subway.
Is this an incredibly offensive way to look at this? I can understand not wanting to make a separate meal for every member of the family, I can understand that the only option at dinner time is what's served or nothing, I can understand telling your husband he can cook dinner next time if he doesn't like it, but I don't see why it's somehow morally wrong to think that you might want to avoid serving the same food two nights in a row.
Dinner is to be enjoyed, not suffered through.