This Cook is Challenged

Here is a summary about why I am challenged at cooking

Challenges from my family

I believe that a meal should have starch.  Father doesn't like pasta.  Bear loves pasta but doesn't like flavoured rice.  DH quite likes the flavoured rice but doesn't like mash potatoes.  Father really likes mash potatoes because his teeth can manage them but doesn't like remoska potatoes.  If I remoska up sweet potatoes and parsnips they are usually well received after the blank looks.  Bear utterly rejects cous cous

I believe a meal should have protein.  DH will not tolerate cooked tuna in any shape.  Father is quite keen on pork.  DH loathes pork but likes lamb.  I not only do not like lamb but shiver at its price.  Bear will condescend to most meat but prefers fish.  DH and I loathe fish and I am scrabbling to work out how to cook it.  I throw up if I eat cheese.  DH has violently upset stomachs with cheese.  Bear rejects cheese utterly.  Father loves cheese.

Vegetables - okay so far.  I don't have much imagination but the veg box is helping.

Desserts - we rarely bother.

My failures

I have a very odd skill set.  I can make a souffle but I can't fry eggs and if I didn't have an electric egg boiler I would be stuffed there as well.  I can't make pastry.

I hate cooking.

I never remember to get stuff out of the freezer in time for it to thaw for dinner

Anything I cook and freeze never sees the light of day again.  For some reason there is a blind spot.  Batch cooking never happens and if it did is very unlikely to work.

I can't make home made stock.  Every attempt has tasted foul.

I always underestimate the amount of time it would take me to prepare something.

If I actually organised my kitchen things would be a good deal easier.

I am unable to follow a recipe.  The shade of my late mother seems to hover over my shoulder as I read a recipe and I can almost physically hear her suggesting the substitutions.  Substituting is almost compulsive.  The few times I have stuck to a recipe it hasn't worked out right, though if I fiddle a bit with eg the herbs then I am usually safe.

I twitch when I see lists of expensive ingredients.  Even if we can afford them.

Summary - this is why we have so many takeaways.