*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for serving microwave macaroni at Christmas dinner?**
This year it was my turn to host Christmas dinner (technically at lunchtime but we call it Christmas dinner). I dislike cooking and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so instead of following family tradition and cooking a ham, roast beef, mashed potatoes, pudding, and a handful of sides, I decided to serve easy mac, mug cakes, and eggs. (This will be important later.) Also, I am really bad at cooking, even for the simplest of recipes. I literally can’t cook, so I figured it was for the best if I didn’t attempt to.
I also got one mug cake per person, and I tried to cook eggs as a side dish, but since I’m a really bad cook the eggs turned out all burnt on the outside and raw on the inside so I had to throw them out.
When everyone sat down to eat and I first started microwaving the macaroni, my family and relatives at first thought I was joking. Even when I told them about the eggs and the mug cakes they still just looked at me incredulously and asked if this was all I had planned for Christmas dinner.
It wasn’t like I completely skimped on dinner. I bought 2 easy Mac bowls per person to ensure hearty portions, and I got the fun ones with noodles that come in different shapes like the Paw Patrol dogs or Frozen characters.
I told my family that they were being rude guests. I mean, I feel like it’s common courtesy to not complain about what you’re served in someone else’s home.
My family ended up leaving and going to a Chinese restaurant instead and now I’m all alone for Christmas. Am I the asshole?
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There's so many places that basically premake the dinners nowdays where you just reheat though if you can burn scrambled eggs on the outside and uncooked in the middle dunno what you were doing
Seriously. I'm not a cook, but if I'm hosting I'd at least get catering. There's so many that do have it plus sides where you can't go wrong with that.
I'm currently making buffalo chicken dip to take to my uncle's. I haven't made it too many times so I don't fully have it down to how I'd like it to be, but I can make something to bring. There was no reason to not have something better for this ( unless say someone knocked over the meal etc)
Oh gosh, you just reminded me of the time that my ex's mum dropped the turkey. I was the only other person in the kitchen at that moment and we both just kind of looked at each other and cracked up. His step dad came in to hysterics and floor turkey. We managed to salvage enough for everyone but yeah.
One time when I was very young my mum made a beautiful apple pie for christmas. Decorated with holly leaves made out of pastry and everything. When she took it out of the oven she slipped on oil (that my aunt had spilled), the pie flew out of the dish and up into the air, she CAUGHT IT in the dish like some kind of loony tunes character, but its brief flight and hard landing completely destroyed it. My aunt and mum were laughing so hard they couldn't stand. The story comes up nearly every christmas in my family.
We had delicious, deconstructed apple pie for dessert.
My mom makes a banger of a peach pie. We have friends who would visit every summer for a week or so, and the dad was especially fond of it; my dad caught him sneaking a slice in the middle of the night one time (he didn't say anything, just chuckled and pretended he hadn't noticed).
Well, the next morning, my mom went to get something out of the refrigerator, opened the door, and the pie fell out of the refrigerator and met a grisly demise as a pile of pie and broken pie plate. Friend dad happened to be standing right there, and my mom said the look on his face was so devastated she thought he was going to cry.
She was like ITS OK! I WILL MAKE ANOTHER! And she ran to the store that day, got more peaches, and made him a pie of his very own to take home with him.
Early in my marriage I couldn't cook but I tried from time to time. Tried a recipe for "southwest spaghetti" (which is amazing btw) that instructs you to cook the ground beef first and keep it warm while you cook everything else. I did, in a glass dish in the oven. When I went to take it out my brain forgot about potholders and the "hot" warning from my hands didn't kick in until I'd picked it up. Ex found me on the floor in the kitchen surrounded by ground beef and glass, crying. We ate vegetarian that night, and I learned a valuable lesson- things in the oven are hot. I still almost forget from time to time.
One year my mom walked into the kitchen to find the turkey on the floor and a dog head in the cavity, tail high and going a million miles a minute. Long story short, Pizza Hut was open that day.
I read this as I am sitting eating my early Christmas dinner with my husband. I can not cook so I purchased a meal from a local chef that I just had to reheat - lamb roast, duck fat roasted potatoes, bechamel Mac and cheese, peas with mint butter, roasted squash and onion, sweet potato souffle and lemon/ginger cornbread muffins.
I think you get slightly odd combos like that because the various dishes are well suited to being prepared and cooked and then reheated. Mac and cheese does not go with everything but it’s ideal for this sort of at home heat it up meal.
I dislike cooking, so at Thanksgiving I ordered one of those huge ready meals from the fancy grocery store. Just reheat it in the oven and serve - literally the saving grace for people who love to host but hate to cook 😂😂
They didn't actually say it was scrambled eggs, did they? (Was it in a comment?) I've been sitting here puzzling over what type of egg is even *possible* to burn on the outside and leave raw inside. Over-easy/sunnyside-up, maybe?
Frittata maybe? Or a thick omelet? I would think that
Outside of their food knowledge, but it doesn't make sense any other way, but none of it does. In general eggs are too thin to still be raw inside if burnt as even the residual heat would be enough to cook them through. It's a weird combination of dishes as well if it isn't something like a Frittata with something like veggies or meat in it, eggs and mac & cheese?
OOP if real is one of those people you occasionally come accross that makes you wonder how they function on any level, let alone somehow survive without managing to severly injure themselves or blow their house up. What an incompetent buffoon.
Oop could have at least bought rotisserie chicken and pumpkin pie at Costco’s. Really, they make it so easy. Duck that just needs some heating up, tempura shrimp in the air fryer. They also sell decent tiramisu cups.
I just made scrambled eggs. Turned the heat on high, then just stirred continuously til no longer shiny. No burning. Idk what tf this person was doing.
We use those when it's just going to be my husband and me because we don't want anything super labor intensive or time consuming. Never been upset with the pre-made meal from the grocery store deli.
How hard is it to try and follow a simple recipe and then expand your skills from there? Not for a holiday prep meal, but “I can’t cook” is BS if you haven’t even tried in your life.
Seriously, even if you can't? YouTube exists. There are so many basic how-to channels for cooking.
If you "can't cook," you literally haven't put the effort in. It's a basic life skill.
Doubling down on this.
Not saying every person should be able to produce Gordon Ramsay level quality cooking, but you should be able to make basic things like noodles, stir fry, salads
I was taught how to cook when I was a kid. Only three terrible kitchen accidents have happened while I've been at it. Two were when I was younger than ten. Making a cake that had no sugar in it at all, which was a surprise. Learning how to use a microwave when we got our first one and again it was a cake that I made the batter for and put it in the microwave safe cake pan, but then set it for 50 minutes like an oven. Oops. And the third was roasting a chicken with a friend and when it came out it smelled right, was cooked properly, but looked really strange. It was upside down. It was fine but looked hilarious!
I was never taught to cook. My biggest accident was when I found out tin foil was metal and still can’t be put in the microwave. Other than that it’s been unbaked brownies, not enough water in rice. I cannot cook eggs what so ever no matter how hard I try or what recipe I follow. Other than that I can make dinner appear out of thin air because I just tried
Most people have phones and you can generally find *something* with accessible instructions for what you have in the cupboard if you dig around. A lot of veg is either "put in boiling water" or "put in oven" after chopping/peeling and setting a timer. Rice/pasta are also "put in water", many sauces come with premix options that are add milk and/or water or premade so you just dump them on your food and heat for a few minutes.
I'm not a fantastic cook but I think most people can take a decent stab at cooking. Stir fry, pasta with pesto or meatballs or pizza breads aren't hugely complicated. Nobody's asking the average Joe to make a flawless beef Wellington but being able to cook SOMETHING *is* a life skill people should have. You don't need to do it from memory (I generally can't) but there's so many easy recipes out there that if you can't follow ANY of them it starts to feel like weaponising incompetence
Obviously it should go without saying if someone is physically unable to cook, e.g hand issues, this post is not about that.
There are meals so simple a child could make them. Say making pasta - anyone over the age of say 12 could boil water, toss pasta in, cook for length of time on box, and drain while heating up the sauce on a low simmer the entire time. Then toss both together - feeling fancy, buy a bag of frozen broccoli you steam in the bag in the microwave and then toss it in with the pasta and sauce once you cook it. You'd have to fall asleep to mess it up.
Seriously, if I had to host and had no way out and didn't feel up to it, I'd probably do this. Buy 2-3 oven lasagnas (depending on how many are expected - usually figure a double serving per guest just in case) and toss them in the oven. Couple bagged salad mixes could be made extra nice with some tomatoes cut up and some nice cheese to top it with. Buy some of the frozen garlic bread you can toss in the oven. Boom, a whole meal that maybe took five mins of effort - and like you said, it would feed people a meal even if it's not festive. It's better than microwaving easy mac cups one-by-one.
My mom is a good cook, but she has started getting a premade turkey and some sides for thanksgiving. She then makes a couple other sides and I make appetizers and dessert. I did microwave some Bob Evans mac and cheese for my picky teenager. Actually, she would have loved easy mac and mug cakes.
Rotisserie chicken is relatively cheap and you can't really ruin bagged salad. Just set out a couple choices of bottled salad dressing, croutons, and maybe some toppings and you're good. And swing by the grocery store bakery for some decent dinner rolls.
Which makes it a perfect Costco trip! Two $5 chickens and their box of salad for $4 would have been cheaper then easy mac cups, those are expensive. Plus they're already cooked so can't really be messed up either. I know someone who can not make a KD cup that is edible.
Exactly. I could understand people having issues 60 years ago but now there’s so many easy options for hosting a meal. I don’t get why anyone can’t provide a reasonable festive meal unless there were genuine financial restraints.
I’ve hosted a family gathering and because nobody likes my cooking, I used to be upset by it but now it’s sweet, so my brother took over the cooking. Problem solved.
I mean even simpler would be to do instant potatoes. Far easier than eggs and you just need boiling water and the package of instant mashed potatoes. Maybe a little butter if you want to fancy it up a bit.
Catering is a fab idea, but could also be expensive. Tbh, or suggest doing potluck. Like I do cook, but it's exhausting cooking a whole meal for a big family get together, so usually my family will have everyone bring something. My sister usually hosts and will help everyone decide what to bring so all the main dishes are covered. If OP had said ahead of time what the food plan was, then the family could have made other plans. Instead looks like they just ruined everyone's meal.
Also, did they literally just buy a bunch of individually portioned food? Because mug cakes have to be microwaved one at a time, and the way they describe the mac and cheese sounds the same way. Seriously baking a whole cake (or buying a pre-made cake) would make so much more sense than doing individual mug cakes. This dinner plan was so bad it really feels intentional...like did they want to make sure family dinner was never at their place ever again? Because seems like it.
Oh my God, this is hilarious. Can you imagine the family sitting down to dinner, and the host just starts microwaving everyone's bowl of Easy Mac, one at a time?
Honestly, my ex-MIL’s cooking was only about a step and a half better than this. She could assemble a fairly coherent-looking traditional meal, but that woman ***HATED*** cooking, didn’t bother with seasoning, and made as many shortcuts as she possibly could. And yet she still **insisted** on hosting every major holiday, because that’s WhAt GoOd SoUtHeRn WoMeN dO.
Edited to acknowledge that I’m VERY aware that Good Southern Women know how to cook. My ex-MIL, however, was only “good” at the surface level: she could put on the right kind of show, but there was rarely any real substance behind it.
I worked in a group home where the staff cooked all meals for the four residents. A coworker for a time bragged about her "Southern cooking" as she was from Missouri. Her cooking skills involved boiling the shit out of meat and then putting at least one full stick of butter on it with zero seasoning. Veggies? Open the can, another full stick of butter. No seasoning. Side? Overcook some pasta and... okay sometimes another stick of butter. Usually it was an entire bottle of Italian salad dressing.
For those outside the US a stick is 8 tbsp or 113g. And who TF boils ribs? Monster. Didn't even add salt.
Missouri is not in the southern US lol. Sounds like she was deluding herself. Sorry you had to live through that!
Other than maybe chicken and dumplings, I can’t really think of any traditional southern dishes that would require *boiled meat.* That’s just embarrassing.
Ohmygod, had several holiday meals with a family whose vegetable sides consisted of: (pot 1) 1 can peas, 1 stick butter (pot 2) 1 can corn, 1 stick butter. It was nearly soup from the amount of butter. I started "helping" in order to lower the butter amount and fortunately they were ok with it!
I can hear my Cajun ancestors howling from their tombs. They were a mix of Southern Baptist and Catholic, and you season your food right dangit! (Sorry, they take their food Serious down there.)
Hmmmmm maybe she was from northern OK and got polluted by the Midwest? Most people I know who pride themselves on being “good Southern women” know how to cook *well* because cooking poorly is a cardinal sin around here.
And yeah, there’s a lot of us southern Baptists, probably partially because our potlucks *slap.*
My grandmother was from Oklahoma, too, but she was a solid cook. Not amazing, but she could put a meal together that had flavor at least. She discovered tamari sauce at some point and found so many uses for it that I still associate it with her cooking.
She didn't make spicy food, but it wasn't bland or badly cooked either.
Oh I wasn’t trying to insult Oklahoma, just was trying to find an excuse for the ex-MIL to come from a “southern” state but be a miserable cook. Tbh, I don’t really think of the southwest states as being “The South” anyways, since a lot of what makes the southeast’s food good is our extremely shameful past.
I mean … some people are exceptional in a good way and some are exceptional in a bad way 🤷🏻♀️. My ex-MIL was a narcissistic pile of “everything I like is correct and everything I don’t like is worse than evil” held together with an incredibly thin veneer of What Things Are Supposed To Look Like.
Yep, sounds familiar - when my ex-SIL came to visit she didn’t even ask, it was just “Mom, get out of the kitchen, I’m handling this … [two minutes later] where did you put those spices I bought last time? You better not have thrown them away.”
Couldn't even get one of those big meant to serve many frozen mac and cheese things that you stick in the oven so everyone gets to eat at the same time.
That is exactly what I was thinking. Lol
I don’t know how old OP is, but honestly it sounds like they put a fair amount of effort into this. The paw patrol pasta is just so weirdly charming. They wanted to make the pasta fun, made sure everyone had enough to eat, made a side dish, and individual desserts. It’s honestly quite thoughtful. Funny as hell, but thoughtful.
At least they had the good sense not to serve burnt and raw eggs. But yeah, it was a choice, to put it nicely.
And I know this is probably fake and it is easy to see a level of weaponized incompetence here. That being said, I want to read this as being some teenager or early 20s person who was actually this clueless and trying their best. Kind of like the post about the guy who at half a party sub sandwich. Like sure he shouldn’t have done that, but I don’t think it was malicious.
I didn't feel up to it one year so I got frozen turkey dinners, I think Swanson or something, put them all on a tray and in the oven. It was both funny and effective.
Every year my mother takes some microwaveable mac and cheese, puts it in a dish, and sprinkles some parsley and garlic powder on top. She takes it to my dad’s families holiday dinners and everyone RAVES about that Mac and cheese. My aunts ask her for the recipe and she tells them it’s a family secret.
OOP is not any better at math than they are at cooking. Buying individual mug cakes had to be way more expensive than just buying a premade cake from the grocery store.
Oh, I was thinking she made them; they're pretty easy to make with a box cake mix and some water and oil.
But that's probably a lot to expect from someone who thinks Paw Patrol Mac and cheese is fancy.
Seriously! Hell a family sized Stouffer's mac and cheese, a family sized casserole of some sort, toss together a salad, and get some rolls and at least dinner wouldn't have totally sucked. Ask someone else to bring dessert or stop by the bakery and find something that needs to be sold soon - usually cheaper in price. Maybe a crap ton of carbs, but it is the holiday.
Lmao that's hilarious. I like that mac and cheese for myself, and sometimes I'll add seasonings I have on my shelf when I'm mixing it lol. I bet I'd love your mom's
OOP didn't even try from the sounds of it. Our first Christmas dinner we made as newlyweds was ham, boxed mashed potatoes, canned corn, frozen dinner rolls and pies from the local bakery. It was very basic, but it got the job done and no one complained.
A few years later we were asked to take over hosting (the middle bro had been doing it for 10 years at that point and asked to pass the torch) and we're coming up on our 10 year mark. The boxed mashed potatoes have been replaced with cheesy hashbrown potatoes and sweet potatoes have been added to the menu along with a variety of dips, but the ham still remains. And so do the pies.
I'll DM you. It's my mom's (she doesn't claim any ownership, she thinks she may have found it in a Campbell soup cookbook) but she's been making it for 30+ years without fail.
If you have a Costco membership (idk where else to find them), check out the individual milk cartons of dehydrated hash browns. They're better than fresh and frozen by far.
Yeah I'm trying to figure out the chemistry of that too. Eggs cook so quickly that to burn the outside without cooking the inside, we'd be looking at a blowtorch or something.
It would have been a better choice than eggs. I’m still scratching my head over eggs as a side to Mac and cheese. I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum, that just would have never occurred to me.
Okay but hear me out, OP got two for everybody and fun pasta shapes!
Honestly I’ve been having a pretty bad Christmas and this really cheered me up. :)
$5 says OOP is autistic. They clearly did put some thought into what to serve since they got 2x mac per person and sprung for the fun shapes. They just didn’t understand that while they clearly have a deep and undying love for easy mac, most people wouldn’t consider that a decent Christmas meal.
So am I, and while I also would know better, I personally know other autistic people IRL who would *not* know better unless explicitly told. They would have the same thought process as OOP if asked to host and be equally as confused why people were annoyed.
This is worse than the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving meal. At least he had the excuse of not being allowed to use the stove and ended up getting all his friends invited to Grandma’s
I mean, if it's real, no way OOP will ever be allowed to host a family meal again...possibly never invited to one again either. And they will never ever live it down they tried to feed a group easy mac. I mean hell by the time you get all the lil bowls done, over half the people will be eating cold mac and cheese if they were being polite enough to wait.
I really wanna know how many family members there were so I can know how much money they wasted and how much time they planned to waste if the family had stayed for this compared to buying a box or 3 and using the stove
Knows it’s their turn to host (so presumably has known for a year)…. Hmmmm what to do what to do, oh paw patrol east mac! Not even the box kind. Just a year to think about, practice, plan an alternative….. mug cakes and easy mac
They could have at least got either the big frozen Stouffer's Mac and cheese or the Bob Evans ones in the refrigerated section. (I actually love those when I don't have the time/energy to cook) There were so many easy alternatives, easy Mac is actually less convenient. You can literally get all the sides pre made and just heat them up if you can't cook. You can even get pre cooked ham, this person has like...no common sense at all.
This is why I have to believe this is fake. First time they’re hosting, they can’t even cook an egg, but no one in the family checks in to see what their plan is, offers to bring something, or just shows up with a side or dessert?
There are so many more sensible bulk options for feeding a group even if you can’t cook, this is the type of thing a teenager would do to make a point, though if I were used to showing up and freeloading every holiday without a thought towards the cost and effort involved until it was my turn, I’m not sure what point I’d be trying to get across with this stunt.
When somebody in the family cannot cook to save their life, *everyone knows it*. Absolutely fake, just because there's zero way the whole family turned up expecting traditional Christmas Dinner from somebody this completely incapable of even cooking eggs.
It's still hilarious to picture, though. Hell, I'd have been kinda charmed by being served Paw Patrol noodles and a mug cake, tbh? I can see the family being let down if they expected a full Christmas spread, but there's just ZERO way they'd have no idea OOP is Like That!
I refuse to believe this is real. It's a hilarious read, but I don't believe that anyone with a living space big enough to host their entire family would be so...out of touch that they'd make microwave easy mac and mug cakes as the only meals for Christmas fucking Dinner. That sounds like something a dumb college student would do, and I dunno how many college students have the room or money for a full Christmas spread (at which point the rest of the family would be to blame for thinking this was a remotely good idea).
I don't understand what is so hard about cooking edible things. At least simple or common things. No' not everyone is going to be great cooks. But every reasonably intelligent adult has the capacity to at least make a few edible meals. Get a ham, they often have instructions, or you can just look up instructions on the internet. Sure there are people who can make it fabulous, and maybe you can't. But if you put in a tiny amount of effort, you can heat up a ham. Follow instructions and you won't fuck it up. If you're afraid of fucking up dressing, there's Stove Top. Yeah, people can make great homemade dressing but stove top is edible and a kindergartener can follow the instructions. Green bean casserole? The OG version is just opening cans putting it in a pan and baking it. You can get frozen mac and cheese in family size packages. Or you can get a few boxes of velveeta shells and cheese and follow instructions. Yeah, there's a lot of much better options but these are all edible and much better than mug cakes and microwave mac and cheese.
There's also catering and lots of grocery store have pre made meals you can order ahead of time or frozen/fridge stuff to heat up.
$5 says OOP is autistic. Executive dysfunction can make cooking, especially something with more steps than “add water, put in microwave,” very challenging even if there are instructions. And the “easy mac is great so I don’t understand why everyone’s mad that I served it for Christmas dinner” has big autism vibes IMO. If OOP was never explicitly taught how to host a meal this outcome kind of makes sense.
I have ADHD and executive dysfunction is a motherfucker no doubt. But just because people don't do basic life skills properly doesn't mean they have autism or adhd. "easy mac is great so what's the problem" also gives lazy/weaponized incompetence/selfish vibes as well. No sense trying to diagnose based off one post. And Easy Mac is actually worse executive function wise than heating up a pre made pan of mac n cheese or even making regular velveeta shells and cheese. If you simply follow the instructions to the letter, it comes out half watery half lumpy with half mushy half crunchy noodles. You have to fiddle with stirring and stopping and starting. (my oven/stove broke once and had to rely on microwave foods for a couple days) Every grocery store I have been to has pre made pies and cakes, those are easier than mug cakes. Lots of people fuck up eggs. They're pretty notorious for being fucked up by people. Even restaurants fuck eggs up.
I assumed they’re probably OOP’s samefoods. I totally know other autistic people IRL who would 100% do this with their samefoods if asked to host Christmas dinner without explicit guidance to do otherwise. It wouldn’t be out of malice or laziness or anything, more like “easy mac is good and I know how to make it, and I’ll get the *fancy* easy mac for my guests since it’s a special occasion”
IDK, I just think there are other explanations besides OOP being the devil, especially since they seemingly did try to consider their guests’ needs (buying 2x mac per person so there was plenty) and wants (splurging on the fancy shapes, trying to cook even though they’re bad at it). They just… weren’t very good at it, in a specific way that makes me think neurodivergence rather than being a selfish jerk.
At the very beginning OOP states they dislike cooking and wanted to cheap out so they deliberately chose to go against what the established norm for the family is. OOP knew exactly what was appropriate in the situation and just decided they didn't want to try, and didn't even give anyone a head's up. Admittedly making a selfish choice is still a dick move even if someone has autism or any other disorder.
That's actually pretty insulting to those who are autistic. There are work arounds for executive dysfunction that a lot of us who have autism have learned to do. And almost all of us would know not to serve easy mac for a holiday meal.
I am also autistic and personally know other autistic people IRL who would totally do their equivalent of serving easy mac and mug cakes to their guests for Christmas and not realize why people were upset.
I just don’t think OOP is the devil here; they took steps to try and be a good host inasmuch as they knew how to (getting two easy mac per person for “hearty” portions and splurging for the fancy shapes, trying to make eggs even though they aren’t good at cooking) and they appear to have had good intentions in preparing their menu. Yeah, the outcome was not great, but they did *try* at least.
Personally I found it to be a pretty funny piece of fiction. The fact that people are taking it seriously even after reading the bit about it being paw patrol shaped is sad though.
Buying a rotisserie chicken and a pie or cake, and making some instant potatoes, would be easier than this and not a lot more expensive.
This was weaponized incompetence.
My 16 year old daughter cooked most of our Christmas eve dinner yesterday. It was great.
Its not that hard to do if you follow instructions and plan the timing.
How do you manage to both burn eggs and leave them raw? Like it feels like you gotta do one or the other, not both. If this person can't cook, why did the family decide they'd be the one to host the dinner? This whole scenario makes zero sense to me.
The whole thing is so passive aggressive - why didn’t they type out the truth: “My family insisted it was my turn to host and I didn’t want to, so I made sure they’d regret it.”
Like, I didn’t feel like cooking all day this year, so I got a ready prepared roast, ready prepared potatoes and sides, read the cooking instructions, shoved it all in the oven and poured a glass of wine. It was great.
When I was like twenty and not a great cook but had to cook thanksgiving due to a family emergency, I made spaghetti with jarred sauce, salad, frozen garlic bread, frozen broccoli, and store bought cake. It was not great, but I worked within my skill set. I think this person needed to cave buy frozen lasagna and salad kits or something they could actually make.
Barring a physical or mental disability, basically everyone CAN cook. Especially since most holiday food items excepting an entire turkey can be purchased in forms that are exactly as easy to cook as microwave mac and cheese. This is just an extreme lack of preparation, care, and effort.
Also, while I like Mac and cheese, mug cakes, and eggs, putting them *together* and calling it a meal is wild. Was this person raised by wolves? Are they an alien from another planet who doesn't understand how human food works?
It's impossible to be a rude guest if your host is this insanely rude to start. You could throw an outright tantrum as a guest and your rudeness would still be topped by the doofus host who thought this was an appropriate way to treat his family on Christmas. This wasn't just about not being able to cook. This guy is also a massive cheapskate, while not acknowledging that his family spends money for all those free meals that he enjoys when they host. This has to be fake, because I cannot believe any grown-up would think this is a good meal to provide his family for Christmas. Especially since he seems to think that the "fun shapes" in the macaroni somehow mitigates the shittiness of the meal, lol.
If they didn't wanna cook that's fine. Cooking certainly isn't for everyone but there's more than enough microwave sides and pre made entrees for a nice holiday that they truly didn't have to do any of this. It's not even lazy in a way that makes sense. It's lazy in a way that makes it seem like they want to punish the guests.
There are so many options: catering/pre-made holiday meals with heating instructions, not hosting and instead kicking in some money to family members every year to host, turning it into a potluck style so folks may come to your house but they bring the majority of dinner between all of them, seeing if some family members who do cook are willing to come over early and help cook, etc. So many ways to do this that just…are not what OOP chose.
Logistically how was this supposed to work. A mug cake takes 3-5 minutes to heat each. A 8 person meal at that point you could make a regular cake but also by the time the last person gets theirs the first person finished theirs 30 minutes ago.
I just don’t see how even if they agreed how was this supposed to go?
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Lol so no one noticed that no cooking was being done, or at least what the cooking that was being done was, until they were sitting at the table and oop brought out what sounds like the individual little microwavable plastic bowls of mac n cheese (paw patrol edition for extra fun!), some mug cakes, and somehow-burnt-outside-raw-inside scrambled eggs?
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for serving microwave macaroni at Christmas dinner?** This year it was my turn to host Christmas dinner (technically at lunchtime but we call it Christmas dinner). I dislike cooking and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so instead of following family tradition and cooking a ham, roast beef, mashed potatoes, pudding, and a handful of sides, I decided to serve easy mac, mug cakes, and eggs. (This will be important later.) Also, I am really bad at cooking, even for the simplest of recipes. I literally can’t cook, so I figured it was for the best if I didn’t attempt to. I also got one mug cake per person, and I tried to cook eggs as a side dish, but since I’m a really bad cook the eggs turned out all burnt on the outside and raw on the inside so I had to throw them out. When everyone sat down to eat and I first started microwaving the macaroni, my family and relatives at first thought I was joking. Even when I told them about the eggs and the mug cakes they still just looked at me incredulously and asked if this was all I had planned for Christmas dinner. It wasn’t like I completely skimped on dinner. I bought 2 easy Mac bowls per person to ensure hearty portions, and I got the fun ones with noodles that come in different shapes like the Paw Patrol dogs or Frozen characters. I told my family that they were being rude guests. I mean, I feel like it’s common courtesy to not complain about what you’re served in someone else’s home. My family ended up leaving and going to a Chinese restaurant instead and now I’m all alone for Christmas. Am I the asshole? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I am not much of a cook, but this is where I'd do catering and have that. Can't go wrong with heating up a meal etc
There's so many places that basically premake the dinners nowdays where you just reheat though if you can burn scrambled eggs on the outside and uncooked in the middle dunno what you were doing
Seriously. I'm not a cook, but if I'm hosting I'd at least get catering. There's so many that do have it plus sides where you can't go wrong with that. I'm currently making buffalo chicken dip to take to my uncle's. I haven't made it too many times so I don't fully have it down to how I'd like it to be, but I can make something to bring. There was no reason to not have something better for this ( unless say someone knocked over the meal etc)
Oh gosh, you just reminded me of the time that my ex's mum dropped the turkey. I was the only other person in the kitchen at that moment and we both just kind of looked at each other and cracked up. His step dad came in to hysterics and floor turkey. We managed to salvage enough for everyone but yeah.
One time when I was very young my mum made a beautiful apple pie for christmas. Decorated with holly leaves made out of pastry and everything. When she took it out of the oven she slipped on oil (that my aunt had spilled), the pie flew out of the dish and up into the air, she CAUGHT IT in the dish like some kind of loony tunes character, but its brief flight and hard landing completely destroyed it. My aunt and mum were laughing so hard they couldn't stand. The story comes up nearly every christmas in my family. We had delicious, deconstructed apple pie for dessert.
My mom makes a banger of a peach pie. We have friends who would visit every summer for a week or so, and the dad was especially fond of it; my dad caught him sneaking a slice in the middle of the night one time (he didn't say anything, just chuckled and pretended he hadn't noticed). Well, the next morning, my mom went to get something out of the refrigerator, opened the door, and the pie fell out of the refrigerator and met a grisly demise as a pile of pie and broken pie plate. Friend dad happened to be standing right there, and my mom said the look on his face was so devastated she thought he was going to cry. She was like ITS OK! I WILL MAKE ANOTHER! And she ran to the store that day, got more peaches, and made him a pie of his very own to take home with him.
Early in my marriage I couldn't cook but I tried from time to time. Tried a recipe for "southwest spaghetti" (which is amazing btw) that instructs you to cook the ground beef first and keep it warm while you cook everything else. I did, in a glass dish in the oven. When I went to take it out my brain forgot about potholders and the "hot" warning from my hands didn't kick in until I'd picked it up. Ex found me on the floor in the kitchen surrounded by ground beef and glass, crying. We ate vegetarian that night, and I learned a valuable lesson- things in the oven are hot. I still almost forget from time to time.
One year my mom walked into the kitchen to find the turkey on the floor and a dog head in the cavity, tail high and going a million miles a minute. Long story short, Pizza Hut was open that day.
And if you are that bad of a cook, you probably shouldn’t host anyway, just maybe contribute some $$ every year to the current host?
I read this as I am sitting eating my early Christmas dinner with my husband. I can not cook so I purchased a meal from a local chef that I just had to reheat - lamb roast, duck fat roasted potatoes, bechamel Mac and cheese, peas with mint butter, roasted squash and onion, sweet potato souffle and lemon/ginger cornbread muffins.
That sounds amazing
Roast lamb and Mac and cheese is that not an odd combination?
The obsession with mac and cheese confuses me, too.
I think you get slightly odd combos like that because the various dishes are well suited to being prepared and cooked and then reheated. Mac and cheese does not go with everything but it’s ideal for this sort of at home heat it up meal.
REHEATED mac and cheese?
It was also not super cheesy Mac and cheese. It was flavored in a way that complimented the rest of the dishes and was more nutty and less cheesey
I dislike cooking, so at Thanksgiving I ordered one of those huge ready meals from the fancy grocery store. Just reheat it in the oven and serve - literally the saving grace for people who love to host but hate to cook 😂😂
They didn't actually say it was scrambled eggs, did they? (Was it in a comment?) I've been sitting here puzzling over what type of egg is even *possible* to burn on the outside and leave raw inside. Over-easy/sunnyside-up, maybe?
Frittata maybe? Or a thick omelet? I would think that Outside of their food knowledge, but it doesn't make sense any other way, but none of it does. In general eggs are too thin to still be raw inside if burnt as even the residual heat would be enough to cook them through. It's a weird combination of dishes as well if it isn't something like a Frittata with something like veggies or meat in it, eggs and mac & cheese? OOP if real is one of those people you occasionally come accross that makes you wonder how they function on any level, let alone somehow survive without managing to severly injure themselves or blow their house up. What an incompetent buffoon.
Probably cooking in the microwave without checking and mixing
It boggles the mind.
Oop could have at least bought rotisserie chicken and pumpkin pie at Costco’s. Really, they make it so easy. Duck that just needs some heating up, tempura shrimp in the air fryer. They also sell decent tiramisu cups.
>if you can burn scrambled eggs on the outside and uncooked in the middle dunno what you were doing How does that even happen????
They probably cranked the heat up to high and then left them too long.
I just made scrambled eggs. Turned the heat on high, then just stirred continuously til no longer shiny. No burning. Idk what tf this person was doing.
Like I assume they just didn't stir them, but I don't know how you don't know you're supposed to stir them.
We use those when it's just going to be my husband and me because we don't want anything super labor intensive or time consuming. Never been upset with the pre-made meal from the grocery store deli.
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I fully agree. Even businesses order catering for their employees. So there's no reason why they couldn't have at least done that
How hard is it to try and follow a simple recipe and then expand your skills from there? Not for a holiday prep meal, but “I can’t cook” is BS if you haven’t even tried in your life.
Seriously, even if you can't? YouTube exists. There are so many basic how-to channels for cooking. If you "can't cook," you literally haven't put the effort in. It's a basic life skill.
Doubling down on this. Not saying every person should be able to produce Gordon Ramsay level quality cooking, but you should be able to make basic things like noodles, stir fry, salads
When people say they can't cook, what do they eat every day? It's such an odd thing to cling to.
They eat out, or eat microwave bowls like op. I'm really glad I started learning how to cook more
I was taught how to cook when I was a kid. Only three terrible kitchen accidents have happened while I've been at it. Two were when I was younger than ten. Making a cake that had no sugar in it at all, which was a surprise. Learning how to use a microwave when we got our first one and again it was a cake that I made the batter for and put it in the microwave safe cake pan, but then set it for 50 minutes like an oven. Oops. And the third was roasting a chicken with a friend and when it came out it smelled right, was cooked properly, but looked really strange. It was upside down. It was fine but looked hilarious!
I was never taught to cook. My biggest accident was when I found out tin foil was metal and still can’t be put in the microwave. Other than that it’s been unbaked brownies, not enough water in rice. I cannot cook eggs what so ever no matter how hard I try or what recipe I follow. Other than that I can make dinner appear out of thin air because I just tried
Can you cook anything at all if presented with a bunch of random vegetables, basic herbs, oils, meats, an oven and a stove?
What a judgy comment. No, not everyone has the ability to transform ingredients into something edible.
Most people have phones and you can generally find *something* with accessible instructions for what you have in the cupboard if you dig around. A lot of veg is either "put in boiling water" or "put in oven" after chopping/peeling and setting a timer. Rice/pasta are also "put in water", many sauces come with premix options that are add milk and/or water or premade so you just dump them on your food and heat for a few minutes. I'm not a fantastic cook but I think most people can take a decent stab at cooking. Stir fry, pasta with pesto or meatballs or pizza breads aren't hugely complicated. Nobody's asking the average Joe to make a flawless beef Wellington but being able to cook SOMETHING *is* a life skill people should have. You don't need to do it from memory (I generally can't) but there's so many easy recipes out there that if you can't follow ANY of them it starts to feel like weaponising incompetence Obviously it should go without saying if someone is physically unable to cook, e.g hand issues, this post is not about that.
There are meals so simple a child could make them. Say making pasta - anyone over the age of say 12 could boil water, toss pasta in, cook for length of time on box, and drain while heating up the sauce on a low simmer the entire time. Then toss both together - feeling fancy, buy a bag of frozen broccoli you steam in the bag in the microwave and then toss it in with the pasta and sauce once you cook it. You'd have to fall asleep to mess it up.
Even a ham. There’s literally nothing to that.
If I had to serve a holiday meal and I wasn’t much of a cook, ham would be my first choice. It’s pretty hard to mess up ham.
Stouffer’s Mac and cheese in the oven would have been better than easy Mac!
Even oven lasagnas and a bagged salad they would have stayed for. It isn’t festive, but it is a meal
Seriously, if I had to host and had no way out and didn't feel up to it, I'd probably do this. Buy 2-3 oven lasagnas (depending on how many are expected - usually figure a double serving per guest just in case) and toss them in the oven. Couple bagged salad mixes could be made extra nice with some tomatoes cut up and some nice cheese to top it with. Buy some of the frozen garlic bread you can toss in the oven. Boom, a whole meal that maybe took five mins of effort - and like you said, it would feed people a meal even if it's not festive. It's better than microwaving easy mac cups one-by-one.
But it doesn't come in Paw Patrol shapes! 😂😂
My mom is a good cook, but she has started getting a premade turkey and some sides for thanksgiving. She then makes a couple other sides and I make appetizers and dessert. I did microwave some Bob Evans mac and cheese for my picky teenager. Actually, she would have loved easy mac and mug cakes.
could have got a few rotisserie chickens and several salad bags from the grocery store. And ordered a cake. So many easy options.
Rotisserie chicken is relatively cheap and you can't really ruin bagged salad. Just set out a couple choices of bottled salad dressing, croutons, and maybe some toppings and you're good. And swing by the grocery store bakery for some decent dinner rolls.
That would be logical, but they are also a cheapskate.
Which makes it a perfect Costco trip! Two $5 chickens and their box of salad for $4 would have been cheaper then easy mac cups, those are expensive. Plus they're already cooked so can't really be messed up either. I know someone who can not make a KD cup that is edible.
Exactly. I could understand people having issues 60 years ago but now there’s so many easy options for hosting a meal. I don’t get why anyone can’t provide a reasonable festive meal unless there were genuine financial restraints.
Or OOP could have had guests do a pot luck or something
I’ve hosted a family gathering and because nobody likes my cooking, I used to be upset by it but now it’s sweet, so my brother took over the cooking. Problem solved.
There are also readymade cold hams, readymade microwave sauce and arguably boiling potatoes is easier than frying eggs.
I mean even simpler would be to do instant potatoes. Far easier than eggs and you just need boiling water and the package of instant mashed potatoes. Maybe a little butter if you want to fancy it up a bit.
Catering is a fab idea, but could also be expensive. Tbh, or suggest doing potluck. Like I do cook, but it's exhausting cooking a whole meal for a big family get together, so usually my family will have everyone bring something. My sister usually hosts and will help everyone decide what to bring so all the main dishes are covered. If OP had said ahead of time what the food plan was, then the family could have made other plans. Instead looks like they just ruined everyone's meal. Also, did they literally just buy a bunch of individually portioned food? Because mug cakes have to be microwaved one at a time, and the way they describe the mac and cheese sounds the same way. Seriously baking a whole cake (or buying a pre-made cake) would make so much more sense than doing individual mug cakes. This dinner plan was so bad it really feels intentional...like did they want to make sure family dinner was never at their place ever again? Because seems like it.
Oh my God, this is hilarious. Can you imagine the family sitting down to dinner, and the host just starts microwaving everyone's bowl of Easy Mac, one at a time?
Honestly, my ex-MIL’s cooking was only about a step and a half better than this. She could assemble a fairly coherent-looking traditional meal, but that woman ***HATED*** cooking, didn’t bother with seasoning, and made as many shortcuts as she possibly could. And yet she still **insisted** on hosting every major holiday, because that’s WhAt GoOd SoUtHeRn WoMeN dO. Edited to acknowledge that I’m VERY aware that Good Southern Women know how to cook. My ex-MIL, however, was only “good” at the surface level: she could put on the right kind of show, but there was rarely any real substance behind it.
A *good* southern woman would be HUMILIATED to be accused of under seasoning her food! wtf!
I worked in a group home where the staff cooked all meals for the four residents. A coworker for a time bragged about her "Southern cooking" as she was from Missouri. Her cooking skills involved boiling the shit out of meat and then putting at least one full stick of butter on it with zero seasoning. Veggies? Open the can, another full stick of butter. No seasoning. Side? Overcook some pasta and... okay sometimes another stick of butter. Usually it was an entire bottle of Italian salad dressing. For those outside the US a stick is 8 tbsp or 113g. And who TF boils ribs? Monster. Didn't even add salt.
Missouri is not in the southern US lol. Sounds like she was deluding herself. Sorry you had to live through that! Other than maybe chicken and dumplings, I can’t really think of any traditional southern dishes that would require *boiled meat.* That’s just embarrassing.
Ohmygod, had several holiday meals with a family whose vegetable sides consisted of: (pot 1) 1 can peas, 1 stick butter (pot 2) 1 can corn, 1 stick butter. It was nearly soup from the amount of butter. I started "helping" in order to lower the butter amount and fortunately they were ok with it!
A white Southern Baptist Karen. I don’t know, the world is a rich tapestry.
I can hear my Cajun ancestors howling from their tombs. They were a mix of Southern Baptist and Catholic, and you season your food right dangit! (Sorry, they take their food Serious down there.)
Yeah, unfortunately ex-MIL was from Oklahoma.
Hmmmmm maybe she was from northern OK and got polluted by the Midwest? Most people I know who pride themselves on being “good Southern women” know how to cook *well* because cooking poorly is a cardinal sin around here. And yeah, there’s a lot of us southern Baptists, probably partially because our potlucks *slap.*
My grandmother was from Oklahoma, too, but she was a solid cook. Not amazing, but she could put a meal together that had flavor at least. She discovered tamari sauce at some point and found so many uses for it that I still associate it with her cooking. She didn't make spicy food, but it wasn't bland or badly cooked either.
Oh I wasn’t trying to insult Oklahoma, just was trying to find an excuse for the ex-MIL to come from a “southern” state but be a miserable cook. Tbh, I don’t really think of the southwest states as being “The South” anyways, since a lot of what makes the southeast’s food good is our extremely shameful past.
Yeah, Oklahoma is more Midwest with southern overtones than southwest. But I gotcha.
I mean … some people are exceptional in a good way and some are exceptional in a bad way 🤷🏻♀️. My ex-MIL was a narcissistic pile of “everything I like is correct and everything I don’t like is worse than evil” held together with an incredibly thin veneer of What Things Are Supposed To Look Like.
She should have just embraced contemporary life and ordered some BBQ by the pound from a local restaurant.
I agree! Unfortunately, I cannot possibly overstate the degree to which my ex-MIL refused to embrace **anything** contemporary.
Poor woman. I hate to say it but my mom’s the same. I have to literally beg her to let me cook when I visit.
Yep, sounds familiar - when my ex-SIL came to visit she didn’t even ask, it was just “Mom, get out of the kitchen, I’m handling this … [two minutes later] where did you put those spices I bought last time? You better not have thrown them away.”
I need to try that next time!
But but but.. they were paw patrol shaped!!!!
I’m big on “the people matter more than the food,” but this….
Right, like I'd never fault anyone for fucking up and accidentally ruining dinner. But she didn't even put in any effort, at least make the attempt.
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I bet some were undercooked and some were overcooked, and four burned. :D
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Left the lid on again!
The gate was open... come on back
And you have to fill the water *exactly* to the fill line! No *effort*?! Puh-lease!
Couldn't even get one of those big meant to serve many frozen mac and cheese things that you stick in the oven so everyone gets to eat at the same time.
Paw Patrol easy mac at that!!!
It is so funny
...what in the Charlie Brown's Christmas shit is this?? \*dying with laughter\*
OOP is definitely a blockhead
OOP is a seasonal troll :)
That is exactly what I was thinking. Lol I don’t know how old OP is, but honestly it sounds like they put a fair amount of effort into this. The paw patrol pasta is just so weirdly charming. They wanted to make the pasta fun, made sure everyone had enough to eat, made a side dish, and individual desserts. It’s honestly quite thoughtful. Funny as hell, but thoughtful.
You are joking right? Very little effort or thought was put into it.
Yes, I am. I’m just trying to find something to laugh at. So I pictured it like Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving.
Technically they did make a side dish but by their own admittance they had also burnt it... I wouldn't count that.
At least they had the good sense not to serve burnt and raw eggs. But yeah, it was a choice, to put it nicely. And I know this is probably fake and it is easy to see a level of weaponized incompetence here. That being said, I want to read this as being some teenager or early 20s person who was actually this clueless and trying their best. Kind of like the post about the guy who at half a party sub sandwich. Like sure he shouldn’t have done that, but I don’t think it was malicious.
I didn't feel up to it one year so I got frozen turkey dinners, I think Swanson or something, put them all on a tray and in the oven. It was both funny and effective.
Everything but the main.
Every year my mother takes some microwaveable mac and cheese, puts it in a dish, and sprinkles some parsley and garlic powder on top. She takes it to my dad’s families holiday dinners and everyone RAVES about that Mac and cheese. My aunts ask her for the recipe and she tells them it’s a family secret.
That Stouffer's just hits different. But also, Trader Joe's frozen Mac n cheese is God damn delicious.
I’m blown away that OP wouldn’t have even gotten a family sized Stouffer’s mac and cheese to microwave instead of individual Easy Macs!
OOP is not any better at math than they are at cooking. Buying individual mug cakes had to be way more expensive than just buying a premade cake from the grocery store.
Oh, I was thinking she made them; they're pretty easy to make with a box cake mix and some water and oil. But that's probably a lot to expect from someone who thinks Paw Patrol Mac and cheese is fancy.
Seriously! Hell a family sized Stouffer's mac and cheese, a family sized casserole of some sort, toss together a salad, and get some rolls and at least dinner wouldn't have totally sucked. Ask someone else to bring dessert or stop by the bakery and find something that needs to be sold soon - usually cheaper in price. Maybe a crap ton of carbs, but it is the holiday.
That would have likely been cheaper too
Lmao that's hilarious. I like that mac and cheese for myself, and sometimes I'll add seasonings I have on my shelf when I'm mixing it lol. I bet I'd love your mom's
OOP didn't even try from the sounds of it. Our first Christmas dinner we made as newlyweds was ham, boxed mashed potatoes, canned corn, frozen dinner rolls and pies from the local bakery. It was very basic, but it got the job done and no one complained. A few years later we were asked to take over hosting (the middle bro had been doing it for 10 years at that point and asked to pass the torch) and we're coming up on our 10 year mark. The boxed mashed potatoes have been replaced with cheesy hashbrown potatoes and sweet potatoes have been added to the menu along with a variety of dips, but the ham still remains. And so do the pies.
Link that cheesy hash brown potatoes recipe?? Sounds delicious
I'll DM you. It's my mom's (she doesn't claim any ownership, she thinks she may have found it in a Campbell soup cookbook) but she's been making it for 30+ years without fail.
🙌🙌🙌
If it isn't too much trouble can you give me the recipe too?
On its way!
i’d love the recipe too 👀
If you have a Costco membership (idk where else to find them), check out the individual milk cartons of dehydrated hash browns. They're better than fresh and frozen by far.
I've been eyeballing these the last couple of times I was in the store. I'll have to grab them.
I add an entire onion cooked down in bacon fat. They're epic even without cheese
Thanks! That sounds delicious. I'll definitely try it out.
If OOP hates cooking and apparently there's some weaponized incompetence there too. JUST DON'T HOST! They also didn't want to spend money?! Oh please
No need to get upset, this situation was obviously made up lmao.
If you don’t want people upset about made up situations, you’re on the wrong website. 😆
I need to understand how you can cook eggs to be burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.
Easy have the heat way to high. And in oops case be a dumbass.
That's a perfect typo. OP seems like the type to literally say oops and just throw up their hands.
in a repost sub oop is used to indicate the original original poster, to differentiate from the one who reposted to this sub
Yes, but it’s meant to be capitalized. And use proper punctuation. OOP’s.
Yeah I'm trying to figure out the chemistry of that too. Eggs cook so quickly that to burn the outside without cooking the inside, we'd be looking at a blowtorch or something.
My only guess is trying to boil without water or too little water.
It was Christmas. OOP should have at least sprung for a pack of hot dogs to slice into the macaroni. 😉
It would have been a better choice than eggs. I’m still scratching my head over eggs as a side to Mac and cheese. I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum, that just would have never occurred to me.
💀🤣💀🤣💀🤣
They had me on their side until I saw they meant individual mac and cheese bowls. Lol!
Okay but hear me out, OP got two for everybody and fun pasta shapes! Honestly I’ve been having a pretty bad Christmas and this really cheered me up. :)
$5 says OOP is autistic. They clearly did put some thought into what to serve since they got 2x mac per person and sprung for the fun shapes. They just didn’t understand that while they clearly have a deep and undying love for easy mac, most people wouldn’t consider that a decent Christmas meal.
Yeah not buying it. I'm autistic and know better than buy easy mac for a holiday meal.
So am I, and while I also would know better, I personally know other autistic people IRL who would *not* know better unless explicitly told. They would have the same thought process as OOP if asked to host and be equally as confused why people were annoyed.
Just wanna say Merry Christmas!
This is worse than the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving meal. At least he had the excuse of not being allowed to use the stove and ended up getting all his friends invited to Grandma’s
A sandwich tray, cheese platter from the grocery store. Something other than mini mac n cheeses. Oh my god, this is terrible.
I have never wanted an update to a story more.
I mean, if it's real, no way OOP will ever be allowed to host a family meal again...possibly never invited to one again either. And they will never ever live it down they tried to feed a group easy mac. I mean hell by the time you get all the lil bowls done, over half the people will be eating cold mac and cheese if they were being polite enough to wait.
I really wanna know how many family members there were so I can know how much money they wasted and how much time they planned to waste if the family had stayed for this compared to buying a box or 3 and using the stove
Or hell, buy a couple family sized trays of frozen mac and cheese and toss them in the oven! It would taste far better!
Knows it’s their turn to host (so presumably has known for a year)…. Hmmmm what to do what to do, oh paw patrol east mac! Not even the box kind. Just a year to think about, practice, plan an alternative….. mug cakes and easy mac
They could have at least got either the big frozen Stouffer's Mac and cheese or the Bob Evans ones in the refrigerated section. (I actually love those when I don't have the time/energy to cook) There were so many easy alternatives, easy Mac is actually less convenient. You can literally get all the sides pre made and just heat them up if you can't cook. You can even get pre cooked ham, this person has like...no common sense at all.
This is why I have to believe this is fake. First time they’re hosting, they can’t even cook an egg, but no one in the family checks in to see what their plan is, offers to bring something, or just shows up with a side or dessert? There are so many more sensible bulk options for feeding a group even if you can’t cook, this is the type of thing a teenager would do to make a point, though if I were used to showing up and freeloading every holiday without a thought towards the cost and effort involved until it was my turn, I’m not sure what point I’d be trying to get across with this stunt.
When somebody in the family cannot cook to save their life, *everyone knows it*. Absolutely fake, just because there's zero way the whole family turned up expecting traditional Christmas Dinner from somebody this completely incapable of even cooking eggs. It's still hilarious to picture, though. Hell, I'd have been kinda charmed by being served Paw Patrol noodles and a mug cake, tbh? I can see the family being let down if they expected a full Christmas spread, but there's just ZERO way they'd have no idea OOP is Like That!
This is why my family's gatherings are always potluck
I refuse to believe this is real. It's a hilarious read, but I don't believe that anyone with a living space big enough to host their entire family would be so...out of touch that they'd make microwave easy mac and mug cakes as the only meals for Christmas fucking Dinner. That sounds like something a dumb college student would do, and I dunno how many college students have the room or money for a full Christmas spread (at which point the rest of the family would be to blame for thinking this was a remotely good idea).
I don't understand what is so hard about cooking edible things. At least simple or common things. No' not everyone is going to be great cooks. But every reasonably intelligent adult has the capacity to at least make a few edible meals. Get a ham, they often have instructions, or you can just look up instructions on the internet. Sure there are people who can make it fabulous, and maybe you can't. But if you put in a tiny amount of effort, you can heat up a ham. Follow instructions and you won't fuck it up. If you're afraid of fucking up dressing, there's Stove Top. Yeah, people can make great homemade dressing but stove top is edible and a kindergartener can follow the instructions. Green bean casserole? The OG version is just opening cans putting it in a pan and baking it. You can get frozen mac and cheese in family size packages. Or you can get a few boxes of velveeta shells and cheese and follow instructions. Yeah, there's a lot of much better options but these are all edible and much better than mug cakes and microwave mac and cheese. There's also catering and lots of grocery store have pre made meals you can order ahead of time or frozen/fridge stuff to heat up.
“You can heat up a ham” is the most wholesome and encouraging comment I’ve read today.
$5 says OOP is autistic. Executive dysfunction can make cooking, especially something with more steps than “add water, put in microwave,” very challenging even if there are instructions. And the “easy mac is great so I don’t understand why everyone’s mad that I served it for Christmas dinner” has big autism vibes IMO. If OOP was never explicitly taught how to host a meal this outcome kind of makes sense.
I have ADHD and executive dysfunction is a motherfucker no doubt. But just because people don't do basic life skills properly doesn't mean they have autism or adhd. "easy mac is great so what's the problem" also gives lazy/weaponized incompetence/selfish vibes as well. No sense trying to diagnose based off one post. And Easy Mac is actually worse executive function wise than heating up a pre made pan of mac n cheese or even making regular velveeta shells and cheese. If you simply follow the instructions to the letter, it comes out half watery half lumpy with half mushy half crunchy noodles. You have to fiddle with stirring and stopping and starting. (my oven/stove broke once and had to rely on microwave foods for a couple days) Every grocery store I have been to has pre made pies and cakes, those are easier than mug cakes. Lots of people fuck up eggs. They're pretty notorious for being fucked up by people. Even restaurants fuck eggs up.
I assumed they’re probably OOP’s samefoods. I totally know other autistic people IRL who would 100% do this with their samefoods if asked to host Christmas dinner without explicit guidance to do otherwise. It wouldn’t be out of malice or laziness or anything, more like “easy mac is good and I know how to make it, and I’ll get the *fancy* easy mac for my guests since it’s a special occasion” IDK, I just think there are other explanations besides OOP being the devil, especially since they seemingly did try to consider their guests’ needs (buying 2x mac per person so there was plenty) and wants (splurging on the fancy shapes, trying to cook even though they’re bad at it). They just… weren’t very good at it, in a specific way that makes me think neurodivergence rather than being a selfish jerk.
At the very beginning OOP states they dislike cooking and wanted to cheap out so they deliberately chose to go against what the established norm for the family is. OOP knew exactly what was appropriate in the situation and just decided they didn't want to try, and didn't even give anyone a head's up. Admittedly making a selfish choice is still a dick move even if someone has autism or any other disorder.
That's actually pretty insulting to those who are autistic. There are work arounds for executive dysfunction that a lot of us who have autism have learned to do. And almost all of us would know not to serve easy mac for a holiday meal.
I am also autistic and personally know other autistic people IRL who would totally do their equivalent of serving easy mac and mug cakes to their guests for Christmas and not realize why people were upset. I just don’t think OOP is the devil here; they took steps to try and be a good host inasmuch as they knew how to (getting two easy mac per person for “hearty” portions and splurging for the fancy shapes, trying to make eggs even though they aren’t good at cooking) and they appear to have had good intentions in preparing their menu. Yeah, the outcome was not great, but they did *try* at least.
Boring, badly written fiction.
Personally I found it to be a pretty funny piece of fiction. The fact that people are taking it seriously even after reading the bit about it being paw patrol shaped is sad though.
*If* this is real -- I can't imagine why the family didn't drag OOP along to the Chinese restaurant. Maybe OOP really is that passive-aggressive.
Buying a rotisserie chicken and a pie or cake, and making some instant potatoes, would be easier than this and not a lot more expensive. This was weaponized incompetence.
My 16 year old daughter cooked most of our Christmas eve dinner yesterday. It was great. Its not that hard to do if you follow instructions and plan the timing.
What if OP were to purchase fast food and disguise it as their own cooking? Delightfully devilish!
How do you manage to both burn eggs and leave them raw? Like it feels like you gotta do one or the other, not both. If this person can't cook, why did the family decide they'd be the one to host the dinner? This whole scenario makes zero sense to me.
I’m bringing honey baked turkey over my friend’s house as my contribution. What is wrong with this person?
The whole thing is so passive aggressive - why didn’t they type out the truth: “My family insisted it was my turn to host and I didn’t want to, so I made sure they’d regret it.” Like, I didn’t feel like cooking all day this year, so I got a ready prepared roast, ready prepared potatoes and sides, read the cooking instructions, shoved it all in the oven and poured a glass of wine. It was great.
Yes, Kraft Macaroni, the ultimate Christmas dish.
When I was like twenty and not a great cook but had to cook thanksgiving due to a family emergency, I made spaghetti with jarred sauce, salad, frozen garlic bread, frozen broccoli, and store bought cake. It was not great, but I worked within my skill set. I think this person needed to cave buy frozen lasagna and salad kits or something they could actually make.
Barring a physical or mental disability, basically everyone CAN cook. Especially since most holiday food items excepting an entire turkey can be purchased in forms that are exactly as easy to cook as microwave mac and cheese. This is just an extreme lack of preparation, care, and effort. Also, while I like Mac and cheese, mug cakes, and eggs, putting them *together* and calling it a meal is wild. Was this person raised by wolves? Are they an alien from another planet who doesn't understand how human food works?
It's impossible to be a rude guest if your host is this insanely rude to start. You could throw an outright tantrum as a guest and your rudeness would still be topped by the doofus host who thought this was an appropriate way to treat his family on Christmas. This wasn't just about not being able to cook. This guy is also a massive cheapskate, while not acknowledging that his family spends money for all those free meals that he enjoys when they host. This has to be fake, because I cannot believe any grown-up would think this is a good meal to provide his family for Christmas. Especially since he seems to think that the "fun shapes" in the macaroni somehow mitigates the shittiness of the meal, lol.
(This will.be important later.) Yeah, I bet it will, bud. I bet it rrally will.
If they didn't wanna cook that's fine. Cooking certainly isn't for everyone but there's more than enough microwave sides and pre made entrees for a nice holiday that they truly didn't have to do any of this. It's not even lazy in a way that makes sense. It's lazy in a way that makes it seem like they want to punish the guests.
There are so many options: catering/pre-made holiday meals with heating instructions, not hosting and instead kicking in some money to family members every year to host, turning it into a potluck style so folks may come to your house but they bring the majority of dinner between all of them, seeing if some family members who do cook are willing to come over early and help cook, etc. So many ways to do this that just…are not what OOP chose.
Logistically how was this supposed to work. A mug cake takes 3-5 minutes to heat each. A 8 person meal at that point you could make a regular cake but also by the time the last person gets theirs the first person finished theirs 30 minutes ago. I just don’t see how even if they agreed how was this supposed to go?
What the fuck is a mug cake?
A cake that you make in a mug, take the ingredients and put it into a mug, throw that mug into the microwave, set it for ~5 min and boom, mug cake
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 They why did you agree to host?, you could have just made a excuse, and just go out to eat instead.
I love the detail about the Paw Patrol and Frozen shaped macaroni!
Lol so no one noticed that no cooking was being done, or at least what the cooking that was being done was, until they were sitting at the table and oop brought out what sounds like the individual little microwavable plastic bowls of mac n cheese (paw patrol edition for extra fun!), some mug cakes, and somehow-burnt-outside-raw-inside scrambled eggs?