How to avoid daily calls & interference from in-laws?

My in-laws are not staying right now with us, but still my MIL tries to interfere as much as possible in our lives..She is very short tempered and if she gets angry she shouts a lot..She calls my hubby 2-3 times a day..she calls him once in morning or afternoon or both and once in evening when both of us are at home she talks to both of us or sometimes she gives missed call in evening and we have to call back....
She insists on these daily phone conversations. If we do not call her for 2-3 days due to any reason, she gets very angry. Initial days of marriage I thought she was missing us a lot and was concerned about us, but over a period of time I have understood that the reason for this is because she is insecure and very suspicious of me as she thinks I'm not looking after my DH properly and may steal him away from her etc. The irritating thing, everyday she wants to know each and every detail of what we did, specially what i food have cooked etc(she is paranoid that maybe I do not cook anything and DH mayb starving and deprived of nutrition becos of that). She's moody by nature, and if she's in a bad mood (that's quite often), she'll show anger by shouting at me on phone and criticizing me & my parents and my relatives...If she's in a good mood, she'll speak to us very sweetly as if she's very concerned about us and get complete info about day-to-day things happening...later on she'll use the same info against me when she's in a foul mood.

Let me give an example, once I was unwell, and hubby did 50% of cooking for me. MIL pretended to enquire abt my health at that time and few days later shouted at me as I made my husband to do cooking while I took rest. Also one more time she called up when we were eating at a restaurant and sometime later when she visited us here, she demanded to be taken to same hotel. We were not able to take her to hotel tht day due to some urgent commitment and she created a big fuss and she scolded my DH that he takes me to hotel, but doesn't take her...So many such incidents have occured.So we stopped sharing much about our lives. But she insists on us talking to her and FIL everyday and it's becoming difficult for us...i tried putting on speaker so my hubby also will know what's going on..Even he has heard her shouting at me but still he forces me to call MIL n talk to her daily as he's afraid of his mum...Pls tell me a few tactful and genuine excuses to avoid daily conversations with in-laws and limit to once a week or once in 2 weeks...I want peace of mind and no unnecessary fights. I think many people have faced this problem, please give ideas as to how how I can limit slowly limit phone conversations and interactions with them.

 

Good suggestions, yellowmango. Yes I should be a little assertive to avoid irritating questions & shouting by MIL... I was wondering what excuses I can use to avoid calling her so often and how I can cut the conversation short to the bare minimum when she calls me...People who are staying abroad have the excuses of time zone difference, high cost of international calls etc., but since we are in India I cant use that as a reason.:confused2:thinkingsmiley

 

Married for close to 3 yrs...Still, MIL never tires of asking wht I prepared for b-f, lunch & dinner....day-to-day activities etc...Everyday she'll ask.....I wonder if she doesnt get bored of asking same question daily...! I find it really irritated to tell the full day's menu, as if I'm a waiter in a hotel...As I mentioned in my first post, she thinks I do not cook anything for my hubby and that her darling baby must be lacking in nutrition! She has already dropped a few hints that he's looking very weak due to not getting proper food:rant:ranttsk

 

That's exactly what i'm going to do.