Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
15 minutes cleaning up is nothing? That’s two hours a week of wasted time. How much more is wasted cooking? No thanks. I can’t even boil water and won’t ever cook anything. I’d rather put my time into my career than learning how to cook. That’s what restaurants are for.
I'm pretty sure you waste more time on C-D than 15 minutes, unless of course C-D is your career. If you are prepared you can cook all your meals on a Sunday afternoon, so it's only 1 cleanup.
15 minutes cleaning up is nothing? That’s two hours a week of wasted time. How much more is wasted cooking? No thanks. I can’t even boil water and won’t ever cook anything. I’d rather put my time into my career than learning how to cook. That’s what restaurants are for.
Okay, but this is the frugal living forum, not the outsource-everything forum.
-Budget Bytes... the author includes vegetables, plant-based proteins and a bias towards bowl meals, including several tasty Asian bowls with veggies.
-Podcasts... listen to your favorite audio books or podcasters while cooking or cleaning. Since I'm into personal finance I listen to Stacking Benjamins and ChooseFI a lot while cleaning. I'll also listen to an audio book or Modern Mrs. Darcy, a podcast about reading books.
Good luck and take it easy. It's a real challenging habit to change and/or form.
For those who eat restaurant meals/frozen foods exclusively, please keep in mind that they often contain the high salt, fats, and additives that are less-than-healthy for you.
We Americans have much more high blood pressure and heart conditions than other populations consuming lower sodium and lower (bad) fats. And sugar, too.
It does catch up with you over time.
Cooking at home assures you that YOU are in charge of the salt and fats and additives.
And cooking at home is way cheaper than eating out or even buying frozen meals.
Yes.... alas, even "healthy" ready-made foods are sometimes loaded with sodium... read labels!
I just choose 3 meals for the day that strikes me as being appealing that particular day. The idea of making bulk-meals for a week or so is very unappealing to me. I eat very simple meals, no baking or fancy, complicated dishes......so it is easy for me to whip something up very quickly.
3) Also don't feel like you have to have a full blown, 1950's variety dinner. some days we simply had pancakes. lol easy peasy. So remember a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup all count as "dinner."
I used to make this mistake with menu planning. I'm come up with all of the tasty-sounding, elaborate meals with various sides...and then I didn't feel like cooking them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with things like you said...breakfast for dinner night, grilled cheese and soup night...or hot dog night, Hamburger Helper night, frozen pizza night. NOT every night, of course, but occasionally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Threestep
OP does not like to clean up, cook books are not easy to follow, he is picky, she has to have Asian 3x week, he wants to do one-pot-wonders of starch/veg/protein/cheese.
There are SOME one-pot-wonders that have all of the above-mentioned, but I'm sure the OP won't like them for one reason or another...I like doing diced onion, pepper and mushrooms with sliced smoked sausage/browned ground sausage/browned ground beef, sliced or diced potatoes and cheese. I could eat something like that every night if I wouldn't gain a pants size every month for doing so and if my husband liked meals like that more...
Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom
Hey OP, here are my two suggestions:
-Budget Bytes... the author includes vegetables, plant-based proteins and a bias towards bowl meals, including several tasty Asian bowls with veggies.
I forget about Budget Bytes...great suggestion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tickyul
I eat very simple meals, no baking or fancy, complicated dishes......so it is easy for me to whip something up very quickly.
There are some very simple meals that are great for a single person or couple...cook a chicken breast, pork chop or small steak on the stove or the George Foreman, steam some broccoli or another veggie on the stove, nuke a "baked" potato or sweet potato in the microwave...fast, easy, minimal clean-up.
I wouldn't want to be cooking big projects daily. I get ambitious about once a week and make a soup or stew that will last for several days. The rest of the time, I cook simply. I also prep things.
I have a salad most days and will prep the lettuce when I buy it. It makes it easy to throw a big salad together quickly when you don't have to wash and spin the lettuce. I like having cooked potatoes, rice, and/or beans in the fridge that I only have to heat.
I'm not a big meat eater, but when I want a chicken breast or piece of fish, I'll marinate it overnight and cook it in my toaster oven the next day. I can always put a potato in the toaster oven for about 40 minutes then add the meat so they finish at the same time. Steam some veggies on the stove and it's a quick, healthy meal.
I'm also a fan of breakfast for dinner. Some nights I'll have oatmeal, berries and seeds. Other nights I might just scramble an egg with some fruit.
Since you call yourself a bad cook, you might want to take a couple of cooking classes. I'd try a class specializing in Asian cooking since you have that so much. Maybe you're not really a bad cook but instead are just not comfortable in the kitchen.
most people who cook everyday, cook the same 3-4 meals all the time. Figure out what you like and start by making it once a week. make it until you have memorized the recipe and it is 2nd nature to you. Then add another recipe and make that along with your first one. Now you are cooking 2 meals/week. If you make it big enough to cover 2-3 meals then with 2 cooking you have 6 meals covered (half the week).
My husband and I used to cook a lot of the boxed meals like RiceARoni, Uncle Ben's, Zatarain's, and Hamburger Helper when we were first married. These have a lot of sodium. We would use the suggestions/recipes on the side of the box for meat and veggie add-ins to make it more of a home cooked meal. Meat like hamburger or chicken can be cooked ahead and frozen into portion sizes. You can use frozen veggies or cut up fresh ones. These tend to be a fairly quick and economical meal. You can cook from scratch when you have more time.
Making people waste their money on crappy food that is expensive and god knows how unhealthy?
True.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
