Day to day

You can kill 2 birds with one stone by getting your daughter to help in the kitchen. When they are younger they are probably less helping and more getting in the way, but it introduces the routine of cooking to her as well. I have trouble getting my 8yo out of the kitchen. Give her some essential life skills early

If you can get a few simple recipes down pat (I mean less than 5) that can be ready in 20-30 minutes, it helps to get that "oh fuck, I have to cook" thought out of your head. Also, getting your wife and daughter to help actually lightens the load significantly.

For us (pre-whiz bang Thermomix in the kitchen), our "easy stand by" meals were tuna pasta (tin or 2 of tuna, tin or 2 of tomato, onion and oil + pasta). Total cooking time is whatever the pasta takes to cook. Yes, pasta is carbs BUT it is a better option than chicken wings and fries.

This is literally - put water on for the pasta, and get it cooking. While it is going - finely chop the onion and fry for a minute or 2 in olive oil, add the tomato, and the tuna and stir to mix. When pasta is done, drain and dump it all in the pan with the sauce. Serve with a bit of grated parmesan. Add a simple green salad (lettuce, cucumber, red bell pepper with some balsamic vinegar) and you have a pretty balanced meal that is pretty tasty.

Second easy meal is omelette (with mushrooms/ham/bacon/onion/whatever....). Basically, cut up the non-egg bits, fry in a pan with a bit of oil, then just dump a few beaten eggs in there. Again, throw a salad on the side and you're eating in about 15 minutes. This can have lots added to it and is pretty tasty.

 

I so wish my parents had done this with me. You have no idea.

 

Chicken breasts or fish fillets in the oven are total no brainers/little effort, too.
Take out of fridge, let get to about room temp (I pull them out of the fridge when I walk in the door from work) while the oven heats up, rub with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, your preferred herbs. Place on a sheet of aluminum foil sprayed with cooking spray so it doesn't stick with the edges turned up (to make like a sidewall), throw on a baking sheet, bake at 425 for 22 minutes for chicken breasts or 4-5 oz salmon or thicker cuts of fish, 15 minutes for thinner cuts. Super easy.

Add a salad, some braised greens (chop 'em, put in a large pot with garlic, salt, pepper, and some water, put the lid on, stir once or twice, and it's ready in 8 - 10m depending on your greens), quinoa (5 - 20m, depending on the brand), green beans (fresh, 12 minutes to steam), broccoli (2 min in the microwave in a m-safe container with the lid on, cut into florets, salt, pepper, and 2T of water), cauliflower (4 minutes in boiling water, once cut into florets), raw carrots and natural peanut butter... you name it.

You can make it sooooo much easier to throw on dinner by cutting up your veggies in advance and portioning them out. Then there are no excuses.
I also will often eat my dinner leftovers for breakfast, since I don't have a lot of time to cook in the mornings.
Snowy has a lot of good recipes in a thread floating around here somewhere...
--- merged: Mar 16, 2014 at 10:55 PM ---

Did you guys see Masterchef Junior?! I really wish my parents had done this with me, too. I'd have been famous!

 

me too - I am pretty much self taught. Another interesting way to try new stuff, cooking wise is sign up for a cooking course at the local community college (do these exist in the US??). This is the link to courses from my local community college:

.

For me, these kind of courses help with a few kitchen skills, or might open up other flavour possibilities etc. They are also a fun night out, with food and tend to be pretty cheap. You might luck in like we did years ago and get a course run by a young up and coming chef. Mrs Spindles and I did an 8 week course with this guy before he was on TV:

Damian Heads | Chef

We basically learnt to cook stuff that was on his restaurant menu at the time. Delicious and it is amazing what tidbits you pick up from someone who knows what he is doing.

 

fyi, I timed myself this morning to see how long it took me to prep that egg/egg white omelet. 4 mins from the moment the onions hit the pan. I still had to wait for my coffee to finish brewing.

You should be able to pull that kind of prep activity into your morning routine.

 

What Borla said.

A big plus one for crock pot meals. It's so much quicker & easier to deal only with the veggies when you get in from work.


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Here's a couple things I like to do make some veggies dishes more interesting.

Add chopped red bell pepper to the corn when you boil it.
Add chopped onion to green beans, peas, etc. when you boil them.
Add some peas & corn to rice when you cook it.
It only takes a few extra minutes to turn plain carrots (steamed or boiled) into ginger glazed carrots. Adding brown sugar to a healthy veggie isn't ideal, but they do taste good and it's one way to get more veggies in your diet.

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--- merged: Mar 17, 2014 12:38 PM ---

I love the suggestion of having your daughter help you cook.

 

That sounds soo good. Like my last friday meal:

- 2 lbs of frozen sole filet, rinsed and thawed
- arrange on a large cookie sheet lined with foil
- sprinkle with seasoning (I used Old Bay seasoning)
- then I sliced up 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, half a red onion in thin (aboutt 1/4 cm) julienne strips and sprinkled on top
- I also squeezed a half a lemon over all of it
- baked at 425 for 25 mins

- at this with some bagged salad.

- prep time 1/2 hour. Faster than going for take out. Served 4 with left overs

 

Lost loads of weight crossing the Bay of Biscay with nigh on bugger all in the way of food. Had no milk (soured), no bread. Survived mostly on dutch crispbakes with a bit of cream cheese and a smear of sambal oelec (pepper paste)

• Sambal
  Hot Sauce Type

• Sambal is sauce typically made from a variety of chili peppers and secondary ingredients such as shrimp paste, fish sauce, garlic, ginger, shallot, scallion, sugar, lime juice, and rice vinegar or other vinegars.Wikipedia

• Nutrition Facts
  Chili peppers, cannedChili peppers, canned
  
  Amount Per 0.5 cup, chopped or diced (68 g)1 pepper (73 g)100 grams100 grams
  
  
  Calories 21

• % Daily Value*​
  Total Fat 0.1 g
  0%​
  Saturated fat 0 g
  0%​
  Polyunsaturated fat 0.1 g
  ​
  Monounsaturated fat 0 g
  ​
  Cholesterol 0 mg
  0%​
  Sodium 1,173 mg
  48%​
  Potassium 187 mg
  5%​
  Total Carbohydrate 5 g
  1%​
  Dietary fiber 1.3 g
  5%​
  Sugar 3.3 g
  ​
  Protein 0.9 g
  1%​
  Vitamin A
  237%​
  Vitamin C
  113%​
  Calcium
  0%​
  Iron
  2%​
  Vitamin D
  0%​
  Vitamin B-6
  10%​
  Vitamin B-12
  0%​
  Magnesium
  3%​
  *Per cent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
  
  Peppers do increase metabolism - but if you have ulcers, you can end up very ill.

 

Steaming veggies is healthier. We steam some veggies, but unfortunately it's not a cooking technique that we've mastered. I need to go through our numerous cookbooks and learn more about steaming veggies.

Some of our 'cook on the weekend and have during the week' dishes include:

Pinto beans.

Spaghetti sauce (my specialty). Made with plenty of onions & green bell peppers. You can also precook the pasta, but I prefer to cook it fresh, it doesn't take that long. It doesn't take long to make a nice side salad. I make plenty of sauce, and we freeze the extra sauce.

Stew (with plenty of carrots and onions).

Chili (with beans to add extra fiber & nutrients).

Roasts. Sometimes with veggies, sometimes without. Lean roasts are best, but with fattier meats we scoop off the white fat before reheating the meat.

Soups. A nice pre-cooked veggie soup + pre-cooked roast makes for a quick dinner.

Veggie trays are convenient, esp for quick snacks. Much better that the usual carb/starch snacks.

Edit--We also cook vagabond baked beans, which contains every food group except maybe starch. They're delicious, but theere are a lot of ingredient and the prep time is long. The good news is once everything is together you simply bake the dish, no more fuss.

 

what's the difference between microwave (steaming) as per Snowy and stove top steaming as per Chris Noyb?

Any pros/cons to each?

 

None that I'm aware of, but I'll defer to Snowy and others for a better answer.

 

If cooking lamb, a sprig of rosemary makes the fat leave the meat. Stir fry veg - its done in a couple of minutes. Little bit of sesame oil. Barely cooked is much better than over cooked.

 

For the record. Boiled eggs have given me some bad gas..... sucks for the people around me

 

I sure hope so. At least for people around me. But maybe some will not want to anymore. I'd be OK with that.

 

I thought that point was settled a few decades ago.