My solution is just to act like I’m cooking for 12 people, and have leftovers for the rest of the week.
Yep I batch cook too, I make 4 portions then eat 2 and freeze 2. Eating over 2 days obvs
Yup, I’m doing the same. Cooking 4 portions, then eating them all while crying
I cook four portions, my husband has a portion, I have one too, my son then eats two portions and says he’s still hungry.
You can’t meal prep with pre-teens/teens in the house. This kid will eat leftover roast chicken for breakfast, like the whole damn thing.
I cry while grocery shopping and pray to saint peanut butter for help
You forgot the 40+ hours of work a week just to afford the ingridients.
Yep, you don’t cook.
Thanks for your input, Chef Boyardee. I always make sure to put great store in ad-hominems from fictionalized canned MRE mascots. Take your shitty ravioli high horse and go ride off into the sunset with the Sunkist tuna.
Edit: “fictional” to “fictionalized”
I try.
Done
So, I was right.
Working many of the hours to afford a car. So that you can get to/from work.
leftovers are the goal
The term is meal prep
just cook bigger portions, i usually make enough food to last half a week
I’ve been eating the same two-pound portion of taco meat for the past four days. Usually in soft-shell tacos, but sometimes in frittatas. The trick is to be dead inside.
You’re not dead inside until you move to hard tacos.
This is ideal because the tortilla IS the plate.
I love tacos. I could eat tacos every day and never get tired of them. All varieties are good with me. Corn tortillas, flour tortillas, crispy fried tacos, taquito, even crunchy taco shells. There used to be a dive bar near where I lived in 2015 that would do $5 for 5 beef or bean crunchy tacos with cheese, lettuce, dice tom, and sour cream and I’d easily polish off 10-20 of those with a beer or two (I don’t live near there anymore and the bar closed down right before COVID due to the building be demo’d)
My wife isn’t big on eating the same thing for more than 2 days in a row and I miss the days of eating tacos 4-5 times a week by choice.
You’re not dead inside. You’re living a dream of mine right now.
2 hours of cooking for a 10 minute meal sounds like a skill issue.
My last dinner was 12hrs of cooking for a 10min meal. I love slow cooker beef and veggies stew
Yeah that’s like first time making a recipe. Third time around, the kitchen should be doing most of the work for you. You can just casually prep and blend while listening to a podcast.
I wash as I cook. Usually you have moments when you’re waiting anyway. Means I have serving dishes only afterwards.
Had to make it a habit though in order to force myself to do it. Took years to train the habit.
I’m trying to not do that, because I always forget that I’ll need the things I’ve just washed again.
I do that, but the more complicated the meal, the less down time there is, and the more stuff there is you can’t clean up until the end.
Also, if you use serving dishes, rather than just serve out of the pot / pan, that’s another thing to clean. It’s true that cleaning a pot or pan is normally a bit harder than a serving dish. But, IMO the extra bit to clean means it’s not worth it.
It is a bit of a triumph when the only thing to clean after dinner is a single pot or pan though. And, pro-tip, you can make the pans easier to clean after dinner if you dump a bit of water in them as you’re sitting down to eat. Even 30 minutes is enough to turn the remains of a delicious sauce into sludge at the bottom of the pan. But, soaking while you eat makes it super quick to scrape it out afterwards.
I wash as I go too, but there are still the after dinner dishes, and like the main pot/pan left over, the forks, the endless cups the just accumulate everywhere with having a whole family with adhd…
I tend to make everything by scratch, so I’ve only myself to blame (it’s cheaper tho). Washing as you go helps, but it’s not a full cure.
I posted cookies I made last night, and the only reason I didnt melt the butter with the lemon zest was to save pulling out and dirting my sauce pan I just cleaned from dinner.
This is what I do, so nice to have just a few dishes at the end
Meals in countries that take food seriously last longer and are meant to be enjoyed with family and friends. Its just our shitty culture that causes this problem.
What do you mean by countries that take food seriously? I lived in a few different countries (never in the US) and can’t really picture that
If food is viewed and enjoyed as an experience rather than a necessity as a culture, I think it leads to huge shifts in so many aspects of daily living.
I dont mean EVERY meal but getting together with neighbors, family, friends ect. is more common in places like Italy for example.
The US also has literal holidays centered around sharing a meal with friends or family. Thanksgiving turkey, 4th of July barbecue…
I’d wager the reason people eat in 10 minutes instead of an hour is the same as it is everywhere else: after an 8 hour workday, you feel like all you’ve got between work and sleep is a few hours and you don’t want to waste it on something boring like eating.
That very American response speaks for itself.
I’m not American, I’m Estonian lmao, but I bet you’re one of those Americans who wants to seem cultured so you talk about how much better things are in other countries? Am I wrong?
Edit: Nvm, Canadian - but up till like 2 months ago you guys were America Lite tbh
Estonia is Russia lite my bro. Or Poland lite. Take your pick I guess. Whoever owned your ass the most recently.
Just spend 2 hours eating, easy
Slow cooker is fren
Turns beef into beef flavored chicken, I love it.
do you people just cook for a single meal wtf
If you’re Single yea why not
so you don’t end up like the meme? idk what being single has to do with anything. if you’re spending two hours to cook it better not be for one meal; that’s a huge waste of time.
OK, tell me what in the world you are cooking that takes two hours. And putting something in the oven for an hour is not really any work, is it?
You underestimate how bad we can be at cooking. It takes me like an hour just to peal and chop up ingredients for even a simple dish like mashed potatoes or stir fry.
For real, folks need to watch more Jamie Oliver. Condense your pans and ingredient lists, make sauce for a few days, use parchment paper, etc
deleted by creator
Spoken like someone who has never made soup.
Right, simmering something for an hour at low temperature is not an hour of work for you. Same principle applies as for the oven I mentioned.
Okay, someone who has never made soup stock and then soup with it before.
Also, make me a chowder that takes that little attention, or a bisque.
Make less elaborate meals or learn to chop faster.
2 hrs?
Do you spend 6 hrs a day cooking and do not do any clean as you go?
Wtf are you preparing? Are you stuffing a turkey each meal?
Clean as you go and there is very little left to be done after the meal.
Remember, you are dealing with people that never cook, and for some reason think they know what they’re talking about.
And I suppose you have personal knowledge that they never cook, since they are constantly pulling your shitty food off the grocery shelves?
There is a reason why the cooks and bussers are different people. Not everyone wants to get dishwater in their food from whatever tool they use to clean, nor do I have time while things are cooking and requiring near-constant attention to properly wash my hands 10 times as i go back and forth while cooking a single meal.
What? Cleaning as you cook is about cleaning the shit you use to cook as you make your food.
That just mostly means wiping shit down, stacking pots and pans as they’re used, and organizing before you start (mise en place is a huge help in this).
Great and I already wipe down some things. Genuine question, however, because maybe it will actually lead to a productive insight that can help me when cooking: How do you do as-you-go cleaning with the following things:
- Things that have touched raw meat
- Things with a bunch of fat
- Things that have caramelized sugar or starchy remnants stuck on them
Because, in each of these cases, all of which are common, I have to wash them with hot water and soap, and they require using something to wash them. These tools, such as sponges, pads and brushes, are universally filled with dishwater and germs that I don’t want in my food, and the process sends that dishwater spewing up like toilet spume. These are also time-consuming, and their washing is incompatible with most of the dishes I make, which require near-constant attention.
Whatever. Really, I just love how there is always someone willing to climb that hill and tell me how to cook. It takes no time to clean as you are cooking. If you can’t properly wash your hands that is on you but somehow I manage to cook my meals and the cleanup at the end is always brief.
This is why i dont eat. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Jk kind of lol
