forcing myself to cook...

[Jessica]

I probably should have looked for something like this, but a quick scan of the first few posts garnered no results. I appologize for any duplicates...

Currently, I live with two roommates. I work until 8pm on weekdays, and generally do things on weekends. I like to eat, and wish to eat healthier.

I'm really in a college mentality though. If I want to eat, I generally check the fridge: any cold meats or cheese? Have a piece of that, then leave. If I get really hungry, I generally fall back on KD (kraft mac and cheese for those who don't know), microwave quesadillas or hotdogs. Sometimes, I'll make perogies, or a sidekicks.

I eat really poorly. But, the reason is, when I'm hungry, I don't want to wait 60 minutes for food. I barely want to wait 30 minutes for food. I theoretically can fry meat in a frying pan, or throw beans and stuff together with sauce on rice. But, I just don't have the desire to spend an hour making food starting at 8pm after work.

Ok. So, why am I posting? Tips and trickses for anyone else who's in a similar lifestyle. Quick good meals, or ways to force yourself to actually break these habits? REally, the quick good meals is the big one. If I have chunky soup, KD or other quick meals, I see no reason to spend 40 minutes making something better (especially if I have no idea if it'll taste better...)

Oh, and on a side note: baking - any good baking tips? I'd like to try and do some of it (maybe making pies... mmm pie).

[jgcrawfo]

Have you read the pasta sauce thread? I am big proponent of making food in quantity and jarring it for later, which can give you affordable, delicious pasta, chili, soup, or even stir-fry in about no time. That's only really an option if you feel like spending a day at home cooking, though.

To just get more meals regularly, I recommend you go and buy yourself a nice chef's knife, and a nice big frying pan/wok. Go out and look at what you can buy, and take some time in the decision, and really get the things that you want, so they feel like they're yours. This should make you want to cook a bit more.
Once you've got a nice knife and a pan, it's stir-fry time! With a little practice, you can have yourself a stir-fry in about twenty minutes, no sweat. You'll need to get good with the knife, but that just needs a little bit of practice. Basic steps are (assume no waiting between steps):

-Put some rice on to boil, heat some oil in your pan, begin to thaw meat (unless you were clever and left your meat in the fridge to thaw overnight)
-Mince garlic/ginger, add to heated pan
-Chop onions, add to pan
-Peel and/or chop hard veggies (broccoli, carrots) and add to pan
-Cut meat (thin strips for beef, small-ish cubes for chicken), add to pan
-Cut soft veggies (peppers), wait till meat looks cooked outside, then and add soft veg to pan
-Fry for a few more minutes, until the meat is not going to kill you (feel free to dissect the thickest piece of meat to see if it's done through)
-Serve with rice when the rice is done

This is a fairly simple routine that can make great stir-fry while watching a half-hour TV show peripherally. Implicit steps left out of the play-by-play are:

-Stir the stir-fry regularly (duh!)
-Make sure the rice doesn't burn/stick on
-Sauce it! Add soy pretty much whenever you feel like it (I usually wait till the meat is in), and add some of that bottled stuff at the end. I highly recommend you buy a sauce/sauce mix when starting. Feel free to throw pretty much any spice in there if you feel like it, though.

Once you've got that down-pat, try marinating! There's already a thread on this, though, so I'll leave that for that thread.
Stir fry is pretty much the ultimate student (or student lifestyle) food, since it's a fairly simple and adaptable interface for supper. Throw whatever the hell you want into a wok and fry and stir.

[Flying Betty]

What you need to do is get yourself in the mood for cooking once a week and make a crapload of stuff once, then reheat it. Or say, follow the above directions for stir fry but make three or four times the rice you need and chop of twice the veggies. Day 2 fry up the rest of the veggies and an egg with some soy sauce and you have fried rice! Day three mix the rice with a can of beans (and maybe some of those veggies if they're still around) and some salsa and wrap it in a tortilla- instaburrito! Day four heat up the rest of the rice, add butter, and enjoy. Then have a banana and some walnuts for sustenance.

You can do a similar thing with pasta- have it with sauce, bake it with cheese, mix with mayo for pasta salad.

Another one is to make stew or chili or meatloaf and freeze most of it and pop bits into the microwave one at a time if you want to mix it up a bit.

[jgcrawfo]

Lasagna! It only takes like an hour to prep it, then you can freeze it bake it whenever! Also, roommates will love you if you share it. You can even get smaller baking dishes and make several to freeze.
I've accomplished a lot in the kitchen, but lifting a seriously heavy lasagna out of the oven is still one of the most satisfying things I've experienced. It's a little like the feeling of hauling the turducken out the oven, except lasagna is way less work and you can reasonably eat it without the aid of all of your friends.

[trickster721]

Couscous is insanely easy. You just boil it with a little bit of oil, toss in some frozen vegetables or whatever, and then cover it and let it sit there and soak up water for less than five minutes. It's the ramen of real foods.

[Moo]

Tip #1 (addition to bulk-freezing ideas mentioned above): cook pasta and rice en mass and freeze in single portions. While freezing whole meals is a brilliant idea and should be done, having the rice/pasta/stuff ready cooked is good even when you feel like making the sauce/stirfry/something else fresh.

Tip #2: Slow cooker / crockpot. For the timesaving win. There several different kinds of minced beef dishes I can put on in the morning, like bolognese sauce or chile con carne and come home to a cooked meal. It takes maybe 10 mins in the morning to get it all together and no time in the evening. I did a roast chicken this morning for dinner tonight. Hmmmm. Yes, roast chicken. The skin isn't crispy but otherwise it's brilliant. Or any kind of stew.

Tip #3: Soup. Put chopped vegetables (pre-chopped and frozen if you're really lazy!) in stock to boil. Watch TV or whatever for 10 minutes. Or even put on low in the slowcooker in the morning! Blend cooked veg and enough liquid in blender. Add cream if you're being decadent or milk if you're being good for creamyness. Eat. Quick and easy examples include butternut squash and orange (juice); butternut squash and coconut milk; brocolli and cheese (I blend the cooked brocolli with cheese sauce); mixed veg; veg & chicken (I cook finely chopped veg then poach chopped up chicken in it and don't blend).

Tip #4: Stirfries as discussed.

Tip #5: Poached fish or chicken in tomato sauce. I use a can of chopped tomatoes and some store-bought pasta sauce, you can use just chopped tomatoes and seasoning if you prefer. Bring sauce to just below boiling, add meat, cover, leave. Keep the heat below boiling or the meat might get tough; I have very good saucepans that retain heat for very long so I actually switch off the stove when I have put the meat in. Serve with boiled potatoes, I especially like baby potatoes.

Tip #6: Tuna pasta bake. I make a white (Bechamel?) sauce, add tinned tuna and maybe some sauteed mushrooms. Mix through pasta (I like penne for this). Top with cheese and bake until melted. If you're talking really healthy, I usually don't use any sort of butter/spread in my white sauce either.

Tip#7: Griller. I have one of those annoyingly healthy grilling things. Grill home-made beef patties, fish (I looove salmon), steaks etc and serve with some quick boiled potatoes or mash or whatever. You can use interesting seasoning (like morrocan or cajun spice blends) or basting sauces, or serve with a sauce over, if it's too boring. Or grill chicken breasts and bell peppers / capsicum and use in a tomato sauce base for a great pasta sauce.

[Nath]

Yeah, I put quick meals together pretty often. Pasta takes a few minutes to cook, and you can heat some sauce from a bottle while your pasta boils. You can throw some torn up slices of ham, a can of fish, clams or whatever in the sauce to get some protein out of your meal.

Another quick meal: heat some water with some frozen vegetables in it. Once the water starts to boil, throw in some ramen and seasonings. Wait three minutes, and eat.

Some chopped onions, a can of beans or chickpeas, a can of tomatoes. Spices and seasoning to taste. Let it cook for 15-20 minutes, and eat with bread.

Slightly slower, but still fairly quick: cook some fish while you microwave some frozen vegetables. Apart from onions, I can't remember the last time I used fresh vegetables for anything.

[hermaj]

Stirfries are pretty handy - the most time spent with that is chopping things up, and you can just get frozen mixed vegetables and chop your own meat, or sometimes when I'm really short on time I'll get a few chicken kebabs out of the freezer and just pull the stick out and stir-fry the meat. Perfect size and already marinated!

I cook one-pot chicken and rice things pretty often when my family wants an easy meal. It takes about 25-30 minutes to cook, but only a couple of minutes to prepare and there's hardly any cleanup. Just get whatever quantity of rice and water you'd use to cook by absorption method, add some chicken stock to the water and then add a few pieces of chicken and whack the lid on. Pieces with the bone are better for this - you can get these things called lovely legs here which are like skinless thighs on the bone, they're perfect. Just whack the lid on and cook like you'd usually cook the rice. By the time the rice is done, the chicken is boiled/steamed and you can add whatever sauce or seasoning you'd like. I often add a dollop of dijonnaise before I cook it up, it gives a nice flavour and the rice gets a creamy texture to it.

[Moo]

hermaj that sounds brilliant, must try it.

[jgcrawfo]

When I do that chicken-rice thing, I take the extra five-ten minutes and fry up some onions, garlic, and the chicken, then add the rice and stock to the pot. Then again, I am a compulsive cook.

[Moo]

(is it helpful to mention I use 200g rice and 300ml water for cooking rice by absorption?)

[Bakemaster]

Different rices need different amounts of water, as do different cooking methods since more or less steam will escape. So I don't know if it's that helpful, unfortunately (unless someone has never made rice). Rule of thumb is 2:1 water to rice by volume, less water if you wash the rice, more water for brown rice.

What other people have said about making food ahead is totally the way to go. My favorite thing to do is to take a Sunday afternoon and invite people over for some grilling. Get a whole ton of chicken breasts (it's cheaper in bulk anyway) and grill them all. You can slice them into two thinner cutlets if you're handy with a knife and want them to cook faster. Just toss on a little bit of oil, salt, pepper, your seasoning of choice (some people like Spike, I like Prudhomme's Meat Magic) and cook. You'll want to make enough to feed yourself while you grill, and anyone you bring over (or have hot dogs and hamburgers or other pieces of chicken for eating-while-grilling), or you won't do too much good for the coming week.

So now you've got a whole lot of grilled chicken breast. Put it in the fridge. You can take one out and make a super quick chicken sandwich with some veggies and bread, tastier and healthier than lunchmeat. You can cut a breast into strips and toss it in a pot with some canned tomato sauce to heat up and put on pasta. You can throw it on romaine lettuce with some dressing, croutons and cheese if you've got them, and you've got a chicken caesar salad.

[Moo]

I insist that that sort of event must be named. Grillfest springs to mind but is a bit predictable.

I use those quantities for white and brown long grain and white and brown Basmati rice, and use one of the aforementioned super saucepans to cook the rice on low heat (the saucepan is almost perfectly sealed and is kept at just below boiling. Built-in thermometer ftw).

[Jessica]

One of the greatest things we picked up was a rice cooker. Now, I get damn good rice when I need it.

But, a lot of those are great ideas. The only problem I have with cooking ahead of time is that my roommates will more often than not eat my prepared meals before I get home.

one lasagna feeds us all for one meal.

[jgcrawfo]

If roommates ate the food I bought and prepared, I would kick their asses.
Like, on the order of putting the leftovers under their pillow.

P.S., actually I mean, if I didn't want them to eat it. Usually I make a bunch and invite people to eat it, but if I was saving it to eat myself, upset would be I.

[Jessica]

Generally they don't eat food I specifically put away to eat, but they'll eat food before I put it away. Often this means there isn't much food to put away.

[Phentos]

Make macaroni and cheese.

Throw in a can or two of Dennison's Chili.

Consume.