Groceries and cooking

[StevieG]

Baked fish - simple, fast, healthy

ridiculously easy (5 minute prep, 12 minute cook), no added fat , good for adding variety to your diet

tilapia filet (farm raised, relatively cheap)
lemon

cut the lemon into thick slices (3/8 of an inch)
arrange in baking pan to make a bed
salt and pepper the fish
place onto bed of lemon slices
add 1/4 inch of water to pan (so now your lemon slices are islands)
cover pan with aluminum foil

bake at 375 for about 12 minutes or until done (fish is opaque, flesh easily separates, not too tough)

do it with tilapia, and top it with your favorite salsa

you can also bake trout the same way, but throw a sprig of rosemary inside the fileted trout

do what my fiance and I do.

get some recipes.. don't matter where. Pick out some that you think you'll like.. and make a menu for the week. Grocery shop for the items you need to make these meals (no more, no less)... it'll force you to cook at home (or you'll waste your food).. and you won't waste any food in general.

...just get motivated to cook.

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]
how about a slow cooker for soups, stews, casseroles, chili, and big cuts of meat that need slow cooking?

[/ QUOTE ]

Another great suggestion. Even if you just want to open up a can of Campbell's chunky soup, you can just start it heating up and walk away, like Blarg said.

[RacersEdge]

I'm sort of in your boat - I started looking into cooking. I got the Olin Brown book rec'd here. I seraed a flank steak last Saturday. Very simple - oil the steak, salt, pepper, 3 minutes per side. Puts a nice crust on the outside - medium rare in the middle. You just need a good cast iron pan.

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds tasty but too difficult to cook.

[/ QUOTE ]

You serious? All you have to do is brown the turkey, then add the other ingredients.

If you can't do that, your best bet would be to check into a cooking class at night. Maybe a community college class or something? A few basic cooking skills will widely expand your options.

[mmbt0ne]

So, I was telling the same thing to my gf, and she says, "I'll cook for you." This is great because once a week she actually cooks for a huge group of friends, actually one of the ways I met her, and she knows how to do it amazingly well. So, now I give her whatever she spends in the grocery store, and I get a week plus worth of easily reheatable food in tupperware containers.

Right now, here's what I have:
A tilapia/onion dish with a cajun seasoning that's really good.
2 containers of a spicy chicken soup, with some baked tortillas to put on it.
Some sort of shrimp dish thats in a soy marinade
Brown rice with celantro
Angel hair pasta with sauteed zuchini and tomatoes, and a cheese topping
Black bean chicken (about 5 meals worth)
~2 gallons of salad to eat with my roasted red pepper dressing
A vanilla yogurt/fruit/granola parfait-type dish.

All in all, I'm eating like a king now. Basically I recommend you get someone to do this for you. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[HtotheNootch]

Binge cook.

Don't make things for one night - other than steaks, fish, etc.

I'll turn one or two nights a week into cooking nights. I'll make several meals worth of homemade pasta at a time, and then freeze it in meal size portions. I'll do the same with the sauce. I make jumbalaya and other "complete meals" in big batches and then freeze it. That way, if I have a busy day, it's a simple trip to the nuker, rather than a takeout menu.

[MrPokerPants]

Really easy pot-roast:

Requires crock pot or slow cooker (are these the same thing?)

Ingredients:

Cheap slab of beef (I usually buy a two-pounder)
Can Cream of Celery soup
Can Cream of Mushroom soup
Can French Onion soup
Salt & Pepper

Prep:
Put salt and pepper on meat. Put everything in crockpot. Turn on high. Come back 4 - 5 hours later. Its done when the meat falls apart when you try to pick it up with tongs. If done ahead of time, just turn it to low until dinner.

I usually make some mashed potatoes or rice to go with it. The gravy is pure goodness.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Binge cook.

Don't make things for one night - other than steaks, fish, etc.

I'll turn one or two nights a week into cooking nights. I'll make several meals worth of homemade pasta at a time, and then freeze it in meal size portions. I'll do the same with the sauce. I make jumbalaya and other "complete meals" in big batches and then freeze it. That way, if I have a busy day, it's a simple trip to the nuker, rather than a takeout menu.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is really the best way to do it. Even if you don't eat the frozen stuff that often, you should do this until your freezer is stocked full of them. It's so damn cool to have a big selection of healthy, home cooked food ready to turn into a great hot meal at any time of day or night.

Chili and spaghetti sauce is great for this, and soups. Those things you kind of naturally tend to make in big batches, or they're just as easy to cook in big batches as small. Plus things like chili and good spaghetti sauce are kind of a pain to cook in individual portions for one meal, so it's better to just cook up a ton all at once anyway.

AND -- many soups, as well spaghetti sauce and chili, actually taste better a day or two after they were cooked.

I usually have some soups and chicken legs in the freezer, some in smaller snack size tupperware containers and some in bigger meal size containers.

It's great -- if you get weird cravings, sometimes some strange combos are sitting right there waiting for you.

And it's all the easier when you're letting something like a slow cooker or rotisserie do all the work for you in the first place. Lazy dude cooking can be pretty righteous and good.

[BoogerFace]

Joker,

Learn to marinade.

Idea #1 - Put chicken breasts in a gallon ziplock and cover with cheap Italian dressing. Put in the fridge overnight. Brown them on an electric grill (optional) and then bake at 350 until their done. You can get a cheap meat thermometer at kitchen store for $15.

Idea #2 - Steak with the Montreal marinade - it comes in a little envelope in the store in the ketchup isle. Broil in the oven 3 to 5 minutes on each side.

For starch I usually do one of those Near East rice pilaf boxes. They only take 20 minutes to cook. For veggies, you can get an electric steamer for $20. The steamer makes broccoli, green beans, whatever really easy. If you get an electric grill, pork chops are really easy too.