Hi /ck/ I came to you looking for help.
I hope this is the right place.
I'm a single guy working a demanding job. I find that I'm not eating healthy most of the time. I eat a lot of potato chips and drink a lot of soda.
I simply don't want to spend what little time I have preparing food. Also I'm just not that good of a cook.
I can [pan fry ?] a pretty mean steak every once in a while and it goes good with some steamed and then fried veggies. I can also prepare eggs in its various forms, be it scrambled, cooked or fried. And ramon noodles - love 'em.
I'm looking for some simple food ideas that are wholesome and easy to prepare and that won't take a lot of time. Any ideas /ck/ ?
tl;dr
Food ideas for the single bachelor that doesn't have a lot of time for food preparation.
>scrambled, cooked or fried
Curries and stews require little more than searing some meat and chopping up some vegetables. Same with oven roasted root vegetables. Just set aside some time two days week to make meals that will last for days.
Start by packing your lunch. Sandwiches can be wholesome if you male them right. Raw fruit and veggies. Grapes, mandarins, and apples are some of my favorites. Do you have a crock pot? There are LOTS of slow cooker meals that have little prep time and are ready when you get home. They also provide leftovers for lunch if you have a microwave.
Biggest thing for me is making the healthy foods convenient and the chips inconvenient. I but cantaloupe, but it up and put it in bags so it's ready to grab, but leave my chips in the big bag.
>>7281789
boiled, sorry
Post your cooked egg recipe op. I'll be the judge
>>7281761
>I simply don't want to spend what little time I have preparing food.
Then you don't want to eat healthy. You've already noticed that most convenience/fast food is junk. This is because people unwilling to cook will eat crap without complaint, as long as it tastes OK and isn't ridiculously expensive. Healthy fast food is such a niche market that people in NYC happily pay $15 for a quinoa salad at Dimes. If you're not particularly wealthy and don't live in a major city that's not even an option.
There are plenty of simple foods that are wholesome and easy to prepare. But shopping and cooking on a regular basis requires time and discipline. You have to accept that, or just not bother. If you really think you're too busy to do much real cooking guess what? You won't be doing much cooking.
>>7281795
>>7281789
Maybe I should look into getting that slow cooker.
I fondly remember some great meals my mom used to make in a slow cooker.
Oh mom, how I miss your home cooking.
Anyway thanks for the advice :)
>>7281826
I guess you're right.
Discipline has never been my favorite word though.
Get a crock pot. Get the ingredients ready the night before, dump them in and turn it on before you go to work. You can even get really nice ones that have things like meat probes that after whatever hits a certain temperature it automatically turns to the keep warm setting.
>>7281847
It's settled then. Stews erryday.
>>7281840
>Discipline has never been my favorite word
Then use the same mental trick people who manage to work out on a regular basis use: think of it as just part of your routine.
Grocery shopping is part of your routine. And when you get home from work you start prep for dinner, while putting on whatever part of the meal is going to take the longest to cook. I often have weights in the kitchen with me, so I get a few sets in while cooking. By the time dinner is ready I've finished my workout, and reward myself with a beer or a glass of wine. But you'll have to get familiar with the rhythm of cooking before you can multitask like that. At first resign yourself to spending about an hour a day in the kitchen between prep, cooking and clean up. It will average out to less as you become more efficient and experienced.
The other part is thinking about just what the fuck you're going to cook and how to shop for it. That kind of planning will have to occupy some of your bandwidth. I think about what the fuck I'm going to cook and the steps involved with it almost every fucking day.
>>7281761
Cut out the chips and soda. Seriously. Just stop buying them.
Buy some chicken breasts, bone-in and skin ON. Buy some decent olive oil. Dip into your savings and buy some kosher salt. LIGHTLY rub the skin side with the oil. LIGHTLY sprinkle the skin side with kosher salt, like a light snowfall. Stick those in the oven @ 400F for about 35 minutes.
You have an instant read thermometer? Take the chicken out of the oven when the thickest part (NOT THE BONE) is at 155F or so.
Voila! You have delicious roast chicken breast. Remove the skin if you're worried about too many calories or whatever, but the skin has a lot of flavor and chicken breasts need all the help they can get.
Cook a big batch or something on the weekend and eat it throughout the week. Something that you can't do on a weeknight like a big pot of beans. Then get some meals you can throw together like vegetable stir fries or hearty salads. Pastas can use fresh vegetables and cd together pretty quickly. Vegetarian food as a whole is usually pretty fast and healthy.
>>7281969
You sound like a boss mate.
>>7282019
>Vegetarian food as a whole is usually pretty fast and healthy.
If you don't go crazy with dairy and sugar this is generally true. Most of my home cooking leans toward plant based meals, because I find I get plenty of meat and dairy whenever I go out to eat or just grab something on the run. Also cooking mostly veggies, beans and grains means I rarely have to be concerned with cross contamination in my kitchen, and hopefully eating that way makes up for the occasional burger or slice I end up eating anyways.
>boneless chicken breasts, separated into bags and put in the freezer, taking each one out individually to let thaw for the day when you need it
> buy vegetables and chop them up one night, tossing them into a bin to keep in the refrigerator to use as you need, or if you are really lazy, buy bags of pre-cut mixed vegetables
>buy some sort of pre made stir fry sauce
>buy rice
There you go, all the ingredients for very healthy stir fry meal. Rice for a single person takes 10 minutes to cook. And in that 10 minutes you can prepare the chicken and cook it with the vegetables.
Just toss the chopped chicken and vegetables into the wok and pour the sauce on when it's nearly done. 10 minutes out of your time and you have dinner.
>>7282047
choice
