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The OP is a student, or a recent student. What encouraging advice do you have for a young person, on a limited budget, who wants to eat at home more and eat out less and finds it hard to do?
Last edited by Beretta; 08-23-2012 at 04:54 PM..
Reason: inappropriate
Planning! Including planning for your own laziness. Some people have had great success keeping up with home cooked meals by planning their meals for the week (or even the month) on one day and prepping everything that can be prepped ahead of time. Generally, this means assembling meals and freezing them so that when you want them you can either toss them in a pot to finish or into a crockpot in the morning so they're ready for dinner.
And you might check out Pinterest, I'm obsessed. On a regular basis I find links to blogs about how to prep easy, healthy meals as well as a multitude of tantalizing recipe. It's a great place for inspiration.
THIS.
I always prepare enough so that I have leftovers when I cook. It takes the same basic amount of time to cook 6 chicken breasts as it does to cook 1 or 2, ya know. I prepare meals in single serving containers and freeze them for my husband to take to work everyday. For example, I cooked spaghetti and meat sauce the other night. We had it for dinner that night, and I had enough to package up 4 more meals for his lunch. We've been doing this for many years and we figure we've saved a small fortune doing so.
Also, both my sons, who are off in college, do the same thing. They will cook on the weekends so they have meals for the week. They get really tired of eating out, or even worse, on campus. One has a gas grill so he can really get cook up a bunch of things quickly. Also, something like a George Foreman grill works well for this kind of thing.
Buy stuff like prewashed salads to make your life easier. And while I wouldn't normally recommend it, you can get frozen chopped peppers and onions if you don't want to mess with chopping all that. It will make meal prep so much quicker. Then later, when you have more time, or feel more comfortable, you can start chopping your own.
The OP is a student, or a recent student. What encouraging advice do you have for a young person, on a limited budget, who wants to eat at home more and eat out less and finds it hard to do?
Frozen food.
Frozen veggies, frozen salmon patties, frozen fruit to put in smoothies...meals prepared in one day and then doled out into packages and frozen...
Talk about losing focus, me included! Could we possibly call a moritorium now on the off-topic "Maybe it's an age thing but I don't wanna cook any more" comments and concentrate on the OP's actual situation?
The OP is a student, or a recent student. What encouraging advice do you have for a young person, on a limited budget, who wants to eat at home more and eat out less and finds it hard to do?
Point well taken and I agree somewhat even though I did mention cooking for a few hours that will last the entire weekend. So on to my helpful hints and timesavers.
Original Poster -- Buy yourself a slow cooker, the one I have is a west bend oblong and comes with a carrying case. Turn the thing on low in the morning with frozen veges and meat in it and by the time you get home you will have a hot meal waiting. You can also start it before you go to bed to cook over night and that gives you something from home to take with you in a ziploc container for lunch at work.
Soup, chili, beef and noodles or chicken and noodles which is very simple and easy to make and I can give you the directions on any of the above if you would like. I actually have 2 slow cookers so I can make beef and noodles and chicken and noodles both if I want or 2 separate dishes like soup in one and roast with vegetables in the other.
Thanking everybody for the suggestions/commentary. However, another thing that became rather troublesome is that after eating so much purchased food, the food you cook yourself doesn't even taste normal anymore. I just tried to make some tofu and a salad and I couldn't eat take a couple bites.
This is gonna take some getting used to to revert!
Thanking everybody for the suggestions/commentary. However, another thing that became rather troublesome is that after eating so much purchased food, the food you cook yourself doesn't even taste normal anymore. I just tried to make some tofu and a salad and I couldn't eat take a couple bites.
Yep. And that should tell you something about how amped up restaurant cooking is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elle Oh Elle
This is gonna take some getting used to to revert!
That's why I suggested you set up a reward system for yourself!
Thanking everybody for the suggestions/commentary. However, another thing that became rather troublesome is that after eating so much purchased food, the food you cook yourself doesn't even taste normal anymore. I just tried to make some tofu and a salad and I couldn't eat take a couple bites.
This is gonna take some getting used to to revert!
It does take a wee bit of time to get away from the dining out all the time tastes. Except for the tofu, I personally could never get over that and actually eat it but that is just me.
When I lost a lot of weight I had been eating out a lot and when I quit doing that it took some adjustment. Now I can barely eat out because I have been cooking at home so long, so many things I get when eating out taste too salty or not fresh enough or too bland or too soggy or too something.
I pretty much stick with pancakes and waffles when we got out, they are pretty safe overall at most places to order out.....LOL
You'll get used to eating homemade stuff again. My sis and BIL always eat at restaurants, and BIL has trouble eating my food because it's not deep fried or really salty. But I tease him that every meal he has at my house instead of at a restaurant probably adds a week to his life expectancy
My absolute favorite food to keep in the freezer: chicken breast tenders, uncooked. They're frozen individually so you can take out exactly what you need. You can bake them while frozen, or thaw them in 3 minutes in the microwave. I use them in stir fry, fried rice, just baked with BBQ sauce, on homemade pizza, in chicken alfredo, in salads, breaded and baked with cream gravy on the side, etc.
I also buy a package of hamburger meat and make meatballs with it, then divide them up into bags and freeze them. That way we can have spaghetti once a week and I only have to make meatballs once a month.
One thing that can help you get interested in cooking at home is to learn to make your favorite kind of food, and get good at it. I love mexican food, so I have learned to make my own flour tortillas and salsas. I even make my own refried beans. Everyone gets excited when it's taco night around here
It took me a few years of trial and error to get good at cooking at home. Some of it is just finding recipes that work, other things have to do with using good ingredients.
Also, this isn't exactly a "green" thing to do, but I hate hate hate doing dishes, so we use plastic utensils and disposable plates. All I have to wash are the pots and pans.
Thanking everybody for the suggestions/commentary. However, another thing that became rather troublesome is that after eating so much purchased food, the food you cook yourself doesn't even taste normal anymore. I just tried to make some tofu and a salad and I couldn't eat take a couple bites.
This is gonna take some getting used to to revert!
Believe me, your taste buds will retrain themselves AND THEN even realize that fresh, whole food tastes WAY better than restaurant crap.
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I just tried to make some tofu and a salad and I couldn't eat take a couple bites.
