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I'm debating on just eating TV Dinners and take out from now on
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OP as someone who absolutely sucked at cooking until like last year, just look into bits like Basics With Babish and other quick food tip spots on Youtube
Or try some meal kits like Hello Fresh and such, those take all the guesswork out
Or try some meal kits like Hello Fresh and such, those take all the guesswork out
Lots of great suggestions here and I feel like OP is just ignoring them. OP, you're not leaving much room for "debating" when people give you good advice and you disregard them all. If you want to eat like garbage and waste your money for the rest of your life, go ahead - but don't make a thread about it and then be dismissive of everyone when you're not even willing to try to be a decent cook.
Valid point, im imagining straight up tv dinner trays where its like little sections of different foods like mac n cheese mush, a tiny mushed together meat slab, and a tiny corner of mashed potatoes. lol. I know there are some higher end tv dinners that you can definitely incorporate or turn into an entirely different meal.
The Banquet ones lol
I've turned that into,:
Canned pineapples (or fresh of course), half pound of chicken - (rotisserie, canned, fresh), some spring onions, a red pepper or two and some ginger or whatever spices you enjoy. If you have cornstarch or flour + brown sugar , that'll thicken the whole thing up a bit for that kinda glaze. Extra rice on the side.
It's barely worth it to combine, but if I'm running low on ingredients for something, I'll open up a TV dinner and incorporate. I'm also 130LBs so I manage lol
The thing I don't get is that OP is rather poor (40 bucks per paycheck. Even weekly that's poverty level) yet he wants to waste more money?
Crockpot and rice cooker are the two best devices to have in a kitchen. Crockpot because you can cook a multitude of things easily, roasts, ham, ribs, spaghetti/pasta. And rice cookers because who doesn't like rice? Cook some rice and fry some chopped onions in a pan and an egg in another pan, add a little salt and pepper, and you have a quick easy meal right there.
My SO and I cook most nights but we split our nights between cooking pasta/chicken/beef/steak/Instant Pot/ type dishes with super simple stuff like.... hot dogs, or frozen pierogis or whatever and occasionally ordering in. Like it's fine to not want to cook a whole big meal every night and fall back to some simple thing you can just pop into an oven or microwave or just ordering some chinese food.
If you are routinely screwing up basic dishes like spaghetti without figuring out what you're doing wrong - sorry brah that's on you. Everyone can learn how to do it.
If you are routinely screwing up basic dishes like spaghetti without figuring out what you're doing wrong - sorry brah that's on you. Everyone can learn how to do it.
I think OP said $40 has been budgeted for weekly cooking, which isn't actually too hard to work with if you're single/living alone.
I just last week made a beef thai massaman curry for $25. It tasted phenomenal and lasted me all week. OP just needs to keep practicing and slowly build up his/her skills. It'll save a crap ton of money in the long run and it's a wonderful skill to have when you have a family/kids, or even guests dropping by.
Don't give up, OP.
Ok. 40 bucks is going to be hard to stretch on takeout and TV dinners.
And unhealthy
I don't eat processed foods as much as I used to (only in special occasions like parties) but at home or work - home made meals are the best
Steak
Onions
Celery
Potatoes
Carrots
Water
And two of these:
Chop it all up, throw it all in the crock pot, and after eight hours you will have something fucking delicious (and easy).
Unless you're talking about super cheap microwave dinners that are like $3-5 a pop, it will definitely be cheaper in long run to cook your own stuff.
Rice in a bag + chicken breast on a George Forman grill
Cut the chicken up, put it in a bowl w/ rice and add shredded cheese. Throw some hot sauce on it and voila, damn tasty dinner that is super fucking easy to make, impossible to fuck up and really cheap. (Wife and I call it chicken party in a bowl)
Wife and I hate to cook but eating out really adds up over time so we try to cook simple meals when we can. I agree that if you're making complex dinners the materials can easily cost the same as if you just order out. And if you hate/suck at cooking then you're probably better just eating out.
Also don't take shame in eating out a lot if you can afford it. Chef's are professionals for a reason, they make food better than you probably can and if you have a lot of options to choose from you can find plenty of healthy stuff.
Rice in a bag + chicken breast on a George Forman grill
Cut the chicken up, put it in a bowl w/ rice and add shredded cheese. Throw some hot sauce on it and voila, damn tasty dinner that is super fucking easy to make, impossible to fuck up and really cheap. (Wife and I call it chicken party in a bowl)
Wife and I hate to cook but eating out really adds up over time so we try to cook simple meals when we can. I agree that if you're making complex dinners the materials can easily cost the same as if you just order out. And if you hate/suck at cooking then you're probably better just eating out.
Also don't take shame in eating out a lot if you can afford it. Chef's are professionals for a reason, they make food better than you probably can and if you have a lot of options to choose from you can find plenty of healthy stuff.
It's been awhile, but in my area you can usually pick up 3 for ~$10.
They're not exactly filling or any good, but I used to keep a few in my freezer for when I was lazy. If you're a larger person you might need to eat two, which would start to stretch the wallet.
Any big chain store will have 'em for 1$ a pop or 10 for 10$.
3 for 10$ is also common with the slightly higher quality ones (read: 2oz of more food)
Kebabs are specifically a high effort, low reward (in volume) meal. Get a slow cooker for $20-30 and make high-volume meals like stew, pulled pork & rice, soup, spaghetti (not in slow cooker), etc. This will fill the majority of your meals (ESPECIALLY lunch leftovers).
I do live near several Japanese markets and the sushi grade fish is no where near the level I can get at a sushi restaurant near those markets lol. Like yeah you can get a block of salmon for $10 to make 2 or 3 salmon sashimis and it's very easy but I was never satisfied with the quality.
Trying to make like a "volcano roll" or something exotic is not incredibly easy. A spicy tuna roll sure but that's cheaper at the restaurant lol
I'm with you. Cooking fucking sucks. It take way too much of your spare time and in the end it is never as good as it is when a pro made it.
What I do right now is trying to figure out the best approach to this. Need to find healthy enough alternatives and the price should not be too high.
What I do right now is trying to figure out the best approach to this. Need to find healthy enough alternatives and the price should not be too high.
Do what you want to do, but I highly recommend at least having a home made meal every so often. Not only is it healthier, but cheaper as well.
Just stick to simpler stuff if you aren't a good cook. Or at least stick to it while learning.
I mostly stick with easy things with few ingredients and leave more complex things for when we eat out. Some protein (fish, chicken or tofu most often) with some simple seasoning, some steamed or lightly sautéed vegetable and some simple carb (rice, bread) or a second vegetable is our usual dinner. Breakfast is just something like yougurt and granola or oatmeal or fruit. Lunch just sandwich (or soup or salad) and some fruit.
I mostly stick with easy things with few ingredients and leave more complex things for when we eat out. Some protein (fish, chicken or tofu most often) with some simple seasoning, some steamed or lightly sautéed vegetable and some simple carb (rice, bread) or a second vegetable is our usual dinner. Breakfast is just something like yougurt and granola or oatmeal or fruit. Lunch just sandwich (or soup or salad) and some fruit.
This.
I would be careful with take out, T.V. dinners all the time. T.V. dinners you can at least read what's in it. Can't with take out.
Sounds like it, lol. Not a bad thing but still...
Yup.
I did this to learn how to cook some things. Or, just follow recipes.
I love cooking and baking. You're going about it the hard way. Your goal right now is not to learn recipes, but techniques. Thinking techniques instead of recipes will allow you the freedom of creativity when you've gained more experience, which will make cooking really fun.
Start with roasting. It's easy and makes good, comforting, food. And you can roast a lot of things with minimal effort. Lazy days are roasting days for me.
Grilling is actually pretty complex because you have to know about hot spots, indirect heat v direct heat, building and maintaining temperature, ect. It is deceptively simple, I can see why your first attempt failed that way (because I was similar)
Each time you cook will be a learning experience in the beginning. Don't go complex at first, just do simple recipes that can teach you a technique. And don't try to learn a lot at once. If you're learning how to braise, make that your focus and do something like steamed vegetables (even a microwave bag of steamed veggies) or something like a salad for the side. Something you don't have to focus on or something you've mastered already.
If you want a good book, I recommend America's Test Kitchen Cooking School. It breaks things down with plenty of pictures and explains why things go wrong. Right now it's $17 direct on their site. I've subscribed to the web version of Cook's Illustrated for years and learned a lot from them because they explain the methodology and what can go wrong.
Those Tasty-type videos are cool looking but useless for teaching cooking. Recipe sites or books are also useless if they don't explain the mechanics of the recipe. When you have more experience you won't need it, but right now I recommend books and recipe collections that go into detail.
Start with roasting. It's easy and makes good, comforting, food. And you can roast a lot of things with minimal effort. Lazy days are roasting days for me.
Grilling is actually pretty complex because you have to know about hot spots, indirect heat v direct heat, building and maintaining temperature, ect. It is deceptively simple, I can see why your first attempt failed that way (because I was similar)
Each time you cook will be a learning experience in the beginning. Don't go complex at first, just do simple recipes that can teach you a technique. And don't try to learn a lot at once. If you're learning how to braise, make that your focus and do something like steamed vegetables (even a microwave bag of steamed veggies) or something like a salad for the side. Something you don't have to focus on or something you've mastered already.
If you want a good book, I recommend America's Test Kitchen Cooking School. It breaks things down with plenty of pictures and explains why things go wrong. Right now it's $17 direct on their site. I've subscribed to the web version of Cook's Illustrated for years and learned a lot from them because they explain the methodology and what can go wrong.
Those Tasty-type videos are cool looking but useless for teaching cooking. Recipe sites or books are also useless if they don't explain the mechanics of the recipe. When you have more experience you won't need it, but right now I recommend books and recipe collections that go into detail.
Oh you're trying to make rolls. Okay I wouldn't know how hard that is. When we do sushi at home we typically make nigiri.
It's cheaper for us to buy the fish than to eat it at the restaurant, but that's probably just a function of where we eat sushi. I haven't had sushi from a place that serves American style rolls on a really long time.
This describes me pretty well from Age 21 - 25. My weekly dinner diet mostly consisted of:
Trouble with going from Zero to Kababs is that you don't have any of the things you need ot make good kababs, so you have to buy them all. You get some recipe which calls for all of this fancy shit, spices, fancy rice, and you end up having to buy a lot of stuff you don't have normally so you spend like $50 on it. It's easier to make good meals once you get a base of some things.
- Monday: Some bland pasta with bland sauce and store-bought frozen meatballs. like $2/meal at the most
- Tuesday: Frozen/boiled Pierogies w/ steamed-in-the-bag microwave vegetables. Similarly can't be more than $1 or $2/meal
- Wednesday: "Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas" which were frozen fried chicken cutlets/patties, that I'd microwave and cut up into strips, douse in Ken's buffalo sauce, put some blue cheese dressing on, shredded cheese, and bake them in tortillas. Probably $2-3/meal, and this was definitely my favorite meal
- Thursday: Some variation of one of the previous 3, or perhaps hot dogs, or perhaps those microwaved sandwiches
- Friday or Saturday, I'd usually go out to eat or get takeout. Sunday who knows.
Trouble with going from Zero to Kababs is that you don't have any of the things you need ot make good kababs, so you have to buy them all. You get some recipe which calls for all of this fancy shit, spices, fancy rice, and you end up having to buy a lot of stuff you don't have normally so you spend like $50 on it. It's easier to make good meals once you get a base of some things.
Crockpot. You can cook a meal and it will last you a week. Just look up "super easy crockpot recipe" and bam. Don't do take out and tv dinners. Your wallet and body will regret it.
I mean you can, most fast food places list the nutritional value(lol) of each item on their menu on their website, and many have documentation with the same information in their restaurants. Not like it means much though, because surprise surprise all they will tell you is the majority of the food they serve isn't good for you.
This dude has a broken record of self pity a mile long.
He doesnt listen to advice or take criticism well or ignores it outright. He has a history of similar "woe is me, im a terrible person" threads that all follow the same shtick.
We've tried to help him, but he just keeps doing the same shit and at this point he's just becoming a parody of himself now.
There are much simpler recipes that are hard to mess up. I'm not a good cook, but i'll do stuff like cook some sausages (easy) and saute some onions (very easy) and throw them in a hotdog bun and that's a meal right there. Or even stuff like parmesan crusted chicken is really easy to do by just combining bread crumbs and parm cheese and coating chicken breast with it and then cooking in the oven.
Start simple and slowly get more complex as you get more comfortable.
How dare you not mention chili.
Start simple and slowly get more complex as you get more comfortable.
How dare you not mention chili.
$40/paycheck
Blows $30 on one meal
OP you have problems beyond just your lack of cooking skills.
Blows $30 on one meal
OP you have problems beyond just your lack of cooking skills.
This as well
You may botch a few things, but it will still be edible. And still healthier
(well maybe not burnt spaghetti but )
I know a delicious recipe involving Oreos and all you need is the floor to make it. PM me for details.
those are just content designed for watching. that's literally it.
doing it yourself vs having it already prepared means you can't control what goes in you body. all them tv dinner crap has way too many unwanted ingredients. some of it are just filler. even the meat product arent 100%, there's fillers in it. while you spend more money doing it yourself. you save money and get more. get them whole fruits and veggies. theres some items you can skip. like the frozen prepped veggies. some are super convenient. some you are better off getting it whole and doing it yourself and is cheaper.
LOL. legit use my oven to store pots and pans year round. never enough cabinets for it.
What I don't get is if your budget is so damn tight, why the fuck are you dropping $30 on one meal. Like for real.
Just make easy pasta / rice dishes with one protein and frozen veggies until you don't suck at it. Get ingredients on sale.
You're not going to make food that taste like restaurant quality from the getgo. Don't rush it and pay attention.
Just make easy pasta / rice dishes with one protein and frozen veggies until you don't suck at it. Get ingredients on sale.
You're not going to make food that taste like restaurant quality from the getgo. Don't rush it and pay attention.
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