How do you prepare meals which are quick, easy and affordable?

thewannacryguy · Jan 12, 2020

Lately I've been trying to find ways to spend less time in the kitchen. I normally cook a few weeks of soup in one shot and serve it with some freshly cooked meat. The problem is roasting a chicken, saving the bones and then boiling them to make the stock combined with washing the dishes takes a long time. I think it would be a lot faster to buy a rice cooker and chuck some rice, vegetables and meat in it every few days. I can then warm it up on the stove.

If I search for quick and easy meals online then food websites come up with all these gourmet looking meals which I don't give a fuck about. I don't have any fussy children to feed. I don't care much about flavor, if it's edible, it's good enough. Something which is easy to pack and eat outside of home is preferable. I have a bias against farmed meat and eggs because of animal welfare issues. Supermarkets where I live have a selection of hunted animals which I eat.

JuanMena · Jan 12, 2020

Ok... good to hear you eat everything.

Here's what I'd typically do. But I WARN YOU I EAT A LOT OF GARLIC

Scrambled Eggs: Time to prepare 15-20 minutes

Chop green chillies.
Chop a quarter or less of Onion (depends on size)
Chop garlic
Fry chillies with onion until golden brown
Add chopped garlic and stir for some minutes NOT SO MUCH OR IT'LL BURN
Add eggs and start mixing all together

PRO TIP: Add ham, sausages, or any other meat you'd like. I'd usually use turkey ham.

Chicken: Time to prepare 3-4 hours. Depends on how fast you clean the meat and chop everything.

Wash that fucker good. You don't want salmonela on your plate. Take out as much fat as you can.
Burn slightly to take out any feathers leftovers. Use pincers to do the job.
Put in a pot just a little bit of water. For instance half gallon of water.
Add 4 or 3 garlic cloves... since I like garlic, I usually add 5. Add 1 whole Onion, add aromatic herbs... I usually go with Menta Spicata, Coriandrum and Dysphania Ambrosioides.
Let it heat for at least 30 minutes at medium fire.
Add pieces of chicken, all clean and feather free.
Let it boil for 1 hour, usually, at high heat.
Add Carrots, Potatos, Chayote, Corn and Ejotes
Cook until meat and Potatos are soft.

PRO TIP: Cut Carrots, Potatos and Chayotes at roughly the same size, this is just so all the veggies cooks evenly at the same time. The more carrots you add, the sweeter your chicken broth will get.

Pork: Time to prepare 1-2 hours.

Get some pork meat.
In a pot, add the meat, some garlic cloves, 1 whole onion, and some aromatic herbs. I usually use Bayleafs (usually just 4 to 5 leafs for 2 kilos of meat) and just 4 pieces of Syzygium Aromaticum (Cloves according to this site)
Leave the meat until cooked. It must be soft.
In a frying pan, add enough oil to SEAL the meat. Do it softly or your meat will crumb.
As you boiled the meat in whater and aromatic herbs, take out any bayleafs and all your pieces of Syzygium. In your blender, add SOME of the pork broth, and add all the garlics and the piece of onion, and add some chillies, green or red tomatos. Chose any you like. Add salt and a bit of pepper.
Blend everything, you must get a spicy "broth", and since you took some liquid from the pot, you must have SOME NATURAL BROTH still in your pot.
Mix your blending and the broth on your pot and boil it. Add your fried pork meat and cook until meat is softened again.

PRO TIP: Add chopped potatos to your broth! once you've mixed your spicy broth with your natural broth and your meat.

Tuna: Time to prepare 30 minutes or less.

Get canned tuna. Drain the oil from the cans.
Put your drained tuna in a glass pot.
Chop red tomatos and onions. This is at your liking.
Once you've chopped your tomatos and your onions, add it to your tuna.
Add mayonaise to your mix and blend everything together with a spoon.
Get some Crackers , some limes, and if you're feeling naughty, add some finely chopped chillies.
Eat it!

PRO TIP: DO NOT USE LOW-FAT MAYONAISE

Stwert · Jan 12, 2020

Mac n Cheese. Easy, make a roux - equal quantity of butter and flour, a tablespoon is enough. Cook it out for a minute and slowly start whisking in milk until you get the consistency you want.

Add a few handfuls of whatever cheese you want - I like a mix of cheddar and Parmesan.

Boil pasta, 500g is my sweet spot, but basically measure it in your dish (dry) so it’s about an inch from the top.

Mix in the cheese sauce, top with more cheese and grill.

That makes enough to do me and the missus 2 days. Second day Mac n cheese is awesome.

I heat the leftovers with more milk (and a little cream) until it’s just the right consistency. Top with more cheese and grill again.

It’s an amazing cheese overload

you can top with bacon, chorizo, or whatever you like to mix things up a bit.

Best of all, it takes about 15 minutes to make from scratch and costs very little.

JayMathis · Jan 12, 2020

KFC and McDonalds meet all the criteria.

Alexander1970 · Jan 12, 2020

thewannacryguy said:
Lately I've been trying to find ways to spend less time in the kitchen. I normally cook a few weeks of soup in one shot and serve it with some freshly cooked meat. The problem is roasting a chicken, saving the bones and then boiling them to make the stock combined with washing the dishes takes a long time. I think it would be a lot faster to buy a rice cooker and chuck some rice, vegetables and meat in it every few days. I can then warm it up on the stove.

If I search for quick and easy meals online then food websites come up with all these gourmet looking meals which I don't give a fuck about. I don't have any fussy children to feed. I don't care much about flavor, if it's edible, it's good enough. Something which is easy to pack and eat outside of home is preferable. I have a bias against farmed meat and eggs because of animal welfare issues. Supermarkets where I live have a selection of hunted animals which I eat.

Good cooking NEEDS Time.

FAST6191 · Jan 12, 2020

alexander1970 said:
Good cooking NEEDS Time.

I am going to strongly disagree on that one. You can make some spectacular things in 20 minutes. There are certainly wonderful dishes that take hours of effort and precise timing (or just making sure to do prep the day before) but cooking is not a more time = more better affair.

Back on topic.

Don't think I have ever met a unless I hunt it or someone hunted it I won't eat it person before. Seen plenty of people that like to hunt and eat the results, and plenty of people that don't like some of the intensive farming methods (don't know about around you but around here food made without the serious industrial stuff with the animals left to frolic in the field tends to be called free range, I should note though that not all organic stuff is necessarily free range) but the merging of the two is new, though not unprecedented nor entirely devoid of logic.
Wonder what will happen in years to come with artificially grown meat.

Anyway sounds like you have it already. Buy in bulk, either make as and when or make it and freeze it down. Pasta is good stuff here, as are lentils.

I don't really have a quick way of making stock, indeed most people I know just use stock cubes or stock pots you buy in supermarkets but that might be harder for you.

While I also don't care much if it is fancy I do get bored eating the same thing all the time so I do tend to mix it up a bit, though that can just mean slightly different proportions, different meat or protein and a different sauce but many of the same base ingredients.

If you don't do stir fry stuff maybe consider that. Chop some vegetables, some meat and chuck in whatever sauce you like a few minutes later. Easy to make (chopping board + knife), easy enough to clean as long as you are not seasoning the wok every time, usually cheap if you want it to be and definitely quick.
That said it does not always travel the best so (most stir fry sauces congeal a bit when cold and cold veggies are not the best either) you might need to pick your battles there.

Curry could be a nice one depending upon how far you long you want to travel (lunchtime is fine, packing up a dinner for yourself at the end of the day is a bit harder for some of them.

Easy to pack for me just means I get those nice boxes with clip on sides and load whatever I want into that with a fork/spoon elsewhere.

Undertow76 · Apr 27, 2020

Hamberger Helper, you can substitute any meat you want in it, and it's easy
Taco's is easy you can make in bulk and will last at least half a week!

Hardline · Apr 30, 2020

slowcooker and time it,so it done when i come home

FamicomHeero · Jun 4, 2020

I would try and focus on one pot meals. Like you said you cook soup but you should be able to cook almost all of it in one pot.

Mythical · Jun 4, 2020

You should really just google recipes for foods you like honestly. It'd be easier to find something you like than having random people tell you recipes for quick food. Especially since you're deal with animals.
That being said a chicken pot pie doesn't take too long and you can make extras and freeze them for an easy dinner later.
Stuff that you can make extras of and save for later is probably what you're looking for.

How do you prepare meals which are quick, easy and affordable?

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