Wait. I have more.
First off, invest in a large freezer and some freezer containers of all sorts of sizes and set aside one day a month to cook.
Yes, the crockpot is your friend. Here is a thread of recipes I’ve been using for a while now. I HIGHLY recommend the Beef Burgundy. I don’t recommend chicken in the crockpot because I personally like my chicken brown and crispy not kind of pink and soggy.
All curries are better once they have been frozen and defrosted. I’d give you my butter chicken recipe but then I would have to kill you.
Make a couple of quiches (with or without pastry) and a couple of lasagnes (vegetarian or not) then cut them up into single serves and freeze. Instant lunch or dinner.
Make soups - pea and ham, leek and potato, broccoli, cauliflower etc and freeze them in single serves. Instant vegetable hit.
Make a big pot of mashed potatoes. Freeze it in single or double serves by placing it in tin foil. Make the packages flat so that they thaw out quickly. They’ll take about twenty minutes in the oven while you do something else. This is a way better option than instant potato. Buy the little packets of ready prepared frozen vegetables which only take about three minutes in the microwave. If you put sausages etc in the oven at the same time as the potato you’ll have an instant nutritious meal for zero effort all while you do more important things.
By the same token, roast dinners are easy to prepare; put meat in oven with potatoes (can you believe some busy people like me even leave the skins on?). If you can wait an hour and a half to eat, they are an absolute minimum of preparation time. Combine with your handy dandy instant frozen vegetables. Leftovers go in sandwiches the next day or throw them in a pot on low with some water and indian spices (buy some paste at the supermarket if you don’t cook) for quick curry. Along the same lines, a rice cooker is your friend as is a spaghetti cooker - the kind you pour the boiling water into and forget about for five minutes.
And for grab and go breakfasts/emergency snacks I present you with my quick as a flash Sunbran loaf recipe:
Combine 1 cup processed bran with half cup each of sultanas and diced apricots, 11/4 cup sugar, 1 1/4 cups soy milk. Cover and stand for 15 minutes. Fold through 1 1/4 cups SR flour and mix well. Spoon into a greased loaf pan and bake at 160C for 45 minutes.
I also highly recommend keeping muffins, toast etc in the freezer at work for those times when it goes to carp - there will be a few.
Golden Rule: if you have time to cook, always cook double amounts and freeze.