Take out, or restaurant food is the exception to the rule. We cook 7 days a week, apart from the odd maybe once every month or two exception. I like cooking. I cook most meals. I do most of the grocery shopping. I’m the male of the house BTW.
I don’t cook. Almost ever. The majority of my meals are take-out from Whole Foods so it’s not as bad as restaurant food and I don’t eat instant noodles anymore. (but before I discovered Whole Foods, I lived off 'em) I only cook a couple of times a year when I make my one dish to take to a potluck.
Why? It’s hard to start cooking when you don’t have any spices and a good feel for how things should turn out. The few times I’ve tried recipes, I’ve been frustrated that they haven’t been good and, 'cause I had to buy a lot of spices, wound up being expensive.
When should I check the mailbox for mine?
That’s sad! Cooking is one major pleasure in my life.
According to the OP definition of “cook,” I do not cook, or rather, I haven’t cooked in about six years, and I think the last thing I cooked was probably an omelette. When I moved into my apartment 11 years ago, I noted that the oven thermostat was broken. This has not inconvenienced me in any way. I plan to get around to cooking again at some point; it’s just not a high priority.
I eat out most every night as it is cheaper than cooking at home. Last night we went out for Lebanese and with salad, chicken kababs, rice, drinks, etc. e.g. more than we could eat, was under $10 for the two of us and we didn’t have to do the dishes.
Dubai has astronomically high rents, but if you eat local Gulf/Arab food in small restaurants they are absurdly cheap… tho not quite on the scale of Syria and Yemen.
I cook for myself almost every night. It’s not that hard to cook for 1 once you get used to it. A typical meal for me is a little bit of meat (perhaps 1/4 pack of chicken), one or two pieces of vegetable (e.g. one onion and one green pepper), either stir-fried or cooked in a can of chopped tomatoes, and poured over steamed rice or pasta. I think that adds up to $4 per meal at most.
II don’t think I’ve ever looked at my fridge/freezer/pantry and said “I can’t make anything, I have to go to the supermarket.” There’s always enough food for one more meal. If I’m out of fresh vegetables I’d use frozen or canned. If I’m out of meat I’d use tofu or cheese or canned tuna.
I probably cook 3-4 times per month. I usually just eat the cheap lunchboxes you can order at work for lunch, unless I have left overs. On Mondays and Tuesdays I am only at home for about an hour before 9 PM, so I only can make really simple things. Do curry packages and dried ravioli count as “just add water”? On Wednesdays and Thursdays I try to make an effort at least, but I often go out with friends on Thursdays or Fridays, and on the weekends I often eat out. Plus, on Wednesdays I go to the gym, which always eats up an amazing amount of time (I need to go there more often too, but that means even less time for cooking…)
My kitchen is absolutely miniscule, I have no oven, and maybe 2 square feet of counter space, which doesn’t help either. Still, I really should cook more. In the end though, I know I’m just going to end up “cooking” a thai curry mix tonight. I have to clean and go to the gym and go the shops…
I usually fix one meal a day at home. Some lean meat and veggies braised together or something else simple. The remaining meals are frozen dinners taken to work and usually soup or bagged salad at home. Ahhh…the joy of living alone.
I do cook a whole meal about twice a month when I entertain, though. And I like to bake.
We cook probably five nights out of seven, depending on what we’re doing. Usually we do the grocery shopping after work on a Friday so we pick up Chinese on the way back because it’s late, and on Saturday we often go out to eat. This week has been slightly different, we ate out on Monday because we were going to a show, and have been using up leftovers from the freezer the last couple of nights (because we’re running out of space in there) but at least the leftovers are portions of meals we’d made previously. So I guess that still counts as cooking…
I cook everynight but Friday. Friday is STRIKE night, no sitting at the dining table and as few dishes as possible. Usually a cooked chicken from the supermarket, nice salad and good crunchy bread, failing that pizza.
Our main meal is lunch, and I probably cook five or six days out of seven. We usually eat out at least one day on the weekend, and sometimes once in the week.
Because of the tropical heat I cook the main part of the meal first thing before I have my morning shower, and make the salad and put the rice/pasta/coucous/whatever on just before eating.
The evening meal is either leftovers or something quick and easy like an omelette, pitta-bread pizza, pancakes, cheese on toast or hummus and pitta. I make a batch of hummus once a week.
Never do microwave meals at home. I find them horrible. My Wife does them at work sometimes.
Generally, I will make a big dish on the weekend, and we will eat that a lot for the week. I’ll often make something else during the week. To add to that we will often make a sandwich or salad so we aren’t eating the same thing every night, though, that doesn’t bother me at all.
Maybe once a month we will have a ‘bake and rise’ pizza. Those aren’t too bad. Don’t get delivery so that’s not an option. We might get some sort of take out and bring it home twice a year.
We eat out about once a week.
Married Male, 46. No kids.
I cook maybe once a week. Like last night I made myself biscuits to go along with my pre-packaged ham steak and pre-packaged salad.
I love to cook and I am good at it. But it’s just not as rewarding when you’re single. Having fresh ingredients on hand is a pain in the ass (veggies go bad, meat has to be frozen). Cleaning up is a pain in the ass too, especially without a dishwasher.
A few weeks ago I made tacos and boxed brownies, and invited my friend over for dinner. I had to make sure I got all the stuff for tacos when I went shopping. I had to cook the meat, chop the tomatoes and lettuce, mix the brownies and bake them. That all took about a 45 minutes. Afterwards, I had a ton of dishes to wash and I had to wipe down the stove.
Total cook and cleanup time was close to 2 hours. Total eating time was about 20 minutes. I didn’t even make anything gourmet or fancy and it was still a huge bummer. Cooking just isn’t rewarding for me anymore.
Oh, and trying new stuff sucks too when you’re single. I did that once last winter and I had this huge casserole I was sure I was gonna like, but it sucked. Having spent all that time and money (new ingredients) on it, I had to suck it up and eat it for 5 days anyway.
He does the cooking. But he cooks dinner at least five out of seven days, then on the weekend, I cook breakfast, we usually have something quick & easy for lunch, and we either take out or cook a nice dinner together.
I also used to eat out quite a bit because of the single/live alone/cleanup problem but my parents basically shoved my cheap ass in the direction of renting a nicer apartment and I got a place with a dishwasher.
Life is now much, much easier and I cook everyday. I’m amazed, jaw-struck at how much money I have despite the fact that I pay substantially more in rent (I also moved from the 'hood to half a block away from San Marino).
I’ve found the trick to be pre-prep. Also, I cook Asian foods almost exclusively (Indian, Indochinese etc.), and focus on seafoods, which take less time to cook through, which makes my life easier, I guess. I have a different healthy dinner on the table 10 to 15 minutes after I get home.
I’ve dropped about 12 lbs too, and fit back into all of my clothes except for a single pair of pants from when I was super super tiny. I think I’m going to roll over some of the money from not eating out into a leather jacket from Bebe. 
(most of it went into my TSP so I’m not that irresponsible)
I usually cook
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
Wife cooks Wednesday
I cook Thursday.
Friday and Saturday are always up in the air. . .Sometimes, left-overs. Sometimes just bread, and cheese, and meat. Sometimes go out, or order in.
Cooking during the workweek is part of the routine, though.
We could most days; or rather I could Sunday through Thursday and the boys cook Friday and Saturday. The exception is the occasional fried chicken or chops, my wife is much better at fried foods than I am. She’s also the baker, right now I’m currently resisting brownies she made yesterday. We also don’t cook on grocery shopping days or when the boys are visiting their mother for the weekend. Those days it’s takeout Chinese, Pizza or when the boys are gone my wife and I will eat out. So that’s maybe 5-6 per month.
Of course this being November next week will be unusual. Since most of the week will be spent in prep for Thanksgiving, Monday through Wednesday will probably all be takeout.
Most meals I eat are made at home regardless of where I eat them (i.e., at work or home), though I often microwave my food because I cook most of it on the weekends.
A couple of months ago I got tired of cooking two dinners every night - one for my husband and me and one for my son - so started cooking for a few hours each weekend and now we have easy-to-prepare, home-cooked dinners almost every night and lots of leftovers for lunch. We can also all eat before my son goes to bed, which frees up a huge amount of time in the evening.
I’ll get lunch out once a week tops (usually a salad from the cafeteria downstairs) and occasionally on the weekend, but that’s about it. I’ve saved a huge amount of money and time this way - meals come out to about $1.50 to $3.00 per person and they’re easy. All we need to do is prepare a side of steamed or stir-fried veggies and dinner’s ready.
I mostly only cook on weekends. By the time I get home from work it’s supper time so my Mom usually does that but it’s often stuff like chicken parmesan (homemade) or stirfry or reheat of whatever I made on a weekend and tossed in the freezer for later consumption.
For awhile we were eating a lot of frozen and reheat in the oven stuff from the store, but we got a bit tired of the selection and that’s pretty much tapered out.
Breakfast usually involves toast or instant cream of wheat (unless it’s the weekend and I feel like going all out) and lunch is generally leftovers.