This could quickly turn into a ‘best way to cook rice’ thread, so I’ll add in my method before we get shut down. Rinse basmati rice in a sieve under cold water, add to a pan of salted boiling water, boil for ten minutes. Drain into a sieve, poke a few holes in the rice and leave for 10 minutes. Perfect fluffy rice every time.
To the OP I would suggest:
Stock up on cupboard basics: rice, pasta, potatoes, onions, garlic, tins of tomatoes/tuna/beans, olive oil, white wine vinegar. Stock the freezer with mince and chicken portions. Get some veggies and salad stuff. Buy some spices and herbs. You can make multiple meals on the hoof from all this stuff.
Also, make double and triple portions of any pasta sauce/stew type meals, Freeze them for when you can’t be bothered to cook.
I don’t go away far – but I may do something else in that room or the next, which takes my attention long enough that something might boil over. Which is why I don’t do that if I’m cooking something that might boil over.
One thing that I make well without fail is rice for some reason. I prefer Jasmine/long grain rice.
Rice in a sauce pan. Twice as much water as rice with a splash of olive oil and half a teaspoon of bullion. Heat on high until it’s at a steady boil then cover and turn down to simmer for twenty minutes.
And shop around. There are deeeep discounts on some relatively expensive things if you put in the legwork and buy a bunch when you hit paydirt. This sometimes means buying before I’m out of something. Get in the habit of checking prices so you get the deals. Look for other stores, perhaps ethnic or discount, that regularly stock products from alternative distribution channels.
I noticed a local fruit market discount place had chicken legs for 39 cents a pound last weekend. A big tray with about 10 drumsticks was like $1.50.
Get the big burlap or woven tyvek bag of rice for under a dollar a pound.
Look for cooking oil under $5/liter[quart]. Save the better stuff for when it counts.
Shop for commodity spices at local distributors. I recently needed sage and mustard powder. I got each for under $2. I’m certain they’d be several multiples that cost at the local Kroger or Albertson’s stores. Keep an eye on Walmart-types for big shakers of onion or garlic powder.
Get more exotic ingredients from stores serving those markets. For example, coconut milk sometimes goes loss-leader at the Asian groceey and lasts a while so it’s easy to stock up.
Definitely consider an instant pot. You can find so many easy instant pot recipes online.
The main reason I like having one is that you can cook frozen meat in a snap. If you buy your meat in larger quantities and freeze the leftovers, you now have a very easy way to make a meal. Dump some frozen chicken in with whatever ingredients you need, and thirty minutes later, you’re good.
I have a great chicken turmeric soup recipe I usually make on the stove, but my husband missed grocery shopping last week so we had no fresh meat in the house. But I always have extra meat in the freezer. I tried the recipe in my instant pot using frozen chicken and it turned out just the same.
I think the real key is to turn cooking into something you enjoy rather than drudgery. Try some recipes and figure out which parts of cooking you like best. For me it’s chopping vegetables. Get a fancy chef’s knife or a new cutting board or cookware or whatever can get you motivated to learn to cook. Keep your kitchen clean with just a few items so you can start cooking without any physical obstacles. I often find I’m more willing to spend an hour learning a new recipe vs just a simple meal I’ve made a hundred times. It’s all about learning what motivates you.
Pay attention to where you get stuck. If you can’t bring yourself to chop vegetables at the end of a long day, pick a time you’re more motivated and chop them in advance. Hell, chop three days’ worth. Then when you get to dinner, it’s really easy.
OP’s profile says Sacramento and they have a Winco, which is a perfect place for this kind of purchase. Get yourself a big ol’ bag o’ cheese from the hopper when you also pick up your sacks of beans and rice.
When I buy my fruits and veggies, I shop for just me, unless Vaderling has a specific request for something he’s going to make(he isn’t real big on fruits and veggies). A couple of apples and oranges and a bunch of bananas are staples, but also a single tomato, or onion isn’t terribly spendy. I don’t buy potatoes, I use yams or squash instead if possible both for flavor and visual appeal. Depending on the variety of squash I can eat a couple of meals on just one. An acorn squash, split in two and roasted is good for two meals, a spaghetti squash peeled and 1/2 of it chunked up goes in the crockpot with a roast and an onion, celery, maybe some carrots is good for a weeks worth of dinners. Yams are good for pot roast also.
The main idea behind my post was this though, (and I didn’t convey that well) eating is emotional and mental as much as physical, if you neglect that part of food, you diminish your satisfaction with a meal and it makes it harder to get off and stay off the fast food express. Visual appeal is an important part of that and fresh vegetables and fruits are or can be a big part of that appeal. Plus the flavor can be so so different from canned or frozen.
Also, again, if you’re buying things like tomatoes and potatoes etc at the grocery store and shopping for one, if you plan your meals it’s not (in my experience) prohibitively expensive. I can’t speak about salads from what sounds like some sort of salad bar type place, I don’t have any experience with those.
Such a great point and that’s what I was getting at with my last comment, too. I do all the cooking in my household. Sometimes my husband says, “I don’t know why you don’t just pick easier things to make.” He thinks I should be boiling a pot of pasta and calling it good. But for me, that same old recipe I’ve tasted a hundred times is not going to get me motivated to cook on days when I’m not feeling it. What gets me motivated is finding some new recipe that looks tasty and perhaps even challenging, and cooking that. Especially on shit days, it’s like… well, at least I made this delicious dinner. And I have found that the difference I feel between fast food/ordering in and actually preparing a meal is very striking, in terms of satiation, energy, how good my body feels. You will find there are certain spices and food combinations that just make you feel good.
I am not particularly gifted at cooking, I just follow recipes I find online. It’s rare that I go off-script. But there are so many recipes online these days it’s easy to make tasty stuff all the time.
I just bought a 10 pound pork butt on sale for $1.97 a pound. My wife rubs it in salt, building up a coating, and then cooks it for many hours at a low temperature. The not very good piece of meat comes out great, and makes enough for a dinner, lunches, pulled pork, and enchiladas.
Not good for weekdays if you work, obviously. We don’t make this to save money, but because it is good.
A slow cooked oven roast is a thing of beauty, but for weekday options, slow cooker (start in the morning, dinner ready when you get home) works great for pork butt. A cubano inspired option for example
Although they cheat (and I approve!) by tossing it in a HOT oven for a few minutes at the end for the extra visual appeal of the browning.
But speaking to the OPs situation, I do understand that sometimes cooking for one feels like a lot of work, especially cooking large quantities (for better savings) and then even with freezing, finding eating the same meal repeatedly getting tiresome. It’s been a bit rougher for me (and I love cooking!) when my wife went vegetarian because 80% of the dishes became for just one. Still, there are things that you can half-prep ahead of time and freeze to finish later - homemade gyoza or wonton, eggrolls, various pulled/roasted meats, etc. Build up a variety, and then assemble meals to your tastes later on, when you don’t feel like doing a lot of work.
And never forget the ease that is a dozen eggs. Sure, they’re not as cheap as they used to be (generally I find it about 2.50 to 2.99 a dozen) but they last a long while compared to non-frozen meats, they can become a wide variety of dishes, and can be used to elevate other dishes (the aforementioned cheap ramen, Mexican-inspired skillets, or what have you).
Which makes a dozen eggs (24 ozs) less than $2 a pound, which is pretty great for a protein base of a meal. Shakshuka or huevos rancheros makes a great dinner (in addition to all the dish additions you mentioned).
Carbs can be very cheap (rice, potatoes, flour) but make sure to include protein, fat, vitamins, flavor, and color.
Beans (dry or canned) are a great buy. So are eggs. Spices go a long way, and keep for a year+ on a dark shelf. Fresh veggies are often expensive, but onions, winter squashes, and colorful root vegetables are often cheap. Frozen veggies are sometimes cheaper than fresh.
Everyone saying to roast a chicken: yep! In terms of fancy-per-dollar, or fancy-per-hour, roast chicken is near the top of the list.
Here’s the recipe I use:
The only even tiny tricky part about it is trussing the bird–and it’s less complicated than tying a shoe.
I roasted a chicken last week. It was from a specialty butcher, was like $18 for a 3 lb bird, and I was a little frustrated by the price. But we had a lovely dinner, and then got stock out of it, and I chopped up the rest of the meat for soup. That chicken, plus some vegetables and some rice and some bread rolls, made fourteen meals.
Hmm. Not the stores where I shop (Wegman’s, Whole Foods, Sprouts). They take 'em off after a specific cooking time and note when they were done on the package.
Biggest problem is that many of those chickens are injected. The three stores above do not do that.
I roast whole chicken all the time. My ingredients are simple: chicken. And i don’t truss. I love the crispy wings. (And the overcooked legs go into the soup I’ll make with the carcass. The breast and thigh come out perfect.) I get nice crisp skin and moist flavorful meat.
I tend to like a low salt diet. If you like saltier food you can salt. But salting the skin makes it draw water from the meat and it’s more likely to be rubbery instead of crispy.
I use a roasting rack to keep it out of the drippings and dry. I start with the bird on one side and cook at a high temp for 15-20 minutes. repeat on the other side. Flip to it’s back, turn the heat to low, and cook until the meat gets to about 155-165. Let it rest 10-30 minutes. The internal temp will rise (and also, it will pasteurize at those temps while it rests.)
Maybe so. I’ve never had that problem with the Keller recipe I linked to above, though. Instead, the salt seems to be drawn into the meat. But I like fairly salty food.
Cabbage - don’t forget the cabbage. Cabbage and onions kept a lot of our ancestors going.
Frozen veggies are a great buy, and have the advantage that you don’t have to worry about them getting nasty in a week. You can add a handful to a lot of things.