No Time To Cook? I Don’t Believe You Pt. 2

On Monday, I verbally abused you for saying you have no time to cook. Today, I will switch to Good Cop and give you a few helpful hints about cooking at home and not losing your social life to do so.

Breakfast is the easiest meal of the day—and the most important. Neither of us want to get up any earlier than we already do, so we keep it simple. An egg casserole filled with veggies and topped with a small bit of cheese is not only great for you (and filling), it only takes about an hour to make—including 35 minutes when it’s baking and you have to do absolutely nothing. Portion it out and you have a week’s worth of breakfasts that take two minutes in the microwave. Dunkin Donuts can’t even get you breakfast that fast. When we want something a little more fresh, it’s as simple as:

½ C Fat-free yogurt

1 C Kashi Go-Lean cereal

Any berries you want

Drizzle of agave nectar

Including taking everything out of the refrigerator and putting them back, it takes five minutes to prepare.

Dinner is also easy, if you want it to be. There are endless numbers of cookbooks dedicated to meals that take 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook. Rachel Ray has a show dedicated to them. South Beach has a 30 minute cookbook. Cookinglight.com has a section of quick and easy meals, broken up into 20, 30, or 40 minute categories. It seems everyone caters to the person with no time to cook, except the person themselves.

Lunch is a write-off as far as time goes. Make extra dinner, package a portion and have leftovers for lunch. Done. Even if you don’t want leftovers (or don’t have them), preparing a salad while dinner is cooking or taking all the necessary items for a week of sandwiches to work is quick, easy, and so much better for you than anything from a fast-food establishment.

It’s also cheaper. For Girlfriend and I, our average grocery bill is $200 per week. If we were to both eat out, I’d assume we’d each pay $5 for breakfast and $8 for lunch (which is conservative), on average. That’s $26 per day, $130 per week. That leaves us $80 in our grocery budget for dinners all week—$16 per night for the both of us combined—and we haven’t even accounted for the weekends. Whoops!

Unfortunately, I can already hear the naysayers: I don’t have two hours on Sunday. I don’t have an amazing girlfriend like you to help me. My worst-case scenario came when Girlfriend went to Chicago on business for the last week of June. I was on my own. I didn’t have a car. The World Cup was on and I didn’t want to leave the couch on Sunday. Sunday night for dinner, I did the easiest thing imaginable, something I like to call “pasta whatevera.” Cook pasta; while doing so, sauté veggies and heat sauce. Combine. Dinner in 20 minutes. Be sure to make extras for lunch.

Monday, while I was at work, I used my lunch break and the aforementioned South Beach 30-minute meal book to plan my meals for the week. Not having a car and not wanting to carry everything at once, all I had to do was stop at the grocery store every day on the way home from work and pick up ingredients for that night only[1]. Each night only needed a few ingredients; shopping took me ten minutes each day. Since I’d made it part of my commute, it didn’t seem like it was taking anything away from my couch time.

Eating quick, easy and healthy meals every day at home can be done, but the priority must be made. DVR your show and watch it while you eat. Talk to your girlfriend while you cook. Surf the internet at the office when you should be working. Whatever you do, cook most of your meals at home. It will be much healthier and much more cost-effective than the alternative. And trust me: you’ve got the time.

Check back before the weekend for a few simple recipes and ideas for quick, inexpensive and healthy meals.

[1] I’d also planned well enough to “trickle down” ingredients. If I needed something for two separate meals, I’d buy enough the first night and I wouldn’t have to worry about it the second night.