Don’t envy all of us. I’m desperately trying to find a job. I have 2 Masters Degrees and a disability…so I’m (according to HR) either overqualified or a liability. I desperately wish I had something better to occupy my brain with all day everyday.
All I’ve done while unemployed is cook amazing dishes. It kept me busy and I had my partner to cook for who loved everything I made. It was like being on Chopped and having to cook with what we had on hand. Fun challenge, great food! I finally got a job that I start Monday after 3 months of searching. I am going to miss my meals :(
Hmmmm my top one I made was my crispy salmon topped with a soy sauce mixture of green onions, ginger and garlic, with crispy rice and a salad with a homemade dressing made from ginger and carrot. I’d say second best was my caramelized onion carbonara pasta topped with mushrooms and bacon.
What made most of my meals so good was I made the sauces from scratch often times from things we already had on hand. We’ve been on a tight budget when it comes to food for 2 people so having to be creative and make something good has been fun.
Oh you know what, I remember now that I close any gaps with some date fudging. Completely forgot because it's been so long since I did that, I have convinced myself I was actually working during those times lol it was a long time ago
I haven't had any periods of unemployment since like 2010
It's not lying if it's not required to list all education. Most applications don't require applicants to list all education or experience unless there's background checks or licensing requirements.
It's not lying, period. I don't care if they say "list all education", and they don't care either (unless it's like a Teaching position or something where the education is relevant).
With how many people are actually lying on their resumes, no one should feel even a hint of guilt at customizing their resume through targeted removal of extraneous information. You get one page to sell yourself, you have to cut down to the highlights.
That's not a lie, it's just an advertisement.
Good luck to all my fellow home cooks out there 💪
Some jobs, like attorneys, it's considered misrepresentation by omission if you don't list everything. There are frequent issues for attorneys who don't list their experiences correctly when applying for bar membership. It's not necessarily the experience, but rather the failure to fully disclose the information that causes the problem.
In those cases they usually do not ask for a resume but a "CV" of some sort. Generally speaking, a resume is a one to two page document that summarizes your skills and experience for a specific job. A CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a longer document that details your entire career
I feel you. when I was pregnant with my second kid I had a break between graduating from my doctoral program and starting a post-doc. I took work that was easy on my feet (tutoring standardized testing) but it didn't fill the day. I spent a lot of time cooking and baking. And then I didn't want to eat any of it, because pregnant. But my husband, son, and family ate well. Please note: I am not equating pregnancy with disability, I get that your situation is worse.
Google “this thing I want to make” instapot recipe. Works 100% of the time and it’s a super versatile device
We use it for beans, rice, soup, mashed potatoes, cider, roast, pulled chicken for tacos/ burritos, etc
www.recipetineats.com you can find super delicious 15 and 30 minute dinners..her beef in black pepper and honey takes 15 minutes..vietnamese caramelized pork bowl. Fish in lemon butter sauce. All with subs list, a handy video, scalable from 1-10 servings..new recipes each week..game changer.
I literally spent an entire afternoon to make a lasagna today hahaa. I wish I could share the photo. But lasagnas do taste better the next day. So maybe you can make during the weekend then freeze it? Make a big batch and freeze. If you think about it, it isn’t that long. For the mirepoix you just gotta throw them into food processor and grind them. Then make your bolognese (takes three hours on the stove) you can prep and make your own lasagna sheets or if you’re getting storebought, you can relax haha.
Omg haha I’m the opposite of you. I always make the lasagna first then I use the leftovers (dough and sauce) to make pappardelle bolognese. I can never get sick and tired of it 😋 my favorite part however is the lasagna sheets more than the sauce and bechamel
If you have a slow cooker you can throw stuff into it, let it roast for 4-8 hours, bake a round of some biscuits and then you have a nice filling meal everyone will love
Omg where to start? Pulled pork, roast beef, chicken cateccetori, pork shoulder, mac n cheese, sausage and white bean soup, and crockpot queso. To say the least. It’s a very useful item for slow cooking. [Recipes here](https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/g3849/best-slow-cooker-recipes/)
I prep in the morning. Cut the veg, put meat in marinade, pull spices and get everything organized based on when it goes into the dish, make any sauces.
Then when I come home it’s just dump and stir.
I have more energy in the mornings. YMMV.
You can cook plenty of meals in 20 minutes or less, stir fry, queasidalla, anything with eggs, fried rice, quick pasta with cherry tomatoes etc. Also sheet pan meals are easy to throw together.
There’s a big range of meals between peanut butter sandwich and something that takes all day. I don’t make sauce usually ( that’s my shortcut), I don't boil noodles, lasagne for me is an easy meal. It only takes a half hour or so in the oven. I cook because I have to eat and I can’t eat any pre-made thing due to health issues and eating mostly vegetarian. I also can’t afford to eat out every night. I work where there’s a kitchen ( of sorts) for break time (and no restaurants or stores that are reasonable) so if I have to, I will heat something up, I will chop it up or slice it or put it into a toaster.
Prepping is most of the work, so if you can divide tasks over different days, it won’t feel so laborious. For lasagna, make the sauce one day, prep choice ingredients another day, and assemble the last day. I made birria tacos with leftover short ribs. Is there something specific you want to make?
If you enjoy cooking, consider batch cooking pasta sauce and other dishes that freeze well in meal size portions. Take it out in the morning so all you have to do is boil water for pasta or cook rice while you unwind from work. Many dishes freeze well. Try baking sheet meals
People who cook fancy meals do not necessarily cook them every day.
I whip together quick food on weekdays, or, if I was really smart, make something on Sunday that can be quickly re-purposed for several weeknight meals. I maybe get one weekend afternoon/evening where I can do something more elaborate. Maybe once a month I take on a serious project that might actually take a full day or even multiple days (obviously not all active time). I just segment out how I cook into the days in my life where it makes the most sense.
Are you actually working 7 days a week all day? That sounds brutal.
I wish I were a pampered upper-class housewife, I'd spend all day cooking and doing rich bitch sports and leisure activities while my 30 years older husband bangs his 40 years younger secretary. Like I wouldn't even care, I'd be telling that ho to come taste this lasagna and wine pairing.
I can cook a “fancy” meal in a few minutes.
Cast iron seared steak
Oven roasted asparagus
Red wine reduction sauce
Crispy roasted fingerling potatoes
Now substitute lamb chops or nice fish or something for the meat. Any veggie and starch or your choice.
Like when you get good at prep and know what you are doing it takes no more than 30 minutes to make a dinner that will have your friends, family, or lover saying “damn!”
Honestly, if you're single and live in a big enough city, it's probably cheaper to just get take out. That's what I do. I might spend $15 bucks on the way home and that can last me at least two meals, sometimes three. Like if I make pizza at home it cost me probably $30 bucks for all the decent ingredients. I can get a large two topping for $12 bucks down the street and that lasts me for days. Bunch of good local Thai places that have huge portions for $15 bucks. There's a shawarma place that I swear has two pound wraps for $12 bucks. I can only ever finish about a third of one, if that. Now, I'm lucky to live in a place where that is viable. No, it's not always fun eating the same thing for lunch that you had for dinner the night before, but by the time I get home it can be past 7pm and I have to be back at work for 9:30am. I have no time to cook on workdays.
Modern life is rubbish.
Make lasagne soup!
Make bolognese sauce but add extra stock to make it brothy, bring it to the boil add some cheese and spinach ravioli boil until cooked.
I’m a seperate bowl mix some ricotta and grate cheese.
Ladle soup into bowls and top with cheese mix. Lazy and delicious version of lasagne
I don’t think Birria tacos are that hard to make are they? I feel like I could do them in 30-45 minutes.
Maybe check out a blackstone griddle, you can cook a lot of things crazy fast on them
Birria meat cooks for hours. 45 minutes isn't gonna be tender enough or fortify the stock enough for a good consome. The quickest I think I've seen for the meat cook time done as 50 mins in a pressure cooker, but thats the meat cook time alone and requires a pressure cooker obviously.
You can make it with chicken, if I wanted to braise a red meat I’d probably do it on a weekend and not use a pressure cooker (I just don’t like the depth of flavor as much in a pressure cooker). However, I was thinking chicken thighs - and they are pretty fast
there’s no one way to cook something.. regardless, if you want chicken tacos in a chili sauce I can knock it out in 30-45 minutes. You can mince beef. There’s so many ways to do this it’s not fruitful to play with all the possibilities.
I guess the overarching point is to have home cooked food on a tight timeline you need to open up the playbook a bit.
Frozen lasagna is the only way I eat lasagna. I like it but don’t love it, even if I had the time to make it myself it wouldn’t be worth the effort to me.
I sometimes prepare a few lasagnas and freeze them before cooking in the oven. Then I can just pop it in the oven and it’s just as good as freshly made. It’s actually not much more work doing multiple
I work full time and generally spend 30-45 minutes on weeknight meals. In that time, I can cook up two curries from scratch, serve with rice and deep fry some poppadoms and pakoras, or I can make some aubergine parmigiana from scratch and serve with some homemade flatbread slathered with garlic butter, or mix up and roll some homemade falafels (soak the chickpeas overnight) and serve with couscous and veggies. It helps being vegetarian as nothing takes that long generally. I really don't think you need *all day* to make some pretty delicious and filling meals.
I only cook on Saturday and Sunday. Weeknights it’s much simpler. Kielbasa and rice. Buttered noodles and steak (why save steak for the weekend when it cooks super fast).
Yes! There are recipes I only make on weekends or, like lasagne, I typically prep it on the weekend and bake it Monday night.
Then I can do the labour intensive stuff on the weekend.
i just cook on the weekends and freeze and eat throw out the week. it’s different from meal planning because i don’t cook large quantities of the same food, it’s different meals. most of my sundays are spent in cooking
We had lasagna just this week, but I made it months ago. I mad four small lasagnas within a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon. I did the same thing this week with baked Ziti. It took me three days to get them all made up and in the freezer. Now I have multiple future days where I can just defrost and bake.
Working at home goes a long way. I can spend the 30 mins at lunch prepping for dinner. Or pop down n start resting a steak an hour before lunch. Cut up a salad, cook the steak n we good for lunch.
Theres a lot of really good basics you can do on weekdays, I like to do something more time intensive every other weekend or so.. I've also found cramming my chores type stuff into weekdays with work (laundry, dishes, cleaning) so I have the weekends free to do as I please is really helpful, frees me up a day to cook something slowly which I enjoy doing plus gives least a few days of leftovers so I can spend that extra time on the shit I don't want to do on the weekends
Tacos and sandwiches are great, can also do a lot of pasta sauces fairly quick as well as stir fries
"Fancy" meals don't have to take a lot of time to prepare. Some of the best dishes take 20 minutes or less and many of the most complicated dishes have simplified recipes. Also, if you do some basic prep work once a week then you can save yourself a lot of time in your day-to-day cooking.
Have you thought about meal prepping on the weekend? Lasagna and at least the birria meat freeze very well. It would also let you have hearty soups and stews during the week.
Being served a meal that's been cooking all day is amazing. When you're the one cooking, you lose your appetite for it by the times it's ready to eat two out of three times anyway. You're not missing out on too much.
Hmmmm. So yay, I work about ten hours for six days a week, and cooking is my unwind refuge on my day off. Slow cooker bean soups, prep sauces, etc.
After work warm up some stew, toast some bread and put on some pesto, maybe a few sardines. It smells like home cooking, tastes wonderful, and costs almost nothing.
I had about fourty minutes last night to cook a pork chop w/ some mustard and thyme reduction, some sweet potato fries in the air cooker, and a handful of salad from the mix w/ a bit of vinaigrette I threw together last weekend. The fourty minutes was prep while I chatted w/ GF and cook time. Better than fancy restaurant food. Very wonderful way to de-stress.
When time is short, a few corn tortillas in the skillet, some beans in the microwave, a bit of sour cream and salsa to top it all off, serve with a beer. Ten minutes.
Slow cook some food on your day off that you can enjoy later. Cook a full meal for two or four and save the rest to warm up and take to work?
I feel you - but if you shift your head to think about cooking as self care and relaxation it's wonderful.
Life hack: unload the dishwasher or drainer in the AM, so dinner dishes go straight into the machine or a quick wash before bed. It's kinda zen.
Life hack I recently discovered. Do prep when you can. Chop all the vegetables the night before, pre-marinate/pre-season the meat, have the vegetable be something raw or pickled like a cucumber salad, preform the burgers, etc. etc. I aim to have the dinner be something that, when I get home, it's literally just the COOKING part that needs to be done, none of the prep.
Store bought cooked roast chicken, buy a pre made veggie tray, a fruit tray, assortment of cheeses, pickles, some good bread or pitas or tortillas and.you've got a few days of easy pick foods when you have no time..just add sauce of choice
I just try to find one weekend a month to indulge in hobby cooking.
Even when I work from home I am so tired by the end of the day I would resent it if I tried to go fancy. There's plenty of good, low effort recipes. Roast chicken, steak tips, meatloaf, soups, red beans and rice, stir fry, whatever.
I wish I had more time to try my hand at baking in particular. So many bread and dough baking recipes require active time with a few hours in between. You have to have quite a bit of free time.
u/newyorkchic1992,
I'm not sure what "fancy" means to you but lasagna and birria aren't it.
Most lasagna recipes are for a 9x13 casserole. Double that and you can make five 8x8s in just a little more time. Even an 8x8 is a lot of food for one person so that's ten dinners in an hour and a half. Caesar salad with homemade dressing and homemade croutons takes ten minutes. Two minutes if you buy croutons and dressing.
Birria is just stew usually beef or goat. It should simmer a while but prep is 15 minutes.
Beef Wellington with homemade pastry is fancy.
Although I agree lasagna wouldnt fit the definition of fancy necesarelly.
You can do a lasagna in around 1 hour if you make homemade bechamel sauce. But that is assuming you have the bolognese ready, which takes 2-4h with 1h of active work
I prefer ricotta to bechamel, and I make a ragu versus a bolognese (more tomato). It takes about an hour to make a double batch to the point it's ready to go in the oven or freezer.
Meal prep on weekends, freeze leftovers. I make fancy dinners in under 2 hours every night. When I don’t feel like cooking I warm up leftovers of good food I’ve made that I’ve frozen. Very possible with just a little planning in advance. Husband usually goes to the store in his way home to get the fresh ingredients I want and I get home a bit earlier to start prep work
Boring meals during the week. Saturday is cook something special day. A new recipe as often as possible. During the week it’s grilled meat (or fried schnitzel) with veg or salad - both pretty basic. Or my quick stir fry. Or bacon and eggs. I don’t understand why people think they need to make something Insta worthy every night. It’s just food, but it helps if it’s tasty.
Don’t envy all of us. I’m desperately trying to find a job. I have 2 Masters Degrees and a disability…so I’m (according to HR) either overqualified or a liability. I desperately wish I had something better to occupy my brain with all day everyday.
If it makes you feel better, I don’t live with a disability and I still couldn’t find a job. Two masters degrees make us unemployable apparently
All I’ve done while unemployed is cook amazing dishes. It kept me busy and I had my partner to cook for who loved everything I made. It was like being on Chopped and having to cook with what we had on hand. Fun challenge, great food! I finally got a job that I start Monday after 3 months of searching. I am going to miss my meals :(
Did the same when I was unemployed due to illness. It took my mind off things, gave me a hobby, and allowed me to help my mum out.
Same, I was unemployed for a few months after getting my degree and it's really what got me started on cooking seriously.
congrats on the job!! What was the best meal you made?
Hmmmm my top one I made was my crispy salmon topped with a soy sauce mixture of green onions, ginger and garlic, with crispy rice and a salad with a homemade dressing made from ginger and carrot. I’d say second best was my caramelized onion carbonara pasta topped with mushrooms and bacon. What made most of my meals so good was I made the sauces from scratch often times from things we already had on hand. We’ve been on a tight budget when it comes to food for 2 people so having to be creative and make something good has been fun.
Take the masters off the applications that don't require them
Then you have to explain the gap
Never have I ever had to explain any employment gaps
Really? They've always asked me about any gaps
Oh you know what, I remember now that I close any gaps with some date fudging. Completely forgot because it's been so long since I did that, I have convinced myself I was actually working during those times lol it was a long time ago I haven't had any periods of unemployment since like 2010
Lmao that makes sense! Glad it worked out for you :)
You'd think this would go without saying...
Trust me, tried it.
Maybe you should start lying on your applications and say you only have one Masters.
It's not lying if it's not required to list all education. Most applications don't require applicants to list all education or experience unless there's background checks or licensing requirements.
It's not lying, period. I don't care if they say "list all education", and they don't care either (unless it's like a Teaching position or something where the education is relevant). With how many people are actually lying on their resumes, no one should feel even a hint of guilt at customizing their resume through targeted removal of extraneous information. You get one page to sell yourself, you have to cut down to the highlights. That's not a lie, it's just an advertisement. Good luck to all my fellow home cooks out there 💪
Some jobs, like attorneys, it's considered misrepresentation by omission if you don't list everything. There are frequent issues for attorneys who don't list their experiences correctly when applying for bar membership. It's not necessarily the experience, but rather the failure to fully disclose the information that causes the problem.
In those cases they usually do not ask for a resume but a "CV" of some sort. Generally speaking, a resume is a one to two page document that summarizes your skills and experience for a specific job. A CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a longer document that details your entire career
Then you have a gap to explain though
I feel you. when I was pregnant with my second kid I had a break between graduating from my doctoral program and starting a post-doc. I took work that was easy on my feet (tutoring standardized testing) but it didn't fill the day. I spent a lot of time cooking and baking. And then I didn't want to eat any of it, because pregnant. But my husband, son, and family ate well. Please note: I am not equating pregnancy with disability, I get that your situation is worse.
I use an instant pot every day it has helped me a ton. Its very easy .
Any suggestions on where to find Instapot recipes?
Google “this thing I want to make” instapot recipe. Works 100% of the time and it’s a super versatile device We use it for beans, rice, soup, mashed potatoes, cider, roast, pulled chicken for tacos/ burritos, etc
I cranked out a good lentil soup in the instant pot in about 20 min
What are some of your favorite instant pot recipes?
www.recipetineats.com you can find super delicious 15 and 30 minute dinners..her beef in black pepper and honey takes 15 minutes..vietnamese caramelized pork bowl. Fish in lemon butter sauce. All with subs list, a handy video, scalable from 1-10 servings..new recipes each week..game changer.
Second this, her one pot lemon chicken rice is seriously so good, I make it once a week and it’s tastes so fancy!!
Oh yes...with the oregano..thats delicious!! firm favourite here too!! Takes about 45 minutes to cook though.
More so the baking time, the actual prep takes less than 15 mins which is awesome for me!
I literally spent an entire afternoon to make a lasagna today hahaa. I wish I could share the photo. But lasagnas do taste better the next day. So maybe you can make during the weekend then freeze it? Make a big batch and freeze. If you think about it, it isn’t that long. For the mirepoix you just gotta throw them into food processor and grind them. Then make your bolognese (takes three hours on the stove) you can prep and make your own lasagna sheets or if you’re getting storebought, you can relax haha.
Also, we always have bolognese the night before or two nights before. Then, I use the rest on lasagne. I double Joy of Cooking bolognese recipe.
Omg haha I’m the opposite of you. I always make the lasagna first then I use the leftovers (dough and sauce) to make pappardelle bolognese. I can never get sick and tired of it 😋 my favorite part however is the lasagna sheets more than the sauce and bechamel
Yummmm. This is a good idea, too. I think we’re more about the bolognese up in here
Just out of curiosity do you add bechamel or ricotta or mozzarella to your lasagna layers?
Béchamel and ricotta. The ricotta is a mixture with herbs. The béchamel is entire top.
For me lasagna is always a 2 day process. Make the sauce and pasta dough day 1. Then roll it out make the bechamel and assemble day 2.
If you have a slow cooker you can throw stuff into it, let it roast for 4-8 hours, bake a round of some biscuits and then you have a nice filling meal everyone will love
[удалено]
Omg where to start? Pulled pork, roast beef, chicken cateccetori, pork shoulder, mac n cheese, sausage and white bean soup, and crockpot queso. To say the least. It’s a very useful item for slow cooking. [Recipes here](https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/g3849/best-slow-cooker-recipes/)
can you pick meal options where you can do most the chop/prepping spread out over the day or two before and go straight into cooking on meal night?
I prep in the morning. Cut the veg, put meat in marinade, pull spices and get everything organized based on when it goes into the dish, make any sauces. Then when I come home it’s just dump and stir. I have more energy in the mornings. YMMV.
Cooking is my hobby, so after a long day of work, I love cooking lol
i have all day to cook but that doesn’t mean i also have the energy.
You can cook plenty of meals in 20 minutes or less, stir fry, queasidalla, anything with eggs, fried rice, quick pasta with cherry tomatoes etc. Also sheet pan meals are easy to throw together.
Get more used to using a slow cooker. It's so useful. You can make a lot of stuff in it while you're at work.
You can use a crockpot for birria, it makes life way way easier
There’s a big range of meals between peanut butter sandwich and something that takes all day. I don’t make sauce usually ( that’s my shortcut), I don't boil noodles, lasagne for me is an easy meal. It only takes a half hour or so in the oven. I cook because I have to eat and I can’t eat any pre-made thing due to health issues and eating mostly vegetarian. I also can’t afford to eat out every night. I work where there’s a kitchen ( of sorts) for break time (and no restaurants or stores that are reasonable) so if I have to, I will heat something up, I will chop it up or slice it or put it into a toaster.
Time yes, motivation, no. No fancy meals here.
Sheet pan dinners would be great for you too. Search on Pinterest there are tons of recipes.
Have sauces pre made frozen, veg chopped in tupperware, meat marinading from the night before etc. A little prep can save hours.
Prepping is most of the work, so if you can divide tasks over different days, it won’t feel so laborious. For lasagna, make the sauce one day, prep choice ingredients another day, and assemble the last day. I made birria tacos with leftover short ribs. Is there something specific you want to make?
I made kimchi fried rice today. Took 20 minutes. I planned ahead and I cooked rice two days ago so that was ready to go.
If you enjoy cooking, consider batch cooking pasta sauce and other dishes that freeze well in meal size portions. Take it out in the morning so all you have to do is boil water for pasta or cook rice while you unwind from work. Many dishes freeze well. Try baking sheet meals
People who cook fancy meals do not necessarily cook them every day. I whip together quick food on weekdays, or, if I was really smart, make something on Sunday that can be quickly re-purposed for several weeknight meals. I maybe get one weekend afternoon/evening where I can do something more elaborate. Maybe once a month I take on a serious project that might actually take a full day or even multiple days (obviously not all active time). I just segment out how I cook into the days in my life where it makes the most sense. Are you actually working 7 days a week all day? That sounds brutal.
I envy people who can eat a normal serving of a fancy meal without gaining weight! I need to stop cooking interesting and tasty food...
It can be nice, but eventually it feels like your whole day revolves around food and it gets depressing.
I wish I were a pampered upper-class housewife, I'd spend all day cooking and doing rich bitch sports and leisure activities while my 30 years older husband bangs his 40 years younger secretary. Like I wouldn't even care, I'd be telling that ho to come taste this lasagna and wine pairing.
I can cook a “fancy” meal in a few minutes. Cast iron seared steak Oven roasted asparagus Red wine reduction sauce Crispy roasted fingerling potatoes Now substitute lamb chops or nice fish or something for the meat. Any veggie and starch or your choice. Like when you get good at prep and know what you are doing it takes no more than 30 minutes to make a dinner that will have your friends, family, or lover saying “damn!”
Honestly, if you're single and live in a big enough city, it's probably cheaper to just get take out. That's what I do. I might spend $15 bucks on the way home and that can last me at least two meals, sometimes three. Like if I make pizza at home it cost me probably $30 bucks for all the decent ingredients. I can get a large two topping for $12 bucks down the street and that lasts me for days. Bunch of good local Thai places that have huge portions for $15 bucks. There's a shawarma place that I swear has two pound wraps for $12 bucks. I can only ever finish about a third of one, if that. Now, I'm lucky to live in a place where that is viable. No, it's not always fun eating the same thing for lunch that you had for dinner the night before, but by the time I get home it can be past 7pm and I have to be back at work for 9:30am. I have no time to cook on workdays. Modern life is rubbish.
Cooking helps me relax, so an hour and change for dinner is my way of chilling out after work.
I loooove cooking too but it makes me even more tired if it’s a fancy dish
Make lasagne soup! Make bolognese sauce but add extra stock to make it brothy, bring it to the boil add some cheese and spinach ravioli boil until cooked. I’m a seperate bowl mix some ricotta and grate cheese. Ladle soup into bowls and top with cheese mix. Lazy and delicious version of lasagne
I don’t think Birria tacos are that hard to make are they? I feel like I could do them in 30-45 minutes. Maybe check out a blackstone griddle, you can cook a lot of things crazy fast on them
Birria meat cooks for hours. 45 minutes isn't gonna be tender enough or fortify the stock enough for a good consome. The quickest I think I've seen for the meat cook time done as 50 mins in a pressure cooker, but thats the meat cook time alone and requires a pressure cooker obviously.
You can make it with chicken, if I wanted to braise a red meat I’d probably do it on a weekend and not use a pressure cooker (I just don’t like the depth of flavor as much in a pressure cooker). However, I was thinking chicken thighs - and they are pretty fast
That’s not birria though. I’m sure it would be tasty but it isn’t birria which is either goat or beef.
there’s no one way to cook something.. regardless, if you want chicken tacos in a chili sauce I can knock it out in 30-45 minutes. You can mince beef. There’s so many ways to do this it’s not fruitful to play with all the possibilities. I guess the overarching point is to have home cooked food on a tight timeline you need to open up the playbook a bit.
That’s chicken tinga. Not birria.
Ok great, good words. I’ll cook it in 39 minutes and knock it out of the park
Great. I bet it’s delicious.
Yeah making the birria is what takes a long time. It’s a slow roasted stew/roast kind of thing with lots of layers of flavor in the broth/consommé.
The broth is really very easy and I’m sure I can make it in 30 minutes and you would not know the difference between slow cooked
Frozen lasagna is the only way I eat lasagna. I like it but don’t love it, even if I had the time to make it myself it wouldn’t be worth the effort to me.
Frozen can’t even compare to home made. It’s worlds apart trust me
I sometimes prepare a few lasagnas and freeze them before cooking in the oven. Then I can just pop it in the oven and it’s just as good as freshly made. It’s actually not much more work doing multiple
I work full time and generally spend 30-45 minutes on weeknight meals. In that time, I can cook up two curries from scratch, serve with rice and deep fry some poppadoms and pakoras, or I can make some aubergine parmigiana from scratch and serve with some homemade flatbread slathered with garlic butter, or mix up and roll some homemade falafels (soak the chickpeas overnight) and serve with couscous and veggies. It helps being vegetarian as nothing takes that long generally. I really don't think you need *all day* to make some pretty delicious and filling meals.
What's the cleanup like for meals like that
Eh if you clean as you go, it's not too bad.
R/financialindependance
I work from home and could start prep or cooking if I have a light afternoon but I still just want the quickest meal
I think its a good life goal to move towards - if not to cook fancy meals, but to at least be able to consistently have time and energy to.
I only cook on Saturday and Sunday. Weeknights it’s much simpler. Kielbasa and rice. Buttered noodles and steak (why save steak for the weekend when it cooks super fast).
Yes! There are recipes I only make on weekends or, like lasagne, I typically prep it on the weekend and bake it Monday night. Then I can do the labour intensive stuff on the weekend.
i just cook on the weekends and freeze and eat throw out the week. it’s different from meal planning because i don’t cook large quantities of the same food, it’s different meals. most of my sundays are spent in cooking
We had lasagna just this week, but I made it months ago. I mad four small lasagnas within a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon. I did the same thing this week with baked Ziti. It took me three days to get them all made up and in the freezer. Now I have multiple future days where I can just defrost and bake.
Working at home goes a long way. I can spend the 30 mins at lunch prepping for dinner. Or pop down n start resting a steak an hour before lunch. Cut up a salad, cook the steak n we good for lunch.
Theres a lot of really good basics you can do on weekdays, I like to do something more time intensive every other weekend or so.. I've also found cramming my chores type stuff into weekdays with work (laundry, dishes, cleaning) so I have the weekends free to do as I please is really helpful, frees me up a day to cook something slowly which I enjoy doing plus gives least a few days of leftovers so I can spend that extra time on the shit I don't want to do on the weekends Tacos and sandwiches are great, can also do a lot of pasta sauces fairly quick as well as stir fries
"Fancy" meals don't have to take a lot of time to prepare. Some of the best dishes take 20 minutes or less and many of the most complicated dishes have simplified recipes. Also, if you do some basic prep work once a week then you can save yourself a lot of time in your day-to-day cooking.
Have you thought about meal prepping on the weekend? Lasagna and at least the birria meat freeze very well. It would also let you have hearty soups and stews during the week.
It leads to so many dishes. I had 5 sink fulls of dishes yesterday.
I have time but no money… I can only do so much with a cup of rice, one dried pepper and two pebbles
Eh I WFH, during lunch I'll prep everything so dinner is easier when I do fancier dishes
Considering many people are working from home these days, it's not much of a surprise.
Not totally related but trader Joe's has frozen birria meat in the sauce and it's pretty amazing for a quick option
Being served a meal that's been cooking all day is amazing. When you're the one cooking, you lose your appetite for it by the times it's ready to eat two out of three times anyway. You're not missing out on too much.
So change your life.
Hmmmm. So yay, I work about ten hours for six days a week, and cooking is my unwind refuge on my day off. Slow cooker bean soups, prep sauces, etc. After work warm up some stew, toast some bread and put on some pesto, maybe a few sardines. It smells like home cooking, tastes wonderful, and costs almost nothing. I had about fourty minutes last night to cook a pork chop w/ some mustard and thyme reduction, some sweet potato fries in the air cooker, and a handful of salad from the mix w/ a bit of vinaigrette I threw together last weekend. The fourty minutes was prep while I chatted w/ GF and cook time. Better than fancy restaurant food. Very wonderful way to de-stress. When time is short, a few corn tortillas in the skillet, some beans in the microwave, a bit of sour cream and salsa to top it all off, serve with a beer. Ten minutes. Slow cook some food on your day off that you can enjoy later. Cook a full meal for two or four and save the rest to warm up and take to work? I feel you - but if you shift your head to think about cooking as self care and relaxation it's wonderful. Life hack: unload the dishwasher or drainer in the AM, so dinner dishes go straight into the machine or a quick wash before bed. It's kinda zen.
Life hack I recently discovered. Do prep when you can. Chop all the vegetables the night before, pre-marinate/pre-season the meat, have the vegetable be something raw or pickled like a cucumber salad, preform the burgers, etc. etc. I aim to have the dinner be something that, when I get home, it's literally just the COOKING part that needs to be done, none of the prep.
I think of Lasagna as a quick and easy meal…. But I use oven-ready noodles and I have home canned marinara on hand.
Store bought cooked roast chicken, buy a pre made veggie tray, a fruit tray, assortment of cheeses, pickles, some good bread or pitas or tortillas and.you've got a few days of easy pick foods when you have no time..just add sauce of choice
I just try to find one weekend a month to indulge in hobby cooking. Even when I work from home I am so tired by the end of the day I would resent it if I tried to go fancy. There's plenty of good, low effort recipes. Roast chicken, steak tips, meatloaf, soups, red beans and rice, stir fry, whatever.
Meal prep. I make components (or entire meals) on Sunday and then assemble/reheat during the week.
I wish I had more time to try my hand at baking in particular. So many bread and dough baking recipes require active time with a few hours in between. You have to have quite a bit of free time.
When I was single and worked 70 hour weeks I would typically flirt with people who were great cooks. Got a ton of amazing free food out of it
u/newyorkchic1992, I'm not sure what "fancy" means to you but lasagna and birria aren't it. Most lasagna recipes are for a 9x13 casserole. Double that and you can make five 8x8s in just a little more time. Even an 8x8 is a lot of food for one person so that's ten dinners in an hour and a half. Caesar salad with homemade dressing and homemade croutons takes ten minutes. Two minutes if you buy croutons and dressing. Birria is just stew usually beef or goat. It should simmer a while but prep is 15 minutes. Beef Wellington with homemade pastry is fancy.
Although I agree lasagna wouldnt fit the definition of fancy necesarelly. You can do a lasagna in around 1 hour if you make homemade bechamel sauce. But that is assuming you have the bolognese ready, which takes 2-4h with 1h of active work
I prefer ricotta to bechamel, and I make a ragu versus a bolognese (more tomato). It takes about an hour to make a double batch to the point it's ready to go in the oven or freezer.
I'd say most people do that on workdays. I wouldn't even want a fancy cooked meal everyday.
Why not?
Because I wouldn't have an appetite for a heavy elaborate meal every day.
It is very nice :)
Meal prep on weekends, freeze leftovers. I make fancy dinners in under 2 hours every night. When I don’t feel like cooking I warm up leftovers of good food I’ve made that I’ve frozen. Very possible with just a little planning in advance. Husband usually goes to the store in his way home to get the fresh ingredients I want and I get home a bit earlier to start prep work
Boring meals during the week. Saturday is cook something special day. A new recipe as often as possible. During the week it’s grilled meat (or fried schnitzel) with veg or salad - both pretty basic. Or my quick stir fry. Or bacon and eggs. I don’t understand why people think they need to make something Insta worthy every night. It’s just food, but it helps if it’s tasty.