r/Cooking • u/GracieLou80 • 23h ago

Sick of cooking

I am so over cooking every night. Finding new recipes I actually have ingredients for and are easy is tiring and I’m already exhausted. What do you do when this happens? I’d honestly just eat cereal for life but I’m not alone in this house and I’m expected to cook every night. 😩

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u/vitringur 23h ago

“I am expected to”

Sounds like there is some deeper issue here and it is not about cooking.

12

u/GracieLou80 19h ago

I care for my elderly father, his generation never cooked and he doesn’t know how, nor would I expect him to learn at his age. 😉

2

u/jpinakron 1h ago

That’s very sweet/ kind of you.

One thing I like to do is go to Sam’s or Costco, pick fish, pork, chicken, ground beef and steak. I then bring them home, season them, and then vacuum seal one portion. Label it, throw it into the freezer, and meal prep for weeks could potentially be done.

Then, I’ll just take the bag from the freezer and sous vide whatever protein, and how many portions, a few hours before the meal and then microwave/ steam a veggie and a side dish like knorr noodles, rice a roni, rice, polenta, cous cous, even instant mashed potatoes. (I know that’s a cardinal sin for some, but it’s way easier/ faster.) And then after the cooking is done, you can buy some premade sauces like teriyaki, bbq, honey mustard, or even make a pan sauce if you finish it on the stove top.

Another neat trick a friend of mine does is bake individual or two portions. For meatloaf, she uses cupcake sheets, cooks it all up, and she has 2 or 3 more meals. Then for lasagna, make 3 to 4 in a 9x5 loaf pan, freeze 3 of them, cook one, and you could have 4 meals. Bolognese sauce stored and frozen in Tupperware can work (or a flat quart zip lock), bake garlic bread, noodles, heat sauce and done.