Corn chips and beer

- someone mentioned carbonara, ++ - sardine broccoli pasta - fried rice, if I have leftover rice - omelet - lentil stew (simmered about 25min)

Sardine broccoli pasta sounds interesting (even though I'm veggie these days) - my wife often has a can of chopped clams on her pasta when I'm doing canned tomato sauce, and broccoli would be an easy add-on.

definitely in the "ugly delicious" category but fairly low effort and cosy as heck

you could swap out the sardines for more greens (I've added asparagus and peas, and basically never felt like it has too much veg), too

I occasionally use capers as a substitute for fish-based umami in pasta dishes; it's a good start.

oh yeah that's a great idea

Frozen hand pies. You can make a dozen or 2 at time, about an hour. They take about 15 min to warm up. Egg wrap/sandwich or omelette with left overs or whatever is laying about. 5-10min stir fry with rice/noodles. frozen veg+what ever. soy sauce, fish sauce, ginger powder + what ever sounds good.

that looks rather tasty!

Is this potato soup?

Corn chowder, but basically

Bowl of cereal.... and maybe a soft pretzel.

Frozen breaded fish, with a side of microwaved rice packs. Takes a bit of time to bake, but so. easy.

- Chicken and rice - Salmon and green beans - If I'm super tired a Greek yogurt bowl with extra protein powder and some fruit

I love salmon - it's so fast and tasty

I never salt it - EVOO on the bottom of the pan, cloves of garlic with the skin on to its side, season the top with black pepper, pretty generous with dried dill, and then slices of lemon on the top to generally cover it; low-medium until it's cooked to taste. It works 👍🤠

Leftovers! :-) If you mean quick in terms of work time, rather than soonest-to-eating, either pasta with canned sauce or rice with canned refried beans or frozen saag paneer. Stir-fried veggies if you don't mind chopping, optionally with tofu or frozen shrimp, or made into Thai coconut curry/soup.

Also a rice cooker is a big brains-vs-results win. I can cook perfectly good rice in a saucepan, probably a shade better than a rice cooker, but "dump stuff in the rice cooker, press Start, and ignore it" increased my rice consumption a good bit.

Homemade pasta sauce takes 5-10 minutes more work, ideally an extra hour of cooking time.

We got a vegetable chopper for Christmas a year ago and it makes meal prep so much faster - I'm so slow at cutting 😅

I toss brown rice and frozen veg and a can of chickpeas or lentils into the rice cooker

This sounds like a good hack. Do you just set it up as if you were just cooking rice normally? And the veg steams/boils inside?

Yes, I just use the regular brown rice cycle. Sometimes I'll use broth instead of water, if I have any.

It was great! Chucked in some spices and my daughter yummed it up. Going into the weekly rotation. Thank you!

Glad to hear it was a success!

Gonna try this tomorrow. Thank you!

Spaghetti Carbonara

Mmm I went through a phase where I made that a lot

Same! Also when I was 18 and just left home I used to eat fusilli pasta, wafer thin ham and Italian salad dressing for breakfast, lunch and dinner so I could spend the rest of my money on cigarettes, booze and records. Not sensible or recommended, but I really love pasta haha!

cold cereal over the sink

Pasta alla puttanesca. Start boiling the water, and saute some anchovies with red pepper flakes in olive oil and butter on low. When the pasta has about 5 minutes left, add a bunch of cloves of crushed garlic. Drain the pasta and mix in the pan. Rotini is a good pasta for it.

You have to be careful so there's enough anchovies but not too salty, but when when it's just right it's soooo good.

Tacos or omelettes.

Do you like al.pastor tacos?

Chickpea burrito bowls!

I've been trying to cook more with chickpeas recently - we do a couscous bowl with them and roasted vegetables