Easy cooking tricks?

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I've been having a lot of trouble 'getting it together' lately because I'm so overloaded with life events. Unfortunately, I still have to cook for my family every night. This is proving to be next to impossible for me, and we've been eating boxed junk constantly.

I have learned a couple of tricks to make it more manageable though:

- You can purchase pre-chopped fresh stir fry veggies
- You can also purchase pre-prepped marinaded meats
- Rotisserie chickens are relatively affordable and pre-cooked
- You can just plop meat in a pan (or on the grill), cook it, and dump barbecue sauce or whatever on it when eating
- Bagged salad's aren't terrible and you can just dump them on your plate and be done

Has anyone else come up with any reasonable cooking tricks for those times when you literally can't find it in yourself to do more than dump food in a pan?

It would be a great help, thanks!

Most of my dinner foods are vegetables thats frozen put in a plastic container made for microwave then it takes like 10min on 800w, its made so all the water is in the button so the vegetables isnt all suggy and wet.

Chicken filets again frozen, just out of the freezer into the oven with some barbecue spice on, i put that into the oven hotair 175c 20min, then turn it around, put the veggies into the microwave for the 10min, and then both meat and vegetables are done.

Healthy easy and quite good. ofcourse sometimes i buy some of that meat that already has spice on it, thats just as easy as well.

personally ive never been a big fan of fastfood, so i had to come up with something else, also because i really dont want to end up fat. It seems as you get older, its a lot easier to put on weight, atleast for me :S

Frozen veggies. They are actually fresher than fresh veggies, because the "fresh" ones (unless they're local) have been transported and started to age while the frozen ones stay perfect until you unfreeze them. You can dump them in whatever and cook them up quickly, and they're always pre-cut. Plus they last basically forever in the freezer, so you can buy loads and stock up, and save shopping time as well. There are mixes for stir-frying, soups, and just about everything else, or you can just buy bags of one particular vegetable or another.

It sounds like you have some good ideas already, but I'm surprised you haven't mentioned cooking multiple days' meals and storing/freezing them. My mother often cooks very large batches of things like curry, stews and soups and so on, serves some of it then freezes the rest. It's not very much more effort to make a large batch of something than a small one, and then all you have to do the next time you don't feel like cooking the next day is remember to get some of the food out of the freezer and thaw it. It still tastes just as good.

Would your family object to the same dinner more than one day in a row? If not, then you can also do this with less freezable food too (make two days' meals at a time).

I also suggest making a meal plan for the week if you don't already. This means you don't have to worry or stress out about what you're going to cook each day and also means you can do everything in one shopping trip and not have to keep going to the shops for something you forgot.

I'm really glad I only have to cook for myself. I tend to make simple meals like omelettes and salads, but with more substantial meals I still do the trick of making several days' meals at the same time to make it easier for myself. I'm not much of a natural cook.

Canned beans + veggies and salsa on tortillas = burritos.
Add canned beans, corn, salsa, tortilla chips, etc. to salad to make a Mexican salad type thing.
Dump whatever you want (dry beans, rice, raw veggies, etc.) and water in a crock pot, turn it on low. You can leave it for hours and it will not be burned, and ready by dinnertime.

Would couscous, instant rice, or noodles from an Asian grocery be too much work? Couscous cooks in 5 minutes after you pour boiling water over it and cover.

Buy a steamer, the cheap ones work just as well as most expensive ones. Steam up some vegetables it doesn't take long and all you have to do is wait until they are done.
To make a quick healthy salad, steam up some raw greens for the time they require, and toss with a dressing/vinaigrette.

You can make a really quick 10 minute brocolli and chicken dish with a steamer and a pan over the stove. You could also add instant rice to the meal. .

I dump food in a pan.

Seriously most of what I make for myself is a meat and veggies stir fry with seasoning. Maybe a dab of hot sauce.

Also like to make salads.

If you got the executive function to like, do things in advance, try a crockpot. Cook, say, a chicken or a roast or something overnight and tada. Or chili or soup, whatever. Throw it all in the night before or in the morning (Depending on temp, recipe/etc) and then by dinner it's done.

- Rice cooker! Cooks rice for you.
- George Foreman grill. Cooks meat for you. Easier than a pan for burger patties and chicken breasts.
- Cook with left-overs in mind - you're cooking anyway, so make enough for a few meals.
- Cook lots of rice when you use a rice cooker. Put it in the fridge to use for the next 2 days.
- Left-over rice + egg + sauce mixed in a pan = fried rice.
- Left-over rice + sprinkle of water + microwave = nice reheated rice.
- Nice reheated rice + fried egg + sweet soy sauce (ABC sauce) or oyster sauce = lazy person's fried rice.

My go to meal is a stir-fry:

Throw precut meat in a pan until cooked on the outside. Throw in defrosted frozen veges and sauce. Cook until meat cooked. Dish up rice with meat, veges and sauce on top.

If you change up the meat, veges, sauce and sometimes change the rice for pasta, you can have a huge variety of meals made using virtually the same technique. It's quick and easy and scales nicely in quantity and quality.

A similar meal that I was shown by a chef friend that is simple and great for feeding about 6 people:

Take a big pan and fry 1kg of mince. Add a jar of sauce (like Dolmio pasta sauce), lots of veges (bag of spinach, 3 tomatoes, 2 capsicums (peppers), 1 onion is a good example) and simmer until the sauce thickens. Serve on rice.

You can use other ingredients to suit your tastes (tofu, beans, spices). Halving this recipe is good for 1 person for 3 meals (freeze left-overs if you like).

One tin of brown lentils, 2x250g frozen spinach (defrosted in microwave), 1 small tub cottage cheese, 1 small tub ricotta cheese and you have a great lasagne mixture. Layer with lasagne sheets and a jar of pasta sauce, top with cheese and bake for half an hour - voila, eat with garlic bread - kids love it and it takes no time at all and is healthy and cheap (and makes enough for two days for a family of four).

Also, I buy pre-chopped vegetable soup mix, combine with good vegie stock, a tin of four bean mix, some lentils and tin of chopped tomatoes and some herbs and spices - really tasty.

I like cooking chow meins as they only take about 15 minutes to make and you can include 2 or 3 portions of veg in them.

These are some really helpful and awesome tips! Thanks!

A rice cooker is a great thing to have. Dump in rice, dump in water, wait 1 hour and presto! My rice cooker has a little steamer basket that I can just throw frozen un-thawed chicken breast into and it cooks it while it does the rice. You can also throw in vegetables, etc, and they get steamed. I'm pretty sure you could also use it as a slow cooker / crock pot.

I'll second the suggestion above regarding cooking extra rice, and using it to make fried rice later in the week. Fry it up, add a ton of eggs, package of frozen veggies and you're good to go.

My solution is to wait for my wife to do it!

Seriously though, I pretty much have to stick to meals that have just one main component or else I get in a flap in an annoyingly predictable way.

To help speed things along, our university cut the meat and what not into smaller chunks to cook faster. Also putting water in a skillet and cooking meat and veggies is not only quicker, it also keeps the meat from drying out and prevents the brown marks that result from food touching the bottom of the skillet from forming.

Stay away from dense or curly dry pasta. It can take up to 17 minutes to render al-dente. Hollow or thin noodles and rice cook faster (about 8 minutes).

Cook enough for leftovers for 2-3 days. This way food isn't wasted by spoilage and you only have to cook every 2-3 days.

Salads, fruit and yogurt are great as well, since they require no cooking and aren't necessarily "junk food."

Wraps are fast-food that can be healthy as well. Flour tortillas can be microwaved for not even a minute or lightly toasted on a George Foreman-style grill or panini grill. The contents can include pre-cooked sliced meats (either from the company or meat you cooked the previous night), vegetables, rice, refried beans and/or fruit.