That's why I get take-outs, don't have to do the dishes.
Also, can we take a moment to talk about how great the performance of whomever that woman in the meme is? Looks like an Oscar worthy performance to me.
But the whole point of the story is that choosing to be human in the real world, instead of being an everlasting symbol in a fantasy world, is to accept everything that comes with being human in life: dying, doing dishes, but more importantly, the ability to choose your own path in your story.
Making a meal falls into three parts: prep, cook, and clean. I used to hate the 'boring, standing on my aching feet' prep bit, so I'd try to fit the prep into the little gaps in cooking. Of course, 8 couldn't do it and I had to keep adjusting things - taking something off heat/down heat, whatever - to finish the prep for the next stage. The constant adjustments made the food not as good, the cooking unnecessarily stressful, and left me exhausted with a sink full of dishes at the end.
Nowadays, I sit in front of the tv. I do my prep there, all the peeling and chopping and slicing and dicing. When I cook, everything is ready for me to add to the dish, so the food tastes better and cooking itself is much less stressful. And I use the little bits of spare time during cooking to rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. When I'm done cooking, I only have the last handful of things to put in the dishwasher, plus whatever plates from the meal itself.
My life is much easier, all because I now watch TV.
Ah. So, I get a farm share every week. 'Planning' is looking at the list of what I'm getting and figuring out what I can make from it - although I've been doing this long enough that I actually have a selection of recipes that I re-use year to year, so I spend more time digging the recipe out then I do actually 'planning'.
The weekly shopping is usually about 5 'missing' ingredients that I need for my chosen dishes, plus whatever staples I've run out of. I usually go shortly before the store closes for the night, and it takes about 15 minutes.
Search for CSAs near you. A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Usually a farmer has to borrow money from the bank at the start of the season to buy seeds, service the machines, hire the hands, etc, and hope to have a good enough crop to pay back at the end of the year. In a CSA, the farmer figures out his much they need to make all that happen, plus insurance, living expenses, some money for improvements and retirement, etc, etc. They figure out how much did they think they'll produce that year and how many people it would feed, then sell the shares at a price that brings in the money they need to keep the farm running: they're no longer dependent on the bank.
They're also no longer dependent on the big agriculture practice of having your crops harvested early, sent to a middleman for sorting and packaging, sent to a distributor, sent to a warehouse, before finally sitting in the back of a grocery store before it gets put out, where the under-ripe produce is sold to you and you have like a week to eat it before it goes bad.
Instead the produce is brought in the day before distribution, so it's at or close to the peak of ripeness and has more flavor. Since it's not spending time traveling between middlemen, it lasts longer in your fridge. Since it's not being bounced around lots of places, you get access to a wider range of things than normally show up: my CSA plants several types of regular tomatoes, but also a bunch of heirloom tomatoes as well. We get regular basil, yes, but also twelve other types of basil - lemon, Thai, red rubin, lime, holy, etc. My CSA also grows some fruit: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, figs, watermelon, paw-paws and pumpkins.
Each week, I get a large box of pre-picked food, plus I can pick some more in the fields if I want. Thursday night, I sit in front of the tv and cut everything up, Friday I go grocery shopping, Saturday I cook 2-3 large meals then stick half the servings in the fridge and the other half in the freezer. Odds and ends will get tossed into a salad for the week; larger amounts may get frozen, or pickled or canned or dried for later on. I get enough each year that I can eat most of my meals from farm produce, and it's all made specifically to my taste and without a ton of chemicals in it.
I should note that I also assume some risk with my share: if it's a great harvest year, I'll get extra, but if it's a bad harvest -- well, prices would've increased at the store as well, so I figure it works out. I think mine was like $700 for a full share for 26 weeks which, like I said, it feeds me for an entire year, so the rest of my weekly grocery budget is like $20-25 (and I could get by on a lot less if I needed to). That said, I get an awful lot of food for the money - you can usually sign up for smaller/partial shares (or split it with a friend), and some places have shares available on an alternate-week schedule or let you choose which weeks you want to get it (which is useful for avoiding lettuce month, lol).
Some places will deliver to your door, some you pick up at various drop-off locations or farmers markets, some you have to pick up at the farm - when you look into it, don't just look at the farm location, look into where you can get your food from, which may be closer to you. Oh, and some include or have add-ons for other things like honey or eggs. And there are also CSA's for things beyond veggies: there are CSAs for meat, dairy, grains, mushrooms, etc.
Anyway - search for CSAs near you, check them out for drop-off/delivery options even if the farm isn't in your immediate area, and see what turns up!
+1 for farm shares, except they’ve mostly closed and sold off their land to developers in my neck of the woods. Getting into the remaining ones has proved difficult.
Also we have a nutty growing season that means it’s mostly root veggies for 8months of the year.
We still want to support local ag, but it ain’t easy in a cold state with aging population.
I can see where that's gonna be hard. You might try local harvest.org , though that's less helpful than it used to be - I think something happened during the pandemic and they stopped double-checking the listings were still good each year, but it's the last site I had for finding good CSAs.
Honestly, meal kits are clutch for this since they provide everything and the most effort needed by me is putting them away. 2 nights a week it makes my job of figuring out what to eat and how to make it a lot easier.
The cheapest meal kits are only slightly more expensive than the equivalent grocery store order. However, you will be limited in options for price points on the items. For instance, if the meal kit only uses products with labels that don't really mean a whole lot, but are charged a premium for, you often don't have the option to select the less expensive option. So someone who is a little adept at getting the most for their money from a grocery store will end up with a significantly better price. This is all before you consider that these services, as a whole industry, are plagued with late deliveries, spoiled food, incorrect ingredients, and damaged goods (though this one is more on the side of the delivery service).
So you will be limiting yourself in these ways for the trade-off of not having to go out and shop, and shopping by selecting meals, rather than ingredients. However, grocery stores, at least in even semi-urban areas, are already likely to delivery grocery orders, eliminating the the expense, and time, of brick and mortar shopping.
I used to feel this way about cooking. I started trying to find joy in the repetitive parts of life, so they didn't seem so annoying. It's definitely a journey, but if you keep at it, you get to a point where cooking feels like a creative outlet. Once you have enough experience to create something new from your pantry and quit following recipes verbatim you'll have fun. It took me a few years to get there, but you're going to have to cook your entire life anyway, might as well get something out of it.
We absolutely hit a specific age where the annoying parts of life, like cleaning and tidying, suddenly become one of the most satisfying parts of life.
Do you have a tip for enjoying scrubbing the shower, the toilet, and behind the toilet? Everything else is ok, but I hate those. As a result, I try to keep them as clean as possible in day to day use (squeegee the shower after every use, use toilet cleaner, etc) but I still have to dedicate time to cleaning them occasionally and tbh I'm considering paying someone else to do it.
Yeah, honestly. It's a crap meme. Maybe it feels like 2 hours because its boring for you. If you cook for 2 hours likely one part of it is putting something into the oven for 1 1/2 hours.
I make chicken pot pie weekly. Mirepoix, peel dice potatoes, constantly stir so roux doesn't clump. It's 90 minutes of non stop cooking and 30 minutes of oven.
No but you commented that they were cooking for too long with no idea of what was being cooked.
I have an example of what needs a longer cooking time.
The ridiculousness comes from you commenting without having any idea what OP was cooking and not providing advice of things that can be cooked quickly.
OP just said cooking, not cooking (x). I am also no one's mother and thus reserve the right to make comments without fixing one's entirely life for them.
What are you cooking that takes 2 hours every day? I cook most of my own meals and i don’t often go over an hour of cooking and most of that is just waiting.
Even if it does take 2 hours start to finish, I have to imagine there's at least SOME part of the recipe that involves waiting for something to cook. That's dishwashing time right there.
Clean the dishes while waiting for your food to cook and then leave the remaining dishes you didn't clean because you were still using them until the next dish run.
Yep. This is how I do it for even when I'm cooking for large gatherings. Yea it can get hectic but you're not going to be drowning in dishes at the end of the night.
I always cook as much of whatever I'm making as I can, then put it in containers in the fridge or freezer (depending on the dish and how much).
And I have some base recipes that I cook that are easy to quickly make other things with. One thing I've done for almost two decades now is make a basic kinda "half-bolognese" (can't think of a better English description right now). Just onion, garlic, meat (or in my case vegan alternative), salt, pepper and some stock of your choice.
Then freeze that divided into a couple of portions per bag or container. Very easy to use for a lot of recipes.
I also buy bags of dried beans (way cheaper than undried or pre-soaked) and soak those then freeze them like above, same thing there with being good bases for many things.
One of my current favourite recipe that's quick, cheap and filling without any of the above prep is falafel in tomato sauce. A local brand here in Sweden makes almost weirdly nice falafel that's $5 for 800g (28oz), which is like 50 falafel balls.
I put the falafel in my air-fryer (oven or frying pan works just as well) and while those cook I sauté some onion and garlic in olive oil then add spices (the current version I love is with some smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, thyme, black pepper, lots of turmeric, a bit of soy sauce, a stock cube and either MSG or other umami base). Then add the falafel once done and crushed tomatoes and let cook for a few minutes. Works great with rice, pasta, potatoes in whatever variation you like, couscous, and my current fav which is coarse bulgur with vermicelli (roasted noodles). I wouldn't have guessed it before trying but the falafel is so good in the sauce!
Even better is finding someone to cook with and make 30 portions instead. It goes faster, is more fun, and when you're making that much food doubling the amount doesn't appreciably increase the work.
If it's the pre-cut freezer kind, roast them in the oven with a bit of oil a 170-200c. When they're done, switch the fan on to crisp them up for a bit. Way less oil, only one sheet pan to clean, and you can cook single batches. Bonus, you don't have to constantly watch them. Just check on them every 5 min after about 30 min. No oil bath to worry about either.
As someone who has been cooking for himself for a long time, cook large amounts and refrigerate each serving in separate microwavable containers for later.
I also try to make things that can all go onto a single plate to create less cleanup.
Also, make more one pot meals. And make big batches so you have leftovers for days. If you are spending more than 15 minutes actively preparing a meal, you can and should probably be lazier.
I cook and clean for an entire family inside of 40-50 minutes 5 nights a week. All of that is mostly "from scratch" and delicious. At some point it becomes a skill issue.
I had this whole comment typed up but I genuinely don't know where to start because I don't have this problem. If you do, and you want some help, let me know and we can work something out together.
Eat slower than 10 minutes. My God have some company over. If you're spending 2 hours cooking there's no way doubling the recipe takes much longer.
Make the company or your significant other do the dishes. If you're in a situation where you're cooking for two hours then doing the dishes yourself, something is wrong.
Don't be like that. It's just that if you work that hard on food, have someone else enjoy it enough to want to do the dishes each time. And always have a dishwasher (the appliance), so it's easy.
I mean... just yesterday I slow cooked something for 8 hours and ate in 30 minutes with some left over. That doesn't mean I have to treat it all as "cooking time".
If I am cooking something more labor intensive then I may just simultaneously cook something else for the week/meal prep/clean used dishes in the gaps in time.
Still It does feel like that sometimes. The only other thing you can really do is cook enough portions for a few meals so that you can reheat for later meals.
So you basically stick to 30 minute meals or under and there's nothing wrong with that since they do typically take less skill to prepare. There are plenty of recipes that take 2 hours or longer to make.
Ya so baked potatoes? Just chuck them in the oven for an hour straight on the rack. You literally don’t have to do anything other than wash the potatoes and pierce them. Fucking easy.
If that’s just too much for someone to handle then I really don’t know what to tell you.
It doesnt really save anytime in my experience. You can’t just throw stuff in there covered in food or it will just dry up and cement itself to the dishes/silverware in the day or two until it’s next time to run a cycle. I guess if you have a family and are running it every night, it might let you skip the initial rinse off but idk.
It took me years of living on my own to learn my parents were doing it wrong:
The dishwasher doesn't need to be full to run it. You can chuck everything in after a meal and start it immediately.
Detergent and water are cheap, and even if it's only a few dishes the machine uses less water than doing them by hand. Also, use liquid or powder detergent and make sure to fill the pre-wash detergent holder -- detergent pods are a rip off.
I have a family and we make a LOT of dirty dishes. The real value is that I don't have to wash them all by hand, even if it takes a couple hours who cares at least I ain't doing it
When I cook, I am extremely strategic about what I use, and clean as I go. The dishwasher wouldn't really save me any time based on how I operate in the kitchen.
When my wife cooks, it appears to be her goal to use every fucking dish and utensil we own in the process.
But I don't care. Hell, I'm proud of how successful she is at reaching this apparent goal... because MOST of it can go right in the dishwasher. Now I don't even bother to ask how we have 10 greasy teaspoons after she made chicken.
Mine does a fine job washing off crusty dishes. Mainly need to make sure the temperature is high enough, 50 or ideally 60°C. Also helps against grease build-up in the internals which will make it last longer.
Or maybe your dishwasher just went so hard on the water saving it no longer does its job, which is a real issue sadly
Use normal powder detergent so you can fill the pre wash and run the kitchen sink hot before you start the dishwasher so that the water starts hot. For me it gets even the dishes with dry cement clean most of the time.
The dishwashers I've seen don't use the common hot water. They only have a cold water hose and heat the water themselves, so running the hot water doesn't really do anything.
I’ll have to try that hot water trick! I do use powder detergent, and someone else told me recently that I guess you’re supposed to fill not only the closable compartment thing with it, but also the little open depression/pit if you want to clean stuff better. Is that true?
I usually fill it up before running it. With just two of us, it can take a few days to fill it up. It would be silly to run it with like 2 plates, 2 forks and a cup or two.
And that's where the dishwasher comes in. Toss things in the sink as you go and no longer need them, eat, load the dishwasher with the sink things + the final dishes to wash, wipe things down and done.
I've found that if you empty it immediately and then put the dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher it's a lot easier to clean up and gets them out of the way.
They make small countertop versions if that's an option for you. Many are designed specifically for small apartments so they have non-permanent connections and stuff, mostly using your existing sinks faucet and drain
I've looked into those a little but they seem to be priced similar to larger models. And with the smaller size it won't fit pots, oven dishes etc anyway. Just my plates and some cutlery which is the easiest part, especially as I live alone.
There exist another simplification then. A lot of meals can be cooked once and freezed after. It could be stored for months and warmed in a microwave in 6 minutes. However some products like potatoes should be mashed as otherwise it looses taste
This meme is occasionally true in our house, once you factor in prep time. My wife definitely makes this complaint once we’ve finished eating in 10 minutes.
If you're spending that long cooking, then you're using your time poorly.
Meal prep doesn't have to be like making 20 of the same meal and freezing them, instead, meal prep is supposed to cut corners and make cooking more efficient.
Say, for example, I'm making a sweet potato chickpea curry. I need half a cup of sweet potato. I'm not going to peel and dice half a sweet potato. I'm going to peel 3 sweet potatos, dice half, cube the other half, refridgerate half my diced, blanch and freeze half my cubes, and roast the other half of the cubes in the oven in olive oil and put them in the fridge. Then make my curry with the rest of the dice. Now I have some roasted sweet potato to put into a salad tomorrow (along with some leftover chickpeas), cubes for the next time I do a roast, diced for next time I do a curry or pizza (sweet potato and mushroom pizza slaps) and any leftovers or scraps can be frozen and go in a soup.
Then later, I'm not going to cook 1/2 a cup of brown rice, I'm going to cok 2 cups, set aside 1/3rd in the fridge for a stir fry later in the week, freeze 1/3rd of the cooked rice to heat up some other time later in the microwave and use the remaining 1/3rd in my curry. These two steps alone might cost me an extra 30 minutes today, but they are going to save me hours later in the weeks to come. And I can still freeze half of my curry to defrost and eat later.
it's absolutely wild to me how some people cook, if i cook something for 2 hours i'm going to end up with like 50 fucking portions that taste really good.
A normal meal should take like 30 minutes if you're feeling fancy, and oftentimes way less than that.
Just fuckin boil some pasta, fry some protein, and make some sauce..
Takes around 30 minutes to get through the preparation of the dish, then another 2 to 4 hours to be thouroughly cooked.
I can understand and respect if someone does not enjoy cooking and all their patience to do it is exhausted in basic, comforting meals, but you can and should enjoy meals that demand a little more time to make in order to indulge in something, even if only a little, beyond basics.
The dish I mention is perfect for lazy people: except for the first thirty minutes, the remaining time is just check if there is enough liquid in the pot and add more if necessary. And it is even better if allowed to cool overnight.
Beef Wellington gang chiming in. Took me like 2 hours to get the tiny mushrooms right and flambé my green peppercorns for my sauce. But deffo a special occasion dish not a midweek meal.
Don't even get me started. Cooking is my love language. I'll work from 9-5, the start cooking at 5:30 to have dinner on at 7:30 for my family.
It's fun and enjoyable. It's a form of meditation. I like to drink while I do it. Its a way to practice skill mastery outside of my normal job. I'm a foodie myself who can't quite afford to eat at Michelin star restaurants every night but appreciate that level of cuisine.
I'm mastering the French sauces, the Asian stir fries, the curries, American BBQ. I'm my biggest critic and my greatest benefactor. Nothing reminds me that life is good quite like setting down a meal that I'm pretty sure could get a Michelin star to my family and enjoying it together.
That's why I get take-outs, don't have to do the dishes.
Also, can we take a moment to talk about how great the performance of whomever that woman in the meme is? Looks like an Oscar worthy performance to me.
Lmao I was about it comment about who this was but then I saw your name.
Margot, I think of you every time I think of Wolf of Wall Street. Kisses!
Just don't think about dying and all the dishes get cleaned and put away in your dream house magically somehow.
But the whole point of the story is that choosing to be human in the real world, instead of being an everlasting symbol in a fantasy world, is to accept everything that comes with being human in life: dying, doing dishes, but more importantly, the ability to choose your own path in your story.
Inspiring, thank you esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress and producer Margot Robbie. Very wholesome.
Are you saying that Barbie is the metaphorical equivalent of Arwen, the mortal Elven Queen of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor?
This. Sometimes it's even cheaper than making a meal at home depending on what you get.
Everyone is focused on the cooking time and not the punchline, which is still needing to do the dishes.
Making a meal falls into three parts: prep, cook, and clean. I used to hate the 'boring, standing on my aching feet' prep bit, so I'd try to fit the prep into the little gaps in cooking. Of course, 8 couldn't do it and I had to keep adjusting things - taking something off heat/down heat, whatever - to finish the prep for the next stage. The constant adjustments made the food not as good, the cooking unnecessarily stressful, and left me exhausted with a sink full of dishes at the end.
Nowadays, I sit in front of the tv. I do my prep there, all the peeling and chopping and slicing and dicing. When I cook, everything is ready for me to add to the dish, so the food tastes better and cooking itself is much less stressful. And I use the little bits of spare time during cooking to rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. When I'm done cooking, I only have the last handful of things to put in the dishwasher, plus whatever plates from the meal itself.
My life is much easier, all because I now watch TV.
You also forgot about planning and shopping.
Ah. So, I get a farm share every week. 'Planning' is looking at the list of what I'm getting and figuring out what I can make from it - although I've been doing this long enough that I actually have a selection of recipes that I re-use year to year, so I spend more time digging the recipe out then I do actually 'planning'.
The weekly shopping is usually about 5 'missing' ingredients that I need for my chosen dishes, plus whatever staples I've run out of. I usually go shortly before the store closes for the night, and it takes about 15 minutes.
How does one sign up for a farm share?
Search for CSAs near you. A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Usually a farmer has to borrow money from the bank at the start of the season to buy seeds, service the machines, hire the hands, etc, and hope to have a good enough crop to pay back at the end of the year. In a CSA, the farmer figures out his much they need to make all that happen, plus insurance, living expenses, some money for improvements and retirement, etc, etc. They figure out how much did they think they'll produce that year and how many people it would feed, then sell the shares at a price that brings in the money they need to keep the farm running: they're no longer dependent on the bank.
They're also no longer dependent on the big agriculture practice of having your crops harvested early, sent to a middleman for sorting and packaging, sent to a distributor, sent to a warehouse, before finally sitting in the back of a grocery store before it gets put out, where the under-ripe produce is sold to you and you have like a week to eat it before it goes bad.
Instead the produce is brought in the day before distribution, so it's at or close to the peak of ripeness and has more flavor. Since it's not spending time traveling between middlemen, it lasts longer in your fridge. Since it's not being bounced around lots of places, you get access to a wider range of things than normally show up: my CSA plants several types of regular tomatoes, but also a bunch of heirloom tomatoes as well. We get regular basil, yes, but also twelve other types of basil - lemon, Thai, red rubin, lime, holy, etc. My CSA also grows some fruit: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, figs, watermelon, paw-paws and pumpkins.
Each week, I get a large box of pre-picked food, plus I can pick some more in the fields if I want. Thursday night, I sit in front of the tv and cut everything up, Friday I go grocery shopping, Saturday I cook 2-3 large meals then stick half the servings in the fridge and the other half in the freezer. Odds and ends will get tossed into a salad for the week; larger amounts may get frozen, or pickled or canned or dried for later on. I get enough each year that I can eat most of my meals from farm produce, and it's all made specifically to my taste and without a ton of chemicals in it.
I should note that I also assume some risk with my share: if it's a great harvest year, I'll get extra, but if it's a bad harvest -- well, prices would've increased at the store as well, so I figure it works out. I think mine was like $700 for a full share for 26 weeks which, like I said, it feeds me for an entire year, so the rest of my weekly grocery budget is like $20-25 (and I could get by on a lot less if I needed to). That said, I get an awful lot of food for the money - you can usually sign up for smaller/partial shares (or split it with a friend), and some places have shares available on an alternate-week schedule or let you choose which weeks you want to get it (which is useful for avoiding lettuce month, lol).
Some places will deliver to your door, some you pick up at various drop-off locations or farmers markets, some you have to pick up at the farm - when you look into it, don't just look at the farm location, look into where you can get your food from, which may be closer to you. Oh, and some include or have add-ons for other things like honey or eggs. And there are also CSA's for things beyond veggies: there are CSAs for meat, dairy, grains, mushrooms, etc.
Anyway - search for CSAs near you, check them out for drop-off/delivery options even if the farm isn't in your immediate area, and see what turns up!
+1 for farm shares, except they’ve mostly closed and sold off their land to developers in my neck of the woods. Getting into the remaining ones has proved difficult.
Also we have a nutty growing season that means it’s mostly root veggies for 8months of the year.
We still want to support local ag, but it ain’t easy in a cold state with aging population.
I can see where that's gonna be hard. You might try local harvest.org , though that's less helpful than it used to be - I think something happened during the pandemic and they stopped double-checking the listings were still good each year, but it's the last site I had for finding good CSAs.
Honestly, meal kits are clutch for this since they provide everything and the most effort needed by me is putting them away. 2 nights a week it makes my job of figuring out what to eat and how to make it a lot easier.
Are meal kits cost effective?
The cheapest meal kits are only slightly more expensive than the equivalent grocery store order. However, you will be limited in options for price points on the items. For instance, if the meal kit only uses products with labels that don't really mean a whole lot, but are charged a premium for, you often don't have the option to select the less expensive option. So someone who is a little adept at getting the most for their money from a grocery store will end up with a significantly better price. This is all before you consider that these services, as a whole industry, are plagued with late deliveries, spoiled food, incorrect ingredients, and damaged goods (though this one is more on the side of the delivery service).
So you will be limiting yourself in these ways for the trade-off of not having to go out and shop, and shopping by selecting meals, rather than ingredients. However, grocery stores, at least in even semi-urban areas, are already likely to delivery grocery orders, eliminating the the expense, and time, of brick and mortar shopping.
pasta, protein, some vegetable, fat to fry the protein in, cream boiullon and some spice for the sauce.
oh the horrors
Mise en place avec télé
Oui!
Well yeah. Unless you're using disposable plates, you're going to still have to do dishes. Fewer, but still.
But you can reduce that with things like a slow cooker, and one pot meals.
Using a Musk flamethrower is so uncivilized!
I absolutely went through a phase (6-8 years) of just using paper plates and paper cups, and just tossing it.
Do some dishes while you're cooking.
The only time I need to do dishes after cooking is when I am cooking something that needs constant attention, too many things at once, orI’m just lazy
Usually I just have the skillet I cooked in and the plate/silverware I used
I used to feel this way about cooking. I started trying to find joy in the repetitive parts of life, so they didn't seem so annoying. It's definitely a journey, but if you keep at it, you get to a point where cooking feels like a creative outlet. Once you have enough experience to create something new from your pantry and quit following recipes verbatim you'll have fun. It took me a few years to get there, but you're going to have to cook your entire life anyway, might as well get something out of it.
We absolutely hit a specific age where the annoying parts of life, like cleaning and tidying, suddenly become one of the most satisfying parts of life.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy and all that.
Do you have a tip for enjoying scrubbing the shower, the toilet, and behind the toilet? Everything else is ok, but I hate those. As a result, I try to keep them as clean as possible in day to day use (squeegee the shower after every use, use toilet cleaner, etc) but I still have to dedicate time to cleaning them occasionally and tbh I'm considering paying someone else to do it.
You are both cooking too slowly and eating too fast
Yeah, honestly. It's a crap meme. Maybe it feels like 2 hours because its boring for you. If you cook for 2 hours likely one part of it is putting something into the oven for 1 1/2 hours.
Not everyday can be a Rachael Ray 30 minute meal.
I make chicken pot pie weekly. Mirepoix, peel dice potatoes, constantly stir so roux doesn't clump. It's 90 minutes of non stop cooking and 30 minutes of oven.
Do you divide it up into seven meals and eat chicken pot pie everyday?
It feeds 4 and I have one jar of leftovers to freeze. Once a month I have 4 jars and don't have to cook chicken pot pie that week.
Try cooking a whole chicken a 700°C for 30 minutes and see what happens.
Is that the only option everyday? A whole fucking chicken? People are ridiculous.
Stop boggis-shaming me
No but you commented that they were cooking for too long with no idea of what was being cooked.
I have an example of what needs a longer cooking time.
The ridiculousness comes from you commenting without having any idea what OP was cooking and not providing advice of things that can be cooked quickly.
OP just said cooking, not cooking (x). I am also no one's mother and thus reserve the right to make comments without fixing one's entirely life for them.
Well you're not really supposed to use a pottery kiln.
Take 10 minutes to spatchcock your bird and it will cook in 40 minutes
Wash up whilst it cooks
Or just use a convection oven. They're super fast. 6 drumsticks or 4 thighs in 20 minutes.
Microwaves are faster, eight minutes and you’re done.
I tried this recipe and it was awesome. The charring made the chicken absolute 10/10, would bang.
so maybe don't cook a whole chicken?
What are you cooking that takes 2 hours every day? I cook most of my own meals and i don’t often go over an hour of cooking and most of that is just waiting.
Even if it does take 2 hours start to finish, I have to imagine there's at least SOME part of the recipe that involves waiting for something to cook. That's dishwashing time right there.
Yup, and unless you let it dry in for a few hours after eating, then final cleanup should be done in a jiffy.
With leftovers most meals take a couple minutes!
What meals do you cook?
Not everyday, but some dishes take time
I once made Coq au Vin, it took around 2 hours, and I never felt like cooking that again.
At least it was really tasty.
and that's why proper coq au vin is a fancy schmancy dish, not something you cook every day.
Clean the dishes while waiting for your food to cook and then leave the remaining dishes you didn't clean because you were still using them until the next dish run.
Yep. This is how I do it for even when I'm cooking for large gatherings. Yea it can get hectic but you're not going to be drowning in dishes at the end of the night.
I always cook as much of whatever I'm making as I can, then put it in containers in the fridge or freezer (depending on the dish and how much).
And I have some base recipes that I cook that are easy to quickly make other things with. One thing I've done for almost two decades now is make a basic kinda "half-bolognese" (can't think of a better English description right now). Just onion, garlic, meat (or in my case vegan alternative), salt, pepper and some stock of your choice. Then freeze that divided into a couple of portions per bag or container. Very easy to use for a lot of recipes.
I also buy bags of dried beans (way cheaper than undried or pre-soaked) and soak those then freeze them like above, same thing there with being good bases for many things.
One of my current favourite recipe that's quick, cheap and filling without any of the above prep is falafel in tomato sauce. A local brand here in Sweden makes almost weirdly nice falafel that's $5 for 800g (28oz), which is like 50 falafel balls. I put the falafel in my air-fryer (oven or frying pan works just as well) and while those cook I sauté some onion and garlic in olive oil then add spices (the current version I love is with some smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, thyme, black pepper, lots of turmeric, a bit of soy sauce, a stock cube and either MSG or other umami base). Then add the falafel once done and crushed tomatoes and let cook for a few minutes. Works great with rice, pasta, potatoes in whatever variation you like, couscous, and my current fav which is coarse bulgur with vermicelli (roasted noodles). I wouldn't have guessed it before trying but the falafel is so good in the sauce!
I'm gonna have to try that falafel sauce recipe sometime - sounds delish
That's why you cook enough for 15 meals and re heat it over the week.
Meal Preppers rise up
Even better is finding someone to cook with and make 30 portions instead. It goes faster, is more fun, and when you're making that much food doubling the amount doesn't appreciably increase the work.
Big batch of pasta gang represent.
Big batch of meal soup chiming in.
Can opener gang inna howze
Only to learn about real soup...
You're cooking the wrong recipes if its taking 2 hours every time.
It's always the fucking french fries. Put in a liter of oil and you still have to make an least four batches.
Leaves a hell of a mess, too!
Buy tater tots and bake them for 25 minutes.
If it's the pre-cut freezer kind, roast them in the oven with a bit of oil a 170-200c. When they're done, switch the fan on to crisp them up for a bit. Way less oil, only one sheet pan to clean, and you can cook single batches. Bonus, you don't have to constantly watch them. Just check on them every 5 min after about 30 min. No oil bath to worry about either.
Downside is you have to wait for oven to heat up.
Yeah, that's not something I make very often lol
As someone who has been cooking for himself for a long time, cook large amounts and refrigerate each serving in separate microwavable containers for later.
I also try to make things that can all go onto a single plate to create less cleanup.
This is the way
This is why my SO and I try to clean as we cook so it's easier for later.
This is the way for me too, seeing a stuffed sink full of dishes just makes me stressed let alone how dirty it feels in general.
Also, make more one pot meals. And make big batches so you have leftovers for days. If you are spending more than 15 minutes actively preparing a meal, you can and should probably be lazier.
I cook and clean for an entire family inside of 40-50 minutes 5 nights a week. All of that is mostly "from scratch" and delicious. At some point it becomes a skill issue.
I had this whole comment typed up but I genuinely don't know where to start because I don't have this problem. If you do, and you want some help, let me know and we can work something out together.
Eat slower than 10 minutes. My God have some company over. If you're spending 2 hours cooking there's no way doubling the recipe takes much longer.
Make the company or your significant other do the dishes. If you're in a situation where you're cooking for two hours then doing the dishes yourself, something is wrong.
somebody mentioned a dishwasher. Is the SO considered as an appliance ? :-D
Don't be like that. It's just that if you work that hard on food, have someone else enjoy it enough to want to do the dishes each time. And always have a dishwasher (the appliance), so it's easy.
imagine thinking cooking is the hard part of adulting
I mean... just yesterday I slow cooked something for 8 hours and ate in 30 minutes with some left over. That doesn't mean I have to treat it all as "cooking time".
If I am cooking something more labor intensive then I may just simultaneously cook something else for the week/meal prep/clean used dishes in the gaps in time.
Still It does feel like that sometimes. The only other thing you can really do is cook enough portions for a few meals so that you can reheat for later meals.
When you put it like that, being an adult is so fun!
I think it's the exclamation points! For example: I'm constipated!
Yeah, slow cooking, especially in sous vide, is the best! Especially with 24 hour recipes. You just put stuff in a bag for tomorrow!
You’re doing something wrong if it takes you two hours to make dinner.
Skill issue.
So you basically stick to 30 minute meals or under and there's nothing wrong with that since they do typically take less skill to prepare. There are plenty of recipes that take 2 hours or longer to make.
Ok but if you’re new to cooking and you can’t make a meal without complaining about it taking forever maybe stick to easy meals?
Like I said it’s a skill issue. You don’t need to cook gourmet meals every night.
Depends on what you are cooking. Just the potatos I made tonight take more than an hour.
Ya so baked potatoes? Just chuck them in the oven for an hour straight on the rack. You literally don’t have to do anything other than wash the potatoes and pierce them. Fucking easy.
If that’s just too much for someone to handle then I really don’t know what to tell you.
I just got my first ever dishwasher and it's a game changer.
It doesnt really save anytime in my experience. You can’t just throw stuff in there covered in food or it will just dry up and cement itself to the dishes/silverware in the day or two until it’s next time to run a cycle. I guess if you have a family and are running it every night, it might let you skip the initial rinse off but idk.
It took me years of living on my own to learn my parents were doing it wrong:
The dishwasher doesn't need to be full to run it. You can chuck everything in after a meal and start it immediately.
Detergent and water are cheap, and even if it's only a few dishes the machine uses less water than doing them by hand. Also, use liquid or powder detergent and make sure to fill the pre-wash detergent holder -- detergent pods are a rip off.
I have a family and we make a LOT of dirty dishes. The real value is that I don't have to wash them all by hand, even if it takes a couple hours who cares at least I ain't doing it
When I cook, I am extremely strategic about what I use, and clean as I go. The dishwasher wouldn't really save me any time based on how I operate in the kitchen.
When my wife cooks, it appears to be her goal to use every fucking dish and utensil we own in the process.
But I don't care. Hell, I'm proud of how successful she is at reaching this apparent goal... because MOST of it can go right in the dishwasher. Now I don't even bother to ask how we have 10 greasy teaspoons after she made chicken.
Mine does a fine job washing off crusty dishes. Mainly need to make sure the temperature is high enough, 50 or ideally 60°C. Also helps against grease build-up in the internals which will make it last longer.
Or maybe your dishwasher just went so hard on the water saving it no longer does its job, which is a real issue sadly
Use normal powder detergent so you can fill the pre wash and run the kitchen sink hot before you start the dishwasher so that the water starts hot. For me it gets even the dishes with dry cement clean most of the time.
The dishwashers I've seen don't use the common hot water. They only have a cold water hose and heat the water themselves, so running the hot water doesn't really do anything.
I’ll have to try that hot water trick! I do use powder detergent, and someone else told me recently that I guess you’re supposed to fill not only the closable compartment thing with it, but also the little open depression/pit if you want to clean stuff better. Is that true?
Yes. https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?si=eUF9FFWPd51qxGtk
Explains everything and made me change my use of dishwashing. Now, even my crap one in my apartment works great!
Is your dishwasher like 30 miles away? Why would it take you multiple days to run a cycle?
I usually fill it up before running it. With just two of us, it can take a few days to fill it up. It would be silly to run it with like 2 plates, 2 forks and a cup or two.
They sell smaller ones btw
I'm talking about a dishwasher bro
PB&Js are quick and Delicious
where on earth do you live? cooking at home is like 20x cheaper than even the cheapest fast food here in sweden.
And it now costs twice as much to dine out. So there you go. Greedflation working as intended.
LOL, no. I make eggs Benedict every morning, sauce and all, 15-minutes start to finish.
That's a lot of hollandaise sauce, boss.
Please share ingredients and recipe you use, if you would be so kind
The more often you cook a specific recipe the quicker you get at it.
Cast irons are awesome
I live with my mom and brother, I cook and they take turns washing the dishes.
That s why I meal prep
And that's where the dishwasher comes in. Toss things in the sink as you go and no longer need them, eat, load the dishwasher with the sink things + the final dishes to wash, wipe things down and done.
I've found that if you empty it immediately and then put the dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher it's a lot easier to clean up and gets them out of the way.
My flat doesn't really have space for a dishwasher :(
When I move out I'm for sure gonna bump it up the priority list, but that won't be anytime soon
They make small countertop versions if that's an option for you. Many are designed specifically for small apartments so they have non-permanent connections and stuff, mostly using your existing sinks faucet and drain
I've looked into those a little but they seem to be priced similar to larger models. And with the smaller size it won't fit pots, oven dishes etc anyway. Just my plates and some cutlery which is the easiest part, especially as I live alone.
There exist another simplification then. A lot of meals can be cooked once and freezed after. It could be stored for months and warmed in a microwave in 6 minutes. However some products like potatoes should be mashed as otherwise it looses taste
This meme is occasionally true in our house, once you factor in prep time. My wife definitely makes this complaint once we’ve finished eating in 10 minutes.
If you're spending that long cooking, then you're using your time poorly.
Meal prep doesn't have to be like making 20 of the same meal and freezing them, instead, meal prep is supposed to cut corners and make cooking more efficient.
Say, for example, I'm making a sweet potato chickpea curry. I need half a cup of sweet potato. I'm not going to peel and dice half a sweet potato. I'm going to peel 3 sweet potatos, dice half, cube the other half, refridgerate half my diced, blanch and freeze half my cubes, and roast the other half of the cubes in the oven in olive oil and put them in the fridge. Then make my curry with the rest of the dice. Now I have some roasted sweet potato to put into a salad tomorrow (along with some leftover chickpeas), cubes for the next time I do a roast, diced for next time I do a curry or pizza (sweet potato and mushroom pizza slaps) and any leftovers or scraps can be frozen and go in a soup.
Then later, I'm not going to cook 1/2 a cup of brown rice, I'm going to cok 2 cups, set aside 1/3rd in the fridge for a stir fry later in the week, freeze 1/3rd of the cooked rice to heat up some other time later in the microwave and use the remaining 1/3rd in my curry. These two steps alone might cost me an extra 30 minutes today, but they are going to save me hours later in the weeks to come. And I can still freeze half of my curry to defrost and eat later.
Never trust food that takes longer to eat than to cook.
man people here really just don't want cooking to be easy huh?
Such a bad time investment.
A steak cooks in 5 minutes and buy a dishwasher already.
Use uncoated paper plates. Save some water
it's absolutely wild to me how some people cook, if i cook something for 2 hours i'm going to end up with like 50 fucking portions that taste really good.
A normal meal should take like 30 minutes if you're feeling fancy, and oftentimes way less than that.
Just fuckin boil some pasta, fry some protein, and make some sauce..
Beef bourguignon.
Takes around 30 minutes to get through the preparation of the dish, then another 2 to 4 hours to be thouroughly cooked.
I can understand and respect if someone does not enjoy cooking and all their patience to do it is exhausted in basic, comforting meals, but you can and should enjoy meals that demand a little more time to make in order to indulge in something, even if only a little, beyond basics.
The dish I mention is perfect for lazy people: except for the first thirty minutes, the remaining time is just check if there is enough liquid in the pot and add more if necessary. And it is even better if allowed to cool overnight.
Beef Wellington gang chiming in. Took me like 2 hours to get the tiny mushrooms right and flambé my green peppercorns for my sauce. But deffo a special occasion dish not a midweek meal.
Don't even get me started. Cooking is my love language. I'll work from 9-5, the start cooking at 5:30 to have dinner on at 7:30 for my family.
It's fun and enjoyable. It's a form of meditation. I like to drink while I do it. Its a way to practice skill mastery outside of my normal job. I'm a foodie myself who can't quite afford to eat at Michelin star restaurants every night but appreciate that level of cuisine.
I'm mastering the French sauces, the Asian stir fries, the curries, American BBQ. I'm my biggest critic and my greatest benefactor. Nothing reminds me that life is good quite like setting down a meal that I'm pretty sure could get a Michelin star to my family and enjoying it together.
Are you actually trying to scam Lemmy users... with a cryptocurrency scam? How stupid are you?