Ill-yasova wrote:MartyConlonOnTheRun wrote:At some point, I may have to grow up and not have cereal and Subway (Man, there chipotle chicken footlong of the month was amazing) for 90% of my meals. So I decided to see if any of you have go to recipes.
Typical younger guy who loves animals and wants to limit dishes/clean-up. The length of time doesn't bother me as much as work involved. If I can throw it in the oven for 45 minutes while only taking 5 to prepare, I'm good with that. My new go-to "make dinner for the lady" recipe is the roasted salmon and sweet potato cooked in a skillet. Was amazingly simple and delicious with only 1 dish to clean up.
http://artofmanliness.com/2010/08/17/me ... t-recipes/
Any suggestions to add to my arsenal?
Buy a slow cooker is my number one tip for you. It will be your best friend. You just dump everything in before you go to work and it's delicious and ready to eat when you get home. Check this out.
http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/slow-cooker-recipes
Second the slow cooker. Exactly like Illyasova said, just dump everything in when you leave and it's ready when you're back. Chili is great with a slow cooker, though you do have to brown the beef first if you want beef. Another thing i've done is stick a whole chicken in there, with some broth and maybe some marinade/bbqsauce, and when you get home you can just pull the meat off, stick it in a bun for a pulled chicken sandwich. Really moist and soft, you can add sauce too.
I'd also recommend learning to make some salads. If you want no-prep meat in there, you can get frozen chicken strips or canned tuna. You can keep stuff to upgrade the salad around, like dried figs or dried cranberries in those ziplocked bags they sell them in, or canned mandarin oranges. Some soft cheese like goat or feta in the fridge, they keep for a while. You can buy a dressing at the grocery store, but it's not too hard to make a simple dressing yourself. You can try out some olive oils and vinegars in some specialty shops; it's worth it if you get around to it, and it might be a fun thing to do with a girl, oil-vinegar tasting. The only thing you have to buy fresh is the greens and maybe fruit if you want fruit in there. Anyway, it's not too much work to be able to make a good salad--and just one big bowl to clean. And nice to make for a date.
One more suggestion while i'm on a roll, look for some sandwich recipes. A loaf of bread, deli meat, some produce like tomatoes or cucumbers or better yet avocado or apples, hummus, a jar of mayo, mustard, big bag of chips--they'll go a long way, more cost effective for sure than $5 footlongs every day. And though it's not a knock-your-socks-off dinner for a date, it's a nice-but-no-big-whoop lunch for a girl. Pair it with a salad and some soup, and that's a nice little lunch to offer.
