Bored of my meals

Pussinboots61

Hi I live alone and work full time. I don't have time to do a lot of cooking. I batch cook but then I get lazy with that even. I want to eat different things if I can. I seem to have the same old meals but the only meat I like is chicken and mince. I also love pasta. The batch cook meals I do are lasagne, cottage pie and bolognaise. I don't batch cook anything with chicken as I don't like reheating it (a fear I have) so I have single chicken breasts cooked on the day I eat them.

I find that I have a chicken breast once a week, a salmon fillet once a week, a batch cooked meal at the weekend and in between I eat toast and cereal  or ready meals and things like for tea which don't fulfill me. When I meet friends after work for tea about twice a month that takes care of a meal that night. I will also call in McDonalds sometimes after work and end up feeling sluggish afterwards.

Ideally batch cooking saves time and money but I only want to eat mince once a week as I don't think its good to eat red meat more than that. I'm not a vegetarian by any means but are there any non meat dishes that I can batch cook for during the week. I don't like lentils and beans and things like that. I do love mushrooms and can make a meal out of those.

The main veg I have are the Birds Eye steamfresh bags that I can do in the microwave for five minutes, no peeling and boiling. I feel that if I buy fresh veg it will go off before I get chance to eat it all on my own, the same with salad.

My meals have to be quick and easy and using short cuts but not too fatty and unhealthy. I want to start eating better.

Any ideas would be welcome. Thank you.

elsien

Eating lean mince more than once a week can’t be any worse for you than existing on toast, ready meals and McDonalds. 

Although I do half mince and half lentils anyway. 

What about curry/vehetarian meals with chickpeas. They freeze well if you don’t want to freeze chicken. Vegetable lasagne? 
On a quick cook night, pitta  bread with saiad and fillings, Spanish omelette, fajitas? None of them take  very long at all. Jacket potato? 

I live on my own and work full-time, It really doesn’t take a huge amount of time to peel a  bit of veg and chuck it in a pan. 

If you meal plan a bit then veg won’t go off. I buy broccoli, carrots and peppers, And those in turn do for stirfry, veggie meals and salad. For example.

What do you do about lunches at work?
If I am doing a pasta one night, I will cook extra macaroni put some chopped veg/salad in and turn it into a pasta salad for the next day. 

Pussinboots61

elsien said:

Eating lean mince more than once a week can’t be any worse for you than existing on toast, ready meals and McDonalds. 

Although I do half mince and half lentils anyway. 

What about curry/vehetarian meals with chickpeas. They freeze well if you don’t want to freeze chicken. Vegetable lasagne? 
On a quick cook night, pitta  bread with saiad and fillings, Spanish omelette, fajitas? None of them take  very long at all. Jacket potato? 

I live on my own and work full-time, It really doesn’t take a huge amount of time to peel a  bit of veg and chuck it in a pan. 

If you meal plan a bit then veg won’t go off. I buy broccoli, carrots and peppers, And those in turn do for stirfry, veggie meals and salad. For example.

What do you do about lunches at work?
If I am doing a pasta one night, I will cook extra macaroni put some chopped veg/salad in and turn it into a pasta salad for the next day. 

Thank you for your reply. I don't like curry. I like omelettes but never know what to put in them apart from ham and mushrooms. I take overnight oats to work to have as brunch in my morning break as I always go out during my lunch hour for a coffee. Once a week I don't take lunch to work and have a jacket potato out with a group of people from work.

Today I have bought a pack of stir fry veg and some chicken but no sauce as all the ones I saw in M&S in the meal deal seemed to have lots of sugar and salt in them. There is only a two day use by date on the pack of veg. 

Do you batch cook at all>

elsien

Spanish omelette - Cubes of sweet potato, ordinary potato, peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, cheese. Whenever you’ve got in,  really.  With baked beans on the side, it’s quite filling. 

Ignore the dates on the veg. It won’t be a use by date, it’ll be best before and they don’t miraculously go off on the stroke of midnight. Just go on the look of them.  

I batch cook stews, curries, casseroles, chilli, moussake, the sauce for spag Bol. I don’t mind freezing chicken, but if you don’t want to, then you can cook twice the amount and keep it in the fridge. It will be fine for a couple of days. I usually cook something on the Monday and have the second portion on the Wednesday, for example. 

Stirfry, you can make your own sauce which takes about a minute, or buy a bottle of teriyaki, or some jerk seasoning or similar. I tend to do my stir fries with wraps rather than with rice so it doesn’t matter if it’s quite dry. You could always get some guacamole or something to put on the side. 

When I say curries, I don’t mean hot and spicy. I find recipes for Moroccan stew things like that, I just amend the spices and leave the chilli out. Just playing around with the flavours that you do like. 

This sort of thing freezes really well and again if I bought a bag of spinach, I’d use some in the omelette and some in this and maybe some as a side veg with something else. And shove the rest in the freezer. 

Emmia

Pussinboots61 said:

elsien said:

Eating lean mince more than once a week can’t be any worse for you than existing on toast, ready meals and McDonalds. 

Although I do half mince and half lentils anyway. 

What about curry/vehetarian meals with chickpeas. They freeze well if you don’t want to freeze chicken. Vegetable lasagne? 
On a quick cook night, pitta  bread with saiad and fillings, Spanish omelette, fajitas? None of them take  very long at all. Jacket potato? 

I live on my own and work full-time, It really doesn’t take a huge amount of time to peel a  bit of veg and chuck it in a pan. 

If you meal plan a bit then veg won’t go off. I buy broccoli, carrots and peppers, And those in turn do for stirfry, veggie meals and salad. For example.

What do you do about lunches at work?
If I am doing a pasta one night, I will cook extra macaroni put some chopped veg/salad in and turn it into a pasta salad for the next day. 

Thank you for your reply. I don't like curry. I like omelettes but never know what to put in them apart from ham and mushrooms. I take overnight oats to work to have as brunch in my morning break as I always go out during my lunch hour for a coffee. Once a week I don't take lunch to work and have a jacket potato out with a group of people from work.

Today I have bought a pack of stir fry veg and some chicken but no sauce as all the ones I saw in M&S in the meal deal seemed to have lots of sugar and salt in them. There is only a two day use by date on the pack of veg. 

Do you batch cook at all>

For stir-fry I usually just use a bit of soy sauce (Kikkoman) and some freshly grated root ginger and some garlic. I'm not keen on gloopy sauces.

If I cook for just me, I sometimes do things like steak or a pan fried burger with vegetables. Or if I've got time I'll make an onion and goats cheese tart with readymade puff pastry - roll out the pastry and score a border an inch or so from the edge all the way round (without cutting through), I usually plonk on some softened red onions, slices of goats cheese and then pop in the oven until it's puffed up and golden. 


Failing that, M&S have a great roasted vegetable stonebaked pizza which I pimp up with some Tabasco, extra olives... 

Nelliegrace

Frozen vegetables are good to avoid waste. I steam a medley of veg over simmering potatoes, or cook small portions of veg in a covered Pyrex jug with just a little water, in the microwave. You can cook a little extra for the next day. 

Cooked vegetables and a little grated cheese make a tasty omelette, or cheese and tomato, fine herbs, or mushrooms, fried onion and potato for a Spanish omelette, add a bit of bacon or cooked meat for a frittata. We have a lot of eggs from the hens. 

Bacon and egg pie, quiche, scotch eggs, fried egg and chips, scrambled egg with vegetables or a little smoked salmon (offcuts,) eggs mornay, kedgeree, poached egg on spinach, egg custard, bread and butter pudding, pancakes, drop scones, rock cakes. If you have eggs you have a meal.

Brambling

There are lots of vegetarian lasagna recipes I make a roasted vegetable or spinach and ricotta usually four portions and freeze them.  The BBC good food web site others a wide selection.  Mac n cheese is quick I make an all in one sauce and freeze any extra sauce, sometimes I have with bacon and some green veg. Or cauliflower cheese which reheats well 

Home made pizza are easy using a flat bread or naan bread as the base or I buy the cheapest cheese and tomato small pizza and stick in the freezer then add extra veg, cheese or cooked meat as required and cook from frozen. Make a coleslaw to add extra veg and use up cabbage, carrots etc these veg will last for ages if stored correctly.

i do like fresh veg and will batch cook enough for 2 or 3 meals to save on waste and cooking time, this time of year i regularly make soup to use up vegetables. Something like Tesco nanas magic soup is quick and tasty and you can pad out with cheese on toast or a toasted cheese sandwich to make a more substantial dinner.

like Elsien I often cook double so for example cook Saturday and eat the second portion Monday.  If I have extra veg cooked i then only have to cook the protein.  When I have the oven on I will try and fill it up so a casserole, lasagna or a Mexican lasagna using tortillas rather than pasta. 

Cooking for one can mean more menu planning so you can ensure ingredients don't go to waste and you have variety in your diet.  If you brought tortillas or wraps they can be fajitas one day, Mexican lasagna, burritos, pizza bases etc 

Brie

If you like your fresh veg but find it goes off too quickly most of it can be frozen for later use. 

I buy the big bags of peppers and never manage to get through them all so top and tail, clean out the seeds, cut into uniform chunks and pop them into a bag in the freezer.  If you want just a few peppers to go into your stirfry, take out the frozen chunks and you can chop them if you've got a decent large knife (I use an 8" chef's knife).

I do the same with other veg - courgettes, onions, little tomatoes or potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, beet - all into the same bag and a nice handful can go in the oven (toss with a bit of olive oil and herbs) to roast to go with your chicken breast. Cauli and broccolli work well too. More recently I had a massive trombocino squash (like a butternut but with a curved 2-3 ft long neck) and peeled and cubed some of that to pop in the freezer.  I've use some in the roasted veg but some has already gone into a nice squash and carrot soup.

Omelets - my OH says I'm a bore as I always want cheese and mushroom.  But I have added spinach at times which is a nice way to tidy away some mixed leaf salad that won't last for a proper dinner salad.  With a mixed leaf bag when it's getting towards the point of no return, I'll separate the nice spinach leaves in it and pop those into a bag for the freezer.  Again I just grab a few to pop into my omelet still frozen.  

Overall though I think the thing to get variety is spices and cupboard sauces.  I've a variety of mixed herb/spice jars which last ages.  They're from Canada but I've seen similar here.  Steak spice, chicken spice, Mexican or just herbs du provence.  I also have some zaatar which is a middle eastern spice that is lovely on anything grilled or roasted.  Tastes to me very citrusy.   The thing is to not be tied down to what the label suggests.  The steak spice I have has pepper in it and garlic - great on steak (or a burger patty) of course but also great on prawns.  My OH uses some if he is frying left over potatoes too.  

And there's nothing the matter with having toast for a meal as long as it's good bread.  And maybe with cheese melted on top.  If you make a meal of it get some really good soup to go with - either home made or a decent shop bought rather than your standard tinned stuff which I find is full of salt and sugar.  Personally I'm a bag fan of the local Polish/Eastern European shops that have opened in the last decade.  Even their cuppa soups are nicer than the standard English ones.  And you can get a tub of borscht powder which supposedly will make 17 cups - I'm sure I don't use as much as they recommend as mine seems to last forever!

Overnight oats.....I get the bags of frozen raspberries from Lidl/aldi and add a handful of those - they're thawed by morning and add a nice flavour.  

Brie

and have a gander at this - it may be encouraging.

What are you making for dinner? - Page 1545 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Nelliegrace

At least cooking for one, you can choose what you like. 45 years of, “I don’t like mushrooms,” wears a bit thin.

HampshireH

Sausage pasta (pasta, sausage, mixed herbs tin of tomatoes, puree, tin of water cook pasta in the mix and add cream cheese and spinach near the end)  - quick and easy (you can get vegetarian or chicken sausages if you don't like pork ones)

Chicken and creamy garlic mushroom pasta / pesto pasta.

Sweet and sour with rice (can do from a jar super fast and get the low sugar option)

Stir fry (as above often on offer if buying premade. Csn get some nice sweet chilli/soy sauces

Homemade pizza (anything you like) ypu can buy the bases and just add toppings.

Cornish pasties or sausage rolls with veg for a quick freezer meal.

We have a bag of potato croquettes in as they go with any veg nicely.

Pack your spag bol with a veg base to get hidden veggies in (we do carrot, onion and celery blitzed)

Mini roast dinner - easy with a chicken breast and aunt Bessie if your strapped for time (veg stuffing and yorkshires)

Stuffed peppers - can get a bag of peppers, flavoured cous cous and stuff them.

Jacket potato you can do at home with side salad

Sweet potato fries/wedges

Fajitas (with your chicken, peppers and onions or just a mix of veg)

Toad in the hole 

Fish and chips (home version)

Check out the vegetarian section in the frozen isle. I picked up cheddar and cauliflower steaks the other day basically breadcrumbs. Not had them yet but will have them with veg and roasties.

Personally I love a good stew, usually done on a Saturday with more time but chuck in a cinnamon stick, bay leaves, cloves, garlic with shallots whole, smells gorgeous and whilst I would use beef you can do a veg options or a meat alternative. Serve with crusty bread.

Tinned tomatoes /beans/ tomatoes puree onions, peppers, garlic and mixed herbs are stables in our house because they can be used in everything. We also always have garlic flat breads or slices as you can defrost what you need. Keep a bottle of wine in to cool with too.