/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>20099350
Step 1: cook/prepare meal
Step 2: eat it

It’s literally that simple

>>20099350
Plan, do your major cooking on the weekend and have stuff that's basically just heat and go for the week. This can range from mealprep to making your own pre-packed frozen crock pot/instapot meals that you just drop in, set a time and temp, and forget.

>>20099352
When do I do that though?

>>20099350
This is a situation where a rice cooker actually make sense

>>20099357
In between work and school

>>20099350
OMAD and cook in the evening.

>>20099356
I'm assuming you freeze them. That's an issue for me because I only have a mini fridge.

>>20099367
Rice with what though

>>20099371
I study then.

>>20099381
>I'm assuming you freeze them. That's an issue for me because I only have a mini fridge.
Freezing is necessary to store multiple and minimize prep time to once a week. You can probably fit a couple packs in a mini fridge.

>>20099350
You should cook all your meals for the day in 1 go. You dont want to be cooking multiple times a day, thatd take up a lot of time. Id suggest cooking early in the morning since thats when you have the most energy. You want the evening to be purely a time for rest since youve been working/studying all day. So wake up at like 6 or something and spend 2 hours cooking all your meal for that day.
Personally i wouldnt do the mealprep for the entire week thing. Eating week old leftover is no good. Both taste wise and nutrition wise.

>>20099367
Most of the things I make in the ricer I only have to stir once while they prepare. I really don't outgrow it's usefulness even when making things more involved.

>>20099392
>So wake up at like 6 or something
I already wake up at 6 (6:30 actually)...

Honestly something is wrong with my daily schedule. I think it's because I take an hour long shower in the mornings lol

In undergrad I lived with a football player (nog). My granny taught me to cook via osmosis and his granny would come up every so often so I learned some more from her. Every Sunday we had a big meal and I would make shit for the week sometimes. My favorite things to make were gumbo, pastalaya, chili (Texas chili, big chunks of stew meat and pork, sometimes lamb), things like that. We would eat that all week.

>>20099350
Make a big pot of chilly and hardboiled eggs.
Store in the fridge and reboil every 3 or 4 days.
You could also make beans or stews if you get tired of chilly.

For lunch at work I usually made something that can be eaten twice, like chicken breast and mushrooms in cream sauce, or stuff that gets better with age like chili, cabbage rolls, etc. Just make it at night and portion in Tupperware (glass) to nuke at work. Nowadays I'm mostly in home office so I cook just whenever I please.

If you don't have much time just stick to bulk stuff. Airfryer also helps, especially the rack type, you can e. g. make fried sausages and buns (from frozen), in one go, or you can do meat on top + baked vegetables on the bottom tray. Actually airfryer is amazing for breakfast, you can get a fresh pretzel with meat and cheese nice and warm waiting for you when you're done with bathroom stuff with basically a minute of work.

>>20099350
You are not a woman

>>20099350
Just do what Chef John tells you to do

I cooked things where the leftovers can be repurposed relatively quickly into new dishes.
Example: make false ragù Sunday (IE meatless) and have it with pasta.
Tuesday, cook some mince with onion, carrot and celery, add some of the leftover sauce and have bolognese.
Thursday, plop it onto dough for pizza.
Saturday, cook it with white rice leftover from Monday (see below), onion and peas and add a simple mantecatura of butter and parmigiano at the end for a fakemeout risotto.
Monday, I might have cooked a quick curry (stir fried veg and meat with curry slurry) and a pot of white rice. Wednesday, the rice could be made into fried rice and Friday, I could steam a serving to eat with another stir fry.
While it might take an hour to cook the false ragù Sunday, most of that time is inactive IE I don't have to do anything while it just cooks itself and the other meals might take ten minutes nightly. It worked well for me.

>>20099350
One pot sloppas like chili, gumbo, curry, pasta, etc. are easy work yum yums, but the classic /fit/ lunch of bulk baked chicken breast + rice + frozen veg is a sinch too.

Cooking takes 20 minutes tops for almost anything beyond super fancy dinner, the fuck do you have such a hard time finding time for it?

cook several portions at once so you can have leftovers. you don't have to go full week meal prep autism, but you can if you want.
bags of frozen veg heat up quick and make for easy side dishes

there's no shame in a PB&J but if you have some sort of weird hangup about it then any other sandwich will be just as quick and simple.

>>20099923
I kind of get it but I also don't - why are people so averse to just eating the leftovers as leftovers? If you like the food there shouldn't be a need to change it, leftovers typically don't last more than 1-2 meals more anyway. Why add more of a pain in the ass of re-cooking the same shit again and again instead of eating what you already made? Just don't make that much then. This kind of goes against what OP is even asking.

>>20099350
why is everything made by trannies so obviously made by them

>>20099381
>Rice with what though
NTA, but here's my go to OMAD (mental) struggle meal prep:
>boil large pot of rice, with chopped carrot and a bulion cube thrown inside (in case you can't boil rice. wash. bring to boil on highest heat. cover. leave on lowest heat for 12 mins. turn off heat, let rest for 8 minutes. uncover, stir and eat)
>while rice is boiling, fry 3 days worth of protein of choice. my favourites are kielbasa and chicken breast.
>after rice is done cooking toss in a can of canned peas and your fried protein
>mix, salt to taste and mix again
>serve with some low effort fruity veg, like cherry tomatoes, or sliced cucumber/bell pepper
This should take around 25 minutes tops
Fridge rest of rice, it should last 2 days in the fridge and refry as needed. pour some soy sauce over it while frying for flavour and moisture. I also like to add fried eggs because they bring a certain egginess to the dish. Don't forget the veggies. If you're doing OMAD you want this meal to give you everything your body needs. Godspeed.

>>20100085
that's Karina Farek, she a leftist, sure, but she's not trans.

>>20099350
I can fix her.

>>20099350
nobody fucking cares what you eat and if you do they're probably an asshole whose opinion you shouldn't care about anyway

>>20100082
Oh, I would also eat leftovers that couldn't be repurposed, like stews, curries and certain roasts (but let's but play any games here: a few slices of a roast will wind up as s sandwich or shredded up to use in pot pie or shepherd's pie), but I wanted to highlight that some leftovers can have a second or even third or fourth life.

>>20100082
>>20100244
>Why add more of a pain in the ass of re-cooking the same shit again and again
Also, it's not the same shit again and again unless you think arancini made from leftover risotto is the same thing as the risotto itself out shepherds pie is the same thing as the roast and mash it was made from.
And you, madam, are she who has missed the point of the thread since OP asked how we managed to cook, work and study during our time at uni. I answered that question with how I managed to cook, work and study during my time at uni so how then, Lil Miss Fussybritches, have I gone against what OP asked?

>>20099350
If you spent half the time you spend looking at 4chan on taking care of yourself and your life, you wouldn’t have to ask this question.

>>20099350
>How viable is it to actually cook while working and going to school?
So there are levels of difficulty where cooking does indeed become infeasible. I can assure you that you, the soft and squishy OP, are NOT there. You aren't waking up at 4am to run your ass off, spend 8 hours at school, hit the gym afterwards for 2 more hours, and then study and do more work shit in the evening to about 11p. This kind of schedule requires someone else makes your food.

If you are in college, your ass has TONS of free time. You are just fucking about wasting it on stupid shit that doesn't matter. You can make yourself 3 square meals, hot or cold, on any given day. Yeah, you aren't going to make shit that takes hours of prep, that shit has to wait to the weekend. BUT, you can cook and assemble stuff, it's all pretty easy and there are tons of products for shortcutting stuff. I managed to do it in my college days, still cook while working, and you can too.

If you are a boring person who can eat the same shit day in and day out, just figure out your BLD setup, and rinse and repeat. Otherwise, if you want some variation, it's time to plan. A bit of planning is required, because shopping is needed to ensure you have all the stuff to make said meals.

First off, you can make sandwiches outside of PB&J super fucking easy. Retard wagies at Subway can do it, you can too. Just keep cold cuts in the fridge with your preferred cheese and veggies and boom - sandwich on demand. Hot sandwiches are a little harder, but even poboys are just 15 min away with the oven, or faster if you re-fry the stuff.

Salads are the only shit part about being single, but the idea for these is to keep some salad making stuff on hand, and when you have lettuce leftover you make a salad to use it up.

FYI - crockpots can be run all day, so you can come back to a hot dinner from work/school. Just put shit in when you leave, and it's done when you get back. There are WHOLE books on this.

>>20100513
>If you are in college, your ass has TONS of free time.
Never got this meme desu, college was by far the most work intensive period of my life
>b-but I hate my 9-5
99% of jobs you get with a college degree are pitifully easy to the point of being therapeutic tbqh. It's getting the education that's hard, if you can't trivially apply it, you fucked up.

>>20100554
It depends on the school, curriculum etc.
I never studied at home, I was always paying full attention during class and was annoyingly active with weird/complicated questions to further my understanding and check practical application of knowledge. If I really had to review something, I'd do it on the go or during break.

>>20100046
post your recpie for your standard 20 min meal

>>20100625
instant ramen w gelatin pack, kimchi, egg and slice of cheese washed down with a beer and a multivitamin

>>20100625
Toasted sandwich. Butter bread, fill with desired cheese, protein, and optional veg, toast in covered pan with a splash of water to steam.

>>20099350
get a slow cooker and a rice cooker
on your days off you can fill a freezer full of meals that you can heat up whenever you want.
only takes 5min of prep to make ~8 something servings of good food.

Crockpots. Throw a chunk of meat or beans or lentils whatever in there. Turns rice into delicious congee. It all takes five minutes of prep; get a solid stash of seasonings and sauce shit on lockdown and you're set. I buy sardine tins and big chunks of meat when its on sale: pork butts, pork feet, chicken thighs are always cheap and are perfect for slow cooking, as well as every mangers special i can find. I actually just finished off my freezer stash of corned beef from last years post-St. Patricks Day markdowns. You put it in your crockpot with some water, thats it.
For your leafy greens and veg, get into just buying a sack of "garden salad mix" or straight spinach, or else a bag of kale or collards, which you can also set and forget to cook.

>>20099352
>>20099357
this
Meat & 3veg
takes ~10min to cook and 9min of that is drinking a beer watching TV
dirt cheap, lot of variety, takes no effort.

Should also add I rarely bother with lunch. Take some sardines, a pack of almonds, chips, etc with you but focus on a big breakfast and a good dinner and you'll be fine. I lean towards having a fuckoff big breakfast, an afternoon snack, and a regular sized dinner myself.

>>20099379
this

>>20099350
Very much so. It's just that cooking DAILY becomes a problem. Dedicate half a day weekly to prep for the remaining six days and you're set.

>>20099379
This is the only way I've made it work.

Lost about 50lbs so far too.

>>20099350
Do you mean both working AND going to school at the same time? That might be tough. Get a pressure cooker, it's very easy to cook things quickly with those.

If you meant just one of the two, pull your finger out of your arse

>school
Your parents are supposed to care for you till you make your own money.

>>20099350
Cooking takes an hour at fucking most, holy shit you are lazy.

>>20099350
I am one of those people not bothered by the same thing daily, but I do get sick of it.

So what I do is modify my basic recipe from Monday, to make it different daily.
Poach a chicken breast in seasoned wine or stock, or water, drain and, cool overnight. In the AM, quick chop to make a basic thick chunked dhicken salad w/green onion and celery, becomes waldorf chicken salad on day 2 with walnuts and apples added. Then on day 3 becomes coronation chicken salad with a Tbsp of hot mango chutney, raisins and curry powder or mustard added, maybe cilantro and lime zest for mexican-fied, or maybe dried cherries or cranberries or dried dates or apicots. One snip of your basil plant to pesto-fy it. The same can be said about a basic mayo egg salad, giving it dill or sweet pickles on day 2, olives and pimentos on day 3. Eggs can also cook in a microwave cooker and kept unpeeled for a whole week, using up 1-2 daily for a sandwich. Cold canned albacore tuna, makes quick salad too, with basic mayo, onion, celery and your favorite mix-ins, and yes, can be utterly different on day 2. Think simple lemon zest to brighten it.

Anon, the "wrap out" lavash style wraps last all week and are much tastier than cheap bread or gummy tortillas. A bagged cole slaw mix, where you withhold the dressing, adding it each day can enhance a simple deli smoked turkey or ham slice each day inside the wrap. A smear of seasoned cream cheese will help seal it, and a simple radish or dice of carrot or cucumber or baby arugula ages well in the fridge and changes your flavors each day. The 4 pack of hydroponic green and red leaf lettuces also lasts all week.

>>20099379
This is literally the only way to get shit done.

>>20101694
>eating leftovers

>>20103108
(You)