For meat we use anything from chopped-up Italian sausage, bacon strips, chick peas, chicken wings to an entire chicken.
Veggie wise anything from classic roasting veggies like carrot, oignon and pumpkin to broccoli, beans, zucchini…
Spice the laziest is just dried rosemary. But I also like some southern spicy bbq rubs, plain garam massala. Or just plenty of garlic.
It has become much easier since we have a “proper” oven instead of a cheap countertop one, as it is much faster and heats up more easily.
Casserole is another simple one we do, essentially whatever you'd put in a tray bake plus a tin of tomatoes and some stock. A little more prep time and we usually have it with rice, but still relatively quick, simple and healthy.
I like the ones that you can bung in the oven for an hour. With WFH I can do the prep, put in the oven, clean up in less than 30 mins, then finish a few more work issues before we can all eat together at a reasonable time.
If you have pasta left from the day before and don't mind sweet dishes you can fry the pasta with some butter and eggs (scramble with the pasta) in a pan and add some sugar. Pretty sating meal...
In a late hour after work delirium I like to eat air fried pre-seasoned chicken or turkey breast with toasted gray bread and arugula with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The latter usually only when I have the energy left or there is some already clean in the fridge... Is of course only for lazy people when you have an air fryer. The 15 min of waiting are enough time to toast the bread and to put the salad into a bowl and season it. In Germany you can buy cheap organic pre-seasoned poultry in most supermarkets...
Washing the vegetables is the most labor-intensive part. Coarsely chop things, stir in your salt and pepper, toss a few bay leaves in, load in the chicken parts, HIGH for 25min, and you're technically good to go. I cook bone-in-skin-on chicken, so I pick the bones and gristle and skin, and stir the chopped/gently pulled meat back in with the rest of the stew.
If I feel like I need more greens in my diet, I'll add a block/half bag of chopped frozen spinach. Chile if I'm feeling spicy.
Serve with lime. It's so much better with lime.
I got through a kilo of kimchi a week this way when I was a depressed 20-something living in a share-house abroad.
RIP roommate noses.
(Leftover fried rice microwaves pretty well too so it's a pretty good candidate for leftovers whether a full meal or a light lunch.)
[0] https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021485-one-pan-orzo-wit...
[1] https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020291-vegetarian-mushr...
For curious folks, the URL says they are one-pan orzo with spinach and feta, and vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas.
https://jfmccann.com/vegetarian-mushroom-shawarma-pitas/
These are close enough copies.
It tastes better than most other methods of cooking chicken breast other than stewing. Optional extras include salt, whole peppercorns, and roughly sliced lemon. If the chicken breasts are freakishly large and weigh more than 350g you might need to halve them. Lasts a couple of days in the fridge but the texture is better fresh.
Moroccan Shakshuka - Eggs, Tomatoes, Peppers, Spices - Slowcook and lap up with a nice piece of bread. What's not to like? Again, very easy to spruce up to ensure you don't feel like you're eating the same meal everyday
It’s simple, quick and oh so good. Enough time to make a really quick salad in between too.
Do a night with bottled tomato sauce. I like Classico in Canada (often “diluted” with a can of diced tomatoes). Sometimes I fry some onions first. Top with some red beans.
Another a nights with canned tuna and whatever chopped vegetables I have.
Maybe a night with just butter and cracked pepper and some vegetables as a side. Beans make a good protein.
Fast, cheap, easy. Nutritionally complete-ish.
One thing that can be tricky is keeping the emulsion smooth and not suddenly have the cheese turn chunky. What I've found very useful there is to put aside some of the pasta cooking water and then blend it up with the cheese on the side using an immersion blender. When you reach a good level of creaminess, you pour it back into the pot with the now drained pasta and use the residual heat of the pot and pasta to slightly reduce it down to the perfect level while constantly stirring.
This should make the whole process a lot more reliable while not changing the flavor by adding more complex ingredients.
If I have more time, I'll make my own sauce using stock, curry powder, tomato puree and soy sauce.
Sauce must be really good to enjoy pasta, pesto especially should be eaten fresh, it's true that here in Italy you can eat it at a fresh express pasta place for like 5-7 euros (more like 7-9 in a big city), it's not really that expensive, but still not that cheap either considering it's pasta, and cooking it at home requires a lot of preparation and attention IMO. You can't leave pasta unattended.
So here they are my go-to recipes for when I don't wanna be bothered:
- in summer: caprese salad, which is tomatoes + mozzarella + olive oil + basil + origan. you can add olives or capers if you like them, my favourite variant is with anchovies. Or you can have ham and melon. Or you can have mozzarella and ham and all the combinations you can think of: caprese + ham, caprese + melon, melon + mozzarella + ham etc. All of them take 5 minutes top to prepare, they're all delicious.
- fish: swordfish, tuna, mackerel, salmon, sardines etc. you can buy them steamed, grilled, smoked, marinated or in oil, they come in cans, jars or you can buy them at fresh food counters. not all of them come suuuper cheap, but they are usually affordable enough, and most of them are as cheap as pasta, especially the canned versions. you can heat some steamed/grilled mackerel fillet in the oven or in the microwave, add an herb sauce and it's like being at the restaurant. also buying it fresh at the fish counter is an option, they prepare it for you so you don't have to and most of the time you just cook it in a pan for a few minutes in half a spoon of olive oil.
- everything with beans. I love beans, I could live just by eating beans every day of my life. my favourite kind is borlotti beans, you can eat them straight from the jar, we have a lot of high quality packaged beans which are also very cheap, like less than 1 euro for a 250 grams jar. My go-to recipe with beans is beans and tuna salad. It's simply borlotti beans + canned tuna + olive oil + some vinegar + some raw red onion. You can replace beans with your favourite legumes, for example chick-peas. you can also replace tuna with some other canned fish, like the aforementioned steamed or grilled mackerel.
- chicken: buy chicken breast, pound it a little bit and grill it for a few minutes, add olive oil and you're done. if you feel fancy, marinate it with some lemon juice, herbs and half a glass of white wine, put it in a covered glass bowl and leave it in the fridge over night. grill it at lunch the day after.
- caponata: which for the Italians who might read this, here I use as an umbrella term for a mix of vegetables. Take the vegetables you like, for example peppers, aubergines and zucchini. cut them into sorta like cube shaped pieces. put them in a pan, add olive oil, add some tomato sauce if you like it, cook it as much as the hardest vegetable requires, stir it from time to time.
what's really important in my opinion is cook/prepare your meals at least once a day. At least eat some food straight from the kitchen, if you are not the cook. Avoid eating delivery/pre-cooked/processed food everyday.
You'll be doing something for yourself and you'll feel much better.
Take your time to cook for yourself but also for other people, it's never time wasted.