Quote:
Originally Posted by bukirouge
Also I never feel like cooking... after two jobs I buy whats fast and cheap-ish and scarf it down.
|
Absolutely! I've never been a fan of cooking either, so if there's an easy way to go about getting food, I'm right on it. Also, I'm one of those folks who, when I'm hungry, wants something NOW, not in an hour...so generally, cooking's not my thing.
Quick'n'easy suggestions:
Cut yourself up some veggies for the week. Dice up an onion and a capsicum. Store them separately in containers in the fridge. They'll keep for at least 3 or 4 days, and you can just walk in at the end of the day and either toss them in a salad, or - as I mentioned it in another thread - make mini-quiches. So easy, so low-cal. Requires no cooking skill, either, and only minimal patience!
MINI QUICHE
Ingredients: Eggs, random vegetables and/or edible fungi.
- Use a large-cup muffin pan (not a giant one though)
- Using one or two eggs per person, crack a single egg into each muffin hole.
- Throw in diced capsicum, onion, spinach, mushrooms, or anything that gets in your way. Shredded ham is good too, but watch the calorie count!
- Cook in the oven for 25 minutes at 180C or whatever the fahrenheit equivalent is.
- You may need to stir it about 5 mins before the end of cooking to ensure it's cooking evenly (which can make them a little ugly, but hey..do you want satisfying food or do you want to be Jamie Oliver?).
Note the lack of pastry base and cheese; it's not necessary. What is, however, necessary is seasoning (pepper, maybe salt) and some herbs of choice. I like rosemary, but your mileage may vary.
EASY SOUP (Requires a crock pot/slow cooker)
Ingredients: Sweet potato and/or pumpkin (you can also use potato, but bear in mind it's higher GI, higher in calories and not as filling).
I generally work on 1/2 a butternut pumpkin, or about 3 sweet potatoes, or a mix of both. Depends how big your crock pot is; you want the vegetable content to reach at least halfway, though, 'cos that's what the safety use instructions say and we don't want An Incident on our hands, right?
- Quarter your sweet potato, or cut your pumpkin into large chunks. (Wash the veggies, but no need to peel them.)
- Stick it on to cook for, like, 4 hours or more. You can't really over-cook it, so feel free to set it running on 'low' while you're at work so it's ready when you come home. You do NOT need to add water; in fact, this can make the veggies stick and burn.
That's it. While it's cooking you can throw in some curry powder, or herbs, or (in the case of pumpkin) some ginger, or whatever, or you can leave it plain and just salt'n'pepper it at the end. Whatever floats your boat.
To serve: grab your stick mixer and blend the crap out of it. Call it soup. It's the best, thickest and heartiest soup you're ever going to see (except for the ones involving double cream, but we really don't want to go there, do we?) and it's really very filling. And best of all, aside from stabbing it with a stick mixer, it's ready to eat the instant you walk through the door at the end of the day. (And actually, you can eat the veggies in chunks anyway, if it comes to that.)
SIMPLY DIVINE CAPSICUM SOUP
This one's a
little bit naughty, but really not very much so. Takes a while to cook though, so not one for straight after work. VERY easy to make, however.
Requires: onions (1), capsicums (1-2), tins of tomato (2), minced garlic (optional), goat's cheese (optional, but totally fabulous)
- Get yourself some red capsicums (aka bell peppers) - and yes, they have to be red, or at worst yellow or orange, or this is going to look pretty gross at the end, trust me.
- Cut into long, wide strips (carefully removing all the pith - that's the white, membraney stuff inside. It gets bitter when you cook it, and makes food taste nasty.)
- Get a freezer bag. Chuck a tablespoon of cooking oil in there. Throw in the capsicum pieces and fumble them around to get them more or less coated.
- Chuck the capsicums on a tray, and whack 'em in the oven for ... oh, as long as it takes, really. You want them roasted, basically. (My rule of thumb is about an hour and a half at 180C. I dare say you could do it faster at higher temperatures, but since I'm as distractable as a kitten I find it best not to push my luck by using potentially incendiary temperatures.)
- Go kill some time. Read a book. Don't worry if the capsicums blacken a wee bit; it's all good.
- When the capsicums are fully roasted and smelling delicious, wander back into the kitchen and proceed to ignore them.
- In a pot, fry yourself some diced onions. Use minimal oil, or you'll defeat the whole 'diet' purpose.
- Look at your jar of minced garlic. Think about how much is 'too much'. Throw in, oh, I don't know, maybe 3/4 of a teaspoon worth anyway. Worry if that's too much. Stir. (Remember this quantity for next time in case it was a horrible mistake.)
- When onions and (possibly too much?) garlic smell tasty and the onions are mostly cooked, throw in two tins of diced tomatoes.
- NB: it doesn't matter if the tomatoes are plain or the ones with 'mixed veggies/herbs/whatever' in there, provided they're not actually flavoured (like, don't use 'curry style' or something equally flaky).
- Bring the tomato mix to a decent heat. Worry about the garlic a little more.
- When the capsicums least expect it, pounce on them and throw them in the pot. Haha!
- Grab your trusty stick mixer (if you don't own one yet, go out and buy one. I'll wait) and blend the living daylights out of the soup.
- At this point, you can also throw in some baby spinach leaves if you like; they never saw it coming and won't put up a fight. Cook them until they're wilted but not soggy. (Spinach is purely optional, and does nothing particularly good for the look of what is otherwise a pretty impressive soup.)
- Serve, and crumble the
totally optional but oh-so-good goat's cheese over the top. (Try to keep the cheese thing to a reasonable quantity, and not say, an entire goat's worth.)
This one has the benefit of also looking totally swank if you're trying to impress people. It's the cheese that does it. Crack some pepper over the top and they'll think they've wandered into the Hilton by mistake.
Hope these help as starter recipes.
I think the important thing is the 'lose weight' bit, not the 'lose weight instantly but non-maintainably' option. By learning to cook simple but tasty and - most importantly - filling food, you'll make it easier to start new, healthy habits to last a lifetime. And you might even find that you don't totally hate cooking.
One more piece of advice - go to somewhere like recipezaar.com and search out recipes for:
1. slow cookers
2. low GI/diabetic-friendly. Food in the low-GI/diabetic range is generally pretty low-cal, and far more satisfying, because you don't get the blood sugar spikes after eating it (which generally make you want more food). They also tend to be more filling, for longer.
Good luck on your weight loss journey!
