Ask HN: Preparing food is a chore. Any suggestions?
I tried Soylent last year for about 3 weeks for every meal. I know thats crazy but I was very curious to experiment and see if it was possible. I had no problem with the taste, but by the end I was losing weight and had caught a cold so I ended the experiment.
I went a few months doing cereal for breakfast and ordering lunch/dinner from seamless.com but recently I have been trying to eat healthier and cheaper. Currently I am ordering pre-made meals from freshdirect.com which has a great selection, the food tastes great and preparing is as simple as 4 mins in the microwave. Unfortunately I am still suffering from insufficient calories (I'm a 29yo 5'11 160lbs ectomorph). I think if the portions were 10-15% larger I would be content but right now at $10 a meal I'm not satisfied.
So my question is does anyone have any suggestions for cheap, great tasting, easily prepared food? I guess a competitor to freshdirect with larger portions is what I am asking for.. but curious to hear what HN does.
4 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 27.1 ms ] threadIf you're eating rice, you should combine it with beans to get the complete protein. Buy canned beans only, the bags are a waste of time.
Mix and match components at meal time, adding fresh vegetables (onions, peppers, tomatoes, etc.) and seasonings as you go. You can create an incredible variety this way that takes no more than 10 to 15 minutes to prepare for every meal, 5 if you're really crushing it.
Also, a pork shoulder in a crock pot, covered in seasonings, salt, and beer and set to cook all day Sunday is less than 5 minutes of prep time for probably more meat than you can eat on your own for every meal before it spoils in two weeks.
Don't overlook spices, salt, and fat. I find the reason most people don't like their own homecooked food is because they don't season it enough. I can't think of a single dish that I make that does not get at least some salt in it, even the few times I make candies. Garlic is similarly overlooked. And don't fear fat. Fat is flavor. You need a little to keep things interesting. I personally prefer butter, sesame oil, and filtered bacon fat, as they have strong flavors so not as much is needed.
You have to think like an industrial kitchen. A restaurant doesn't cook every meal for every customer 100% from scratch as they are needed. Not even the highest of the high end restaurants do that. But they also don't have vats of fully prepared food sitting around to get gross and dish out at the last minute.
You are similarly one person having to cook for 21 people every week: you, 3 times a day, 7 days a week. The ways you would make that work for cooking for 21 people in one meal are the ways you make it work for cooking for one person over 21 meals.
The key is to break a set of common recipes down into key, bottleneck components that keep well. You cook them 80% of the way in bulk, then cook them the last 20% when you need them.
You can also combine some of your prep-time per meal into your prep-time for the week. It takes no more time to cook 6 chicken breasts in the oven as it takes to cook 1, but if you want chicken breast for dinner tonight, you might as well cook 5 more. Then the next day you can slice it thin to have on a sandwich for lunch, dice it up and mix with spices for tacos, mix with mayo for chicken salad, put on top of salads, etc.
If I'm chopping onions, I often only want half the onion, but I will chop the whole onion and stow the half I don't need because I'll probably need half a chopped onion the next day, too. Rice takes about 15 minutes to make, regardless if it's 1/2 cup or 2 cups. I can only eat 1/2 cup in a meal, so I make 2 cups and stow the other three servings.
When I make tacos, I usually make a LOT of ground beef with taco seasoning. Don't buy the packets. Taco seasoning is just spicy cornflour gravy. You make a spicy, erh, soup with whatever ingredients you like and then thicken it with cornflour. Now you're never out of taco seasoning. And taco meat goes great with eggs in the morning.
The next time you're at a restaurant, pay attention to the side dishes and see how many of them are either the same or are different variations of similar components. There is huge variety from few inputs in permutation.
It would be cool to have a website that listed 5 of these main ingredients at the top and listed all of the meal combinations beneath. Imagine like RiceChickenBeanTacoMeat.com know of anything with similar intentions?