Cooking in your first apartment is lots of fun, but it can be overwhelming. So, for Courtney, here is some of the lessons I've learned.
You can't always expect to cook but you dont want to rely on takeout, so the best alternative in that case is to pickup fresh, prepared food from the grocery store. Some standbys are: prepared salads, a whole roasted chicken (the second day you can eat it with a salad or chicken salad sandwich - tip from mom-mom!), sushi, etc. You can also stock up on a few healthy prepared frozen things as dire backups: Amy's Organic frozen stuff (I got Sean and Frank into their burritos), some veggie burgers are good and some canned soups are ok (for example in the case of grilled cheese and tomato soup!), but homemade soup is much better.
Next level of advancement is cooking - the easiest to cook being carbs and veggies. Keep certain staples in your cabinet because they dont go bad: cous cous, whole wheat pasta, brown rice (good but usually burns the bottom of my pot), quinoa. You can make a meal a really easy meal out of any of these, for ex whole wheat pasta with something like broccoli, lemon and parm and a salad if you have greens around. Make sure to diversify and not eat too many sole carb meals though :)
Practice cooking different kinds of veggies so that you can always just make some as a side or to add into soup or pasta or whatever. Lots of veggies are good baked in the oven (recall Lauren's brussel sprouts), or you can steam something and serve as is, or stir fry with veg oil and ginger or garlic. I usually just buy a few veggies at the store and decide what to do with them later.
The last piece is protein. Fish is really easy to make and so healthy - you get a filet and bake it for 15 mins in the oven with just salt, pepper and lemon. You can google to get specific cooking times/temp. So putting it all together....its really easy to go home and just make cous cous, a veg and fish. Make a lot (not incrementally any harder) so you can eat it the next night or for lunch. You can freeze uncooked fish which is good to do so that you arent always running to the grocery store. You can freeze uncooked chicken too - also handy (but dont forget to take it out of the freezer the night before).
The last suggestion is SOUP. I love making soup, it is by far the funnest and yummiest thing to make, and so easy. Some of my favorite soups are: Lentil soup, chili variations (not with beef), tuscan white bean soup, etc, usually a soup with beans. I google and try different recipes all the time. Make a huge pot! Eat it that night, save some for the week and freeze the rest in eatable-in-a-week portions.
Being busy or lazy, I tend to think of meals as the three pieces above and just mix and match. But sometimes I plan in advance and make a real recipe (something online, in a magazine, a certain cuisine I am in the mood for, etc). Just takes more time and planning. Don't put too much pressure on yourself to cook fancy meals, I think its enough to be making fresh food from scratch, and if its healthy, even better. Hopefully Larz has some good recipes - she is good at making even simple meals special. Enjoy!
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