Melbourne

It started out hard, then got easier with experience, but became hard again over the last 18 months as I became increasingly burnt out and sapped of energy (not to mention my appetite dropped a lot).

Frozen veg is a lifesaver. Tinned beans, as well as any premade stir fry sauces (which you can make once at home). Ginger garlic paste as mentioned in yesterday's thread. Makes all the difference between "ugh what a fiddly job this will take forever" to "okay I can do this quick" and actually getting into a flow.

An air fryer has hugely expanded options as I don't like using an oven (fiddly, takes too long to heat up) but it makes cooking a frozen crumbed fish or whatever a nice quick meal.

But yeah, the biggest thing that has helped my whole life is meal prep/bulk cooking. Fuck weekday cooking (usually). Whenever I do have the energy I'll power through and make enough to last a while, freeze anything I can't eat in the week, and thank myself when cooking is hard but there's something ready to go. When I'm tired or can't concentrate I don't mind eating the same thing for days on end.

(Anything that can be eaten with rice is much more versatile and worth cooking in bulk and freezing - mainly if you use a rice cooker.)

It takes a long time to become proficient at cooking, like at least ten years , so don't stress, accept you're on a learning curve

during the week cook easy stuff you know, try new recipes on the weekend

Deleted long draft about partner with deficient attention and cooking. I’ll just give one eg: all prep pre done by me. Instructions. Fry contents of bowl 1, add tin 2, pour result and salad 3 onto premade rice 4. 1,3,4 got fried together and 2 ignored. The results are typically edible but not tasty.

Safer stick to sausages or frozen fish things.

Post your findings on the coffee community as well?

Pretty much whatever leftovers you have - make pizza dough and dump said leftovers on the pizza 👌

Pick a vegetable or meat. Google selected item + recipe. Eg Potato recipes. Choose a meal. Shop for that meal.

Dinner is easy.. first you make some toast, or toast some english muffins if you're fancy, then you heat up the baked beans in the microwave. Then you simply pour the baked beans over the toast/muffins. Done! Make your meal international by adding a dab of hot sauce to take your tastebuds on a spicy Mexican adventure.

Not sure why you'd ever need any other ideas.