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Living with Mr. Peng, I feel like it's inappropriate if we eat mac and cheese or cereal at night (which I totally eat when I'm alone). I don't want to eat out, but man, cooking can get annoying and expensive 5-6 days a week (we usually go out to dinner 1-2 times a week). Do you have any pantry-ready meals that you like to cook? I'm not really one who likes to plan meals for the week (def. the most economical way to shop, I know). I like to decide what we're eating as I get hungry for something. What are some ways you jazz up "bachelor" meals? I typically like using canned pasta sauce and adding roasted veggies or something to jazz up pasta a little bit for a 10 minute meal. I also LOVE using the slow cooker, but we try not to eat meat that much. Grilled fish is easy, but it's expensive, so we don't do it alot.
Possibly my favorite weekday meal is grilled vegetables with olive oil and balsamic, eaten with crusty bread and some salumi. Yum!
We also eat a lot of frozen pot stickers :)
What are your go-to weekday dinners? Would love some ideas!
Hamburgers and chicken sandwiches... but we love hamburgers. We also do taco salad, baked chicken fingers (buy chicken strips and dip them in egg wash and crunched up crackers or bread crumbs and bake), fajitas and did I mention hamburgers?
I also like to jazz up my meals with an arugala salad...
Arugala
Tomato
Freshly shaved Parm Cheese
Lemon juice w/ EVOO and salt and pepper dressing
I really don't cook on weeknights; I do a lot of prep on Sundays, then make 1 or 2 things to get us through the week. Spahgetti, or we grill, then just reheat on weeknights. I also keep the salad spinner in the fridge, full of ready to eat salad. We eat so much of it, I have to refresh it every other day.
Haha I suck at this too. Thanks Peng :P
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I'm really trying to get better and add to my recipe collection. However, I have to say Trader Joes is my best friend for easy meals. Lately I've been getting jars of their curry sauces and then adding veggies, meat etc.
I like to make a tofu scramble with brown rice. I make it with olive oil and soy sauce, garlic, onion, and whatever other veggies I have lying around. Usually add something spicy! If I don't have jalapenos, I will put some siracha on top! Only problem is, the Dude doesn't eat tofu, so I only make it for myself!
I have a collection of easy to make dinners that feel wife-y. Mustard crusted salmon with roasted potatoes and a green vegetable of some kind, pasta with peas, prosciutto and cream, salmon cakes with brown and wild rice and a salad. Those meals all take about 40 minutes start to finish. We also make big batches of things like ratatouille during the summer from our CSA box and freeze them to eat later. I definitely plan out meals though. I sit down on Sunday morning and pick out a week's worth of dinners and make my grocery list that way. Once you build the habit, it is a big money saver.
We have really been relying on these two things:
Linguine with tomato sauce, fresh basil, fresh mozarella, zucchini and pine nuts. It's so simple but so fast and so tasty.
Pasta with roasted broccoli and walnuts... soooo good! You just toss the broccoli florets with olive oil and tons of garlic, then roast it for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Lately we have also added a container of grape tomatoes and a sliced red pepper into the mix. Meanwhile you cook the pasta (shells, penne, rotini or orecciete (sp?), then add the cooked pasta and 1/2 cup of the starchy water, add parmesan, toss & serve! YUM!
Oh, a cup of walnuts also goes in the pan with the broccoli! ;)
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These are Some of my faves:
Breakfast for dinner (pancakes and sausage, bacon/eggs/toast)
I make batches of stuff and freeze it. Red beans and rice, baked macaroni, jambalaya, stew, meatballs, eggplant parm
Fettuccini Alfredo
Fancy Sandwiches. Toast the bread, add stuffing (meatballs, grilled veggies, ham, salami, etc) then add cheese and stick back in the oven
Frittata (like an omlet)
Loaded potatoes or mashed potatoes (you can add anything)
The roasted chickens from the market are great.
Also the frozen veggies that are in the bag that can just be thrown in the microwave. Ziplock also has steam bag for fresh veggies.
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I LOVE couscous. It's ready in 5 minutes and you can throw anything in it. I love spinach and parmesan cheese. I also do paninis with roasted potatoes. Sometimes a huge salad is good too, maybe with canned tuna on top. FI mixed tuna with nothing but red wine vinegar and dijon mustard and it was really good, even if it does sound a little different.
I am also victim to bachelor-style cuisine! A dinner of mac & cheese, tater tots, and canned (yes, canned) green beans is all too common around our house. When I'm eating "healthy", I make a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato and mustard on it. It takes ALL of my willpower to not put mayonnaise on EVERYTHING. Yeah, I need to work on my diet.
I am pretty lazy too, but I've got a few things that I stand by... our biggest problem is that unless it's a one dish meal, it is really easy to forget to eat veggies!
My favorite easy meals --
Dressed up macaroni/chili mac... make mac and cheese (either home made or from the box, I use the box stuff!!), add in browned ground beef seasoned like tacos (either taco seasoning or garlic, chili pepper and cumin), chopped tomatoes, bell pepper and onion (raw, not sauteed). Mix it all together, put it in the oven to warm through for maybe 10 minutes. Break out a bag of fritos and either scoop it up or crush them over the top.
Ghetto stir fry -- chicken marinated in soy sauce, garlic and ginger, or in peanut butter, soy sauce, and a little sriracha, sauteed with appropriate veggies over rice.
Paella -- a whole bunch of sauteed veggies (zucchini, onion, bell pepper, garlic) then add in tomatoes and sauteed chicken, and a 2:1 ratio of chicken broth and rice... add cayenne/other spicy seasoning to taste at this point... we like it hot! Let the rice cook a bit on the stove top, then once it is kind of smushy/half way done, make hollows on the top with a spoon and crack eggs into the hollows... put it in the oven to bake until the eggs set. (change to veggie broth and take out the chicken and eggs for vegetarian.. my recipe originally was veg but I married a carnivore)
Red beans and rice -- we buy the Zatarain's boxed seasoning mix (we live in the South, don't know how hard this would be to get in the rest of the country) and add in more cayenne, garlic, chili pepper flakes, etc. Two cans of red beans, maybe some andouille, simmer it for half an hour then spoon over rice.
As you can see we go through a lot of rice at my house! I also make tuna cakes, which is basically canned tuna, torn up bread, an egg, and enough mayo to make it hold together in patties, browned on both sides and served with a little Japanese shrimp dipping sauce (basically just mayo, ketchup, garlic and cayenne.. maybe a little sugar if you like sweet/spicy).
Despite all these recipes I have been pretty uninspired lately (so many of my go-to meals earlier in our marriage were definitely winter recipes, and it is HOT down here) so I'm hoping that somebody will share back with me! 
Haha, I hate to cook. And plus, I'm horrible at it. My FH is definitely the chef in the family but I hate for him to cook ALL the time. Makes me feel so un-domestic. :) So, when it's my turn to "cook," I usually make Zataran's jambalaya because all you really do is cook the meat and then just let it simmer. Also, try marinating some chicken in a ziploc bag with honey mustard and some herbs -- it's easy to do before you go to bed and you just leave it in the fridge the next day. Then, just bake the chicken until it's done. It's really easy and simple to make! But my favorite go-to meal is definitely a salad I ate when I was in a restaurant that I now make at home. It's baby spinach leaves, strawberries, blue cheese, raspberry vinegarette and we throw in some chicken! That takes me about five minutes and it's REALLY GOOD! Haha, as you can see, I'm totally into the meals that require little preparation and are simple to make. I hope this helps some!
We have the same problem in our household, I personally love www.kraftfoods.com, they have a ton of healthy and quick meals whenever I'm stuck for ideas, plus people leave comments on how to make it better. Tonight I'm making slow cooker tex-mex chicken, 1 llb of chicken cut into strips, one red and one green pepper cut into strips, 1 cup frozen corn, 1 jar of salsa, taco seasoning and 2 Tbls flour. Mix the flour and taco seasoning and coat the chicken strips, then just throw everything into the slow cooker. Done! Well kinda, I make rice with cilantro to put the chicken mix over.
We have recently fallen in love with a cheap and fast gourmet quesadilla recipe. It is SOOOO good and super easy. At the grocery store you can buy a raspberry chipotle sauce (it's with all the marinades) and I think it is a generic brand like Chef's Choice of something. It's in a glass bottle and it comes with the recipe on a card tied around the neck of the bottle. You mix some of the sauce with sour cream to make a dipping sauce. Then you mix more of the sauce with shredded chicken (super easy if you buy one of those precooked rotisserie chickens), sliced pears, chopped brie cheese, and sliced cherries (the recipe calls for dried cherries, but we like fresh better). Then you put the filling inside a tortilla and toast it until melty. It's to die for!
Our easiest go-to meal is pasta and veggies sauteed with olive oil and lots of garlic - asparagus, broccoli, green beans, whatever we have on hand. Youve got dinner in the time it takes to cook the spaghetti. Yum.
And, of course, there's always cheese and crackers for those nights you really really don't feel like cooking ... I just put them on a fancy cutting board with some fruit to make it look like I put some effort into it!
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Miss Taffy--we made your roasted broccoli pasta last week and it was delish! :) We added a little sauted turkey sausage to up the protein a little.
Honestly, most of the recipes we (well, my husband) cooks come from Cooking Light magazine. I like their recipes and they're usually pretty easy/healthy. We also get some ideas from Real Simple magazine.
Pengy I am going to recommend trader joes. Like Miss Duckling said, their simmer sauces are awesome, they range from piccata sauce to masala curry sauces. So good. My friend loves trader joes salmon cakes to get more fish in your diet. You can get microwavable brown and white rice in the freezer section. I usually go to costco and buy a big package of chicken breasts and it lasts me like two weeks, I save tons of money that way. Tj's has a no fat greek yogurt that I shred an cucumber into add lemon juice and dried dill with a little salt and it is a great mediterranean side dish for your meal. You can also use your slow cooker for pulled chicken bbq sandwiches, seriously, so easy-sweet baby rays bbq sauce from safeway one white onion sliced and two chicken breasts and let it cook all day...soo good!
I love pasta carbonara, and we always have the ingredients for it! I am also a big fan of the French picnic: baguette, cheese, fruit. And one just can't go wrong with "brinner" (breakfast for dinner).
Mark Bittman of the NY Times is one of my favorite food authors to read - he keeps everything really simple and straightforward but has fabulous ideas. Check out some of the ideas he wrote about last summer - everything in this article is super fast:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/dining/18mini.html?_r=1
Another favorite is the Amateur Gourmet - he's funny and he is great with food.
http://www.amateurgourmet.com/
I love these two guys because they're not all hung up on measurements and being exact - they cook because they enjoy it - it just goes to show that you can use your instincts instead of having to follow specific recipes!
I just made some things last week from a new cookbook we got from the wedding. I really don't cook much, but I LOVE good food, so things have to be super easy in order for me to attempt them... Anyway, here are my recs:
Eggplant Open Face Pizzas: Take one eggplant and and slice it into 12 pieces length-wise. Brush each piece in olive oil and grill until golden and soft. Mix together one package of feta cheese, 6 pieces cooked bacon, salt, pepper, dried basil, and a little balsamic vinegar. Put the grilled eggplant pieces on a cookie sheet; put 2 slices of tomato on every piece and top with the feta mixture. Shred some mozzarella on top. Broil until the mozzarella is melted and browning a little.
Baked Pear Salad: Cut two pears in half and use a melon baller to remove the seeds (it should make a little cup in each pear). Mix together a little bleu cheese (or feta if you don't like bleu), chopped walnuts, and 2 slices of crumbled, cooked bacon, and stuff the little pear cups with your mixture. Put in the oven @ 375 for 20 minutes. Serve one full pear (2 halves) over mixed spring greens. For dressing, whisk together stone-crushed mustard and olive oil.
ETA: I just realized that besides these two recipes we ate cheese and bacon in three other dishes last week! 
I don't mind cooking but I hate planning meals and grocery shopping. FH and I have a system where we alternate weeks for grocery shopping and cooking. It's nice that we each only have to think about dinners every other week.
One of my favourite quick meals are those skillet sensations. They only take about 10 minutes to prepare. Sometimes I'll add a salad or some pillsbury rolls.
I also like to bake fresh fish filets and serve with some fresh steamed veggies and rice.
Jessie, that's awesome!!! I love that dish, may make it again this weeked!
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Once it's summer I avoid hot food like the plague! I make a lot of meal salads. Especially fond of a quinoa salad with black beans, corn and other veggies and tabouleh made with couscous and fresh mint. Both fast, cold, and packed with fresh veggies! Yay!! We also grill a lot in the summer, esp. shish kabobs. yum... When we don't want to cook at all, we make Greek salad and have it with bread and hummus. And wine!
We plan all of our meals for the week, befoe we go grocery shopping on saturday. We always keep the frozen veggies in steam bags on the frezzer...5 minutes to fresh steamed veggies. Fish is also really esy to do...salmon with some good mustard and baked for 20-30 minutes, or with a mustard/honey glaze. Haddock with breadcrumbs. Couscous is super easy to cook with this.
We also always have wheat pasta in the house, throw in whatever...shrimp and garlic, fresh wilted spinach/garlic/halved grape tomato, chicken/sauce/brocolli, ricotta/diced tomato/turkey sausage/peas
We make a lot of stirfry dishes. We go to the farmer's market every Sunday morning, and if there's anything left late in the week, it tends to all get thrown in a wok with some Korean BBQ sauce and maybe an egg or two. I eat it over brown rice; he prefers whole wheat pasta. It is the fastest meal EVER, and only dirties one pot. :)
Two words: weight watchers some of the simplest healthy recipes out there. We both work through dinner on weeknights so we have a cooking marathon Sunday or cook at night and package it up into the appropriate portions. It really helps you eat healthy and it is wonderful not to have to come home and cook on the nights I do get home early.
My go to meal is whole wheat angel hair pasta (because it cooks in three minutes) and veggies, with olive oil and garlic. I use whatever frozen or fresh veggies I have on hand, and throw in a small can of stewed tomatoes for a fresh(ish) sauce.
Breakfast for dinner. MMM...I love soy bacon and poached eggs. Or an omelet if I need more veggies in my diet that day.
When I'm really inspired there are a few things I make ahead of time. Bulgur wheat (super tasty, eat it hot like rice or cold in a salad), baked potatoes, and grilled/marinated chicken. I keep everything in little containers and eat as the week goes on to suit my mood. On the first day I might want chicken breast and bulgur, but by the second day I might use some veggies and CHEEEEESE for the baked potato. By day three, I'm eating chicken sandwiches. Yum.
Oh and I always keep beans in the pantry. Bean salad is good for you and really easy to make. Especially in the summer when you don't need to be near a hot stove.
Nice summer pasta:
fresh basil leaves (cut in strips)
tomatoes (cubed)
brie cheese (cubed)
olive oil
garlic powder
salt/pepper
-mix together and let sit for 2 hrs till cheese is soft
And then toss with pasta!
Our standard meal is a steamed vegetable, some kind of grain, and maybe some protein. Like steamed broccoli with brown rice and beans or tofu. Or pasta with olive oil and garlic, tossed with steamed broccoli. Another good one is a stirfry of veggies with tofu or tempeh served with brown rice or quinoa. An omelet with salad and bread is also a good one. We need to add some variety and start using some "real" recipes though! One idea I had was for each of us to take turns once a week, like on Sunday night, finding and cooking a brand new recipe for dinner, to start building up our repetoire a bit more. We haven't started this yet, though.
Haha, I so have Mac and Cheese when Mr.Flamingo isnt around
I do alot of BBQ cooking. Marinated chicken, steads, brochettes, hamburgers...
mmm now im hungry
I like to cook but we are not morning people so we get to work later which means we have to work until later. By the time I get home and start cooking, we should have had dinner already.
So to tackle eating at home (cuz it's health and less expensive) .. I'm trying out cooking for the next day this week. So when I get home, I'll cook like normal but we'll eat the food we had cooked yesterday and leave the newly cooked meal for the next day. This way we can eat as soon as my husband gets home ( he gets to work later than me). And still have time to do other things afterwards.
We do a lot of stir fry, baked ziti, baked chicken (sometimes with Shake 'n Bake!), chili, and tacos, sometimes with soup mixed in and usually with steamed veggies for a side. Occasionally I make something nicer, but it just takes so much time and costs more than eating out, usually. Once we did breakfast-for-dinner...that was fun. :)
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When fi is gone I eat cereal three meals a day :)
I love to make baked chicken breast (butter and sour cream spread on the raw chicken and cover it with crunched up cheez-its) its abso fabulous! I get the big bag of chicken breast from the grocery and seperate them into individual baggies, i buy in bulk to save.
My favorite quick dinner is tomato-tortellini soup: Mince a few cloves of garlic, saute them in a soup pot in some olive oil, add 6 cups of chicken broth (I buy cartons or cans of it) and some herbs & spices (I use paprika & thyme, but you can play around), and a big can of diced tomatoes. Once it comes to a boil, add a package of cheese tortellini and boil until the tortellini are done.
Fajitas are another good and quick dinner - chop up some skirt steak or flank steak and throw it in a bowl with corona, lime juice, cumin, salt & pepper to marinate. While it marinates, get the other fixin's ready (salsa, sour cream, maybe heat up tortillas, maybe some quick guac if you're feeling fancy, and cut onions and bell peppers into strips). Then saute the veggies in one pan and the meat (drained) in another.
Here is a super easy and healthy fish recipe that I got from my mom. We get individually frozen and wrapped tilapia filets from costco - it's like $10 for 8 fillets or something, so totally affordable. Defrost the fish by submerging in lukewarm water (takes about 15 min) and preheat the oven to 375 while waiting. Line a casserole dish with olive oil, place the fillets on top, then add (in this order) to the top of the fish: lemon juice, salt and black pepper, about 1tbs bread crumbs, then olive oil or thinly sliced butter to the top of the bread crumbs. Lately I have been throwing in some mushrooms around the fish and adding some olive oil on top of them. Cook for ~ 20 min (until fish is opaque) and eat! We usually eat a salad while we're waiting for the fish to be ready. I've tried this with chicken breast tenderloins too and its also yummy!
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We love to cook and cook a lot. We might get takeout once every two weeks. Even on weekends when friends come over, we cook just cuz it's what we like to do. :)
We do a lot of 2-3 night meals. The cheapest one by far is spaghetti with meat sauce. 90% lean ground beef with tons of fresh seasonings, fresh garlic, fresh onions & peppers. Ragu Pasta Sauce, tomato garlic & onion, only! We'll jazz it up night three by making fresh garlic bread. Or use penne/ziti to do it baked style.
Another super cheap 2 night meal is one king pack of chicken breast. Chicken Stir Fry w/baby bok choy (or my fav chinese brocolli) with white rice the first night. Second night grilled chicken sandwiches. Or using leftover chicken to make Grilled Chicken Ceasar Salads. Doesn't get much healthier and cheap than that!
And we always cook enough to make lunches with leftover for the next day.
We eat a lot and cook in big portions (bigger than most people, I find!). But Real Simple is a great resource for cheap fast meal planning for the average eater!
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Shhh don't tell ... I use and absolutely LOVE shake-and-bake. haha. Both pork and chicken comes out nice and moist and so so yummy. It's so easy -- and not terrible for you (high in sodium but we're young and healthy so that's ok for us for now). We also love taco salad or just regualr tacos - with ground turkey. I make a mean chicken "stir fry" i basically just put chicken strips and veggies on the stovetop and cook with balsamic vinagarette. mmm mmm good.
I also highly recommend buying the rotisserie chickens from the grocery store, which you can eat right away (delicious roasted chicken) with rice or stuffing or potatoes, and also use in chicken salad, chicken sandwiches, stirfry, etc.
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