No, I mean it's such a speciality item in this country that is not the US (the Netherlands ;) ) that you wouldn't even get them at a thrift store because anyone who has them is keeping them. And if they are not keeping them, they are selling them online. It's just not really a thing you have around here. The same way a pressure canner isn't, even though it would be so handy to be able to can stuff like tomato sauce. It's just not something we do. :P
What about a le Creuset dish/similar? Same problem? Edit: not actually le Creuset because they're really expensive, but a knock-off casserole dish.
Le creuset/similar is not a problem, though actual le creuset is ridic our of my price range :P I contemplated asking my parents for a slow cooker for my last birthday, but I decided that a decent carryon was more important. Also there's the: what if I shell out a not unsubstantial amount of money on a slow cooker and I never use it? I wish they were so ubiquitous that I could just get one at a thriftstore, because then I could try it out before really committing :P
Hah yeah, I tend to think of le creuset as a kind of genericised trademark, then I remember that they're like £150+ for a single dish. -_-
I often eat pasta-and-pesto when I get home late on weekdays and need to shovel food into my face before I fall over. Today I added (frozen) peas! It is surprisingly inoffensive and makes me feel like I fizz with vitamins, my body is a temple, I commune with nature etc.
So, its occurred to me while reading this that it may be helpful to have a list of low-spoon cookware handy. I can think of a few right away: A slow cooker/crock pot (mentioned a couple times already) George foreman grill or similar a good nonstick pan (these are so much easier to clean out than normal pans) A good sharp knife A good pan for the oven A rice cooker (at least, if you eat a lot of rice) Other things? I can't think of anything right now, but i can always edit them in or out of here. Maybe this would be better in its own thread though?
I wonder if the apples can be subbed out with pumpkin. Canned pumpkin + spice cake is one of my favorite low-spoons sweet options, it's dense and delicious. Alternately, maybe using white cake/yellow cake and canned cherry pie filling would also work well. Or chocolate cake and cherry pie filling.
In the deli case at Target they have this whole section of mix-n-match meals now. You grab a thing of sauce, a thing of precooked meat, a thing of precooked pasta/rice/quinoa-kale stuff or tortillas or whatever, and a thing of veggies, put them together, and you have 2-6 servings (depending on what you consider a "serving") of a full meal. On a good spoon day you could buy your components, assemble them, and then divvy it up into portion-sized freezer containers and have a few meals ready to nuke and eat. On bad spoon days you could just open the packs, dump stuff in a bowl, maybe nuke it a little, and just eat it like that.
so I discovered there is this box mix of Parmesan flavored couscous and if you make it like the box says (1.25 cups of water, but instead of two teaspoons of butter just put in a tablespoon chunk off of a stick because why not microwave the water, butter, and cheese powder for 5 minutes, stir, pour the couscous in and then let that sit for 5 minutes) it tastes pretty much like box mac and cheese but I don't have to like... boil the macaroni and then add a certain amount of milk and butter and stir that with the cheese power. It removes several steps from the comfort food equation.
i have come up with a new snack with 4 ingrediants, is healthy, and the only steps are dumping stuff in a bowl! ~325grams of yogurt of preferred taste (i used unsweetened plain cause it was all we had) (325grams is half of my yogurt containers, i just dumped about half my container) 2~ handfuls of oats a sizable lump of fruit ontop (i used pineapple tidbits, about 10~ forkfuls, didnt drain before hand, but the fork drained some of the juice) a drizzle of maple syrup dump shit in bowl mix together, drizzle maple syrup ontop, mix in, enjoy smushy healthy oat fruit mush, thats tastes good but it healthy.
What gets me the most isn't the actual cooking, it's washing enough dishes beforehand that I have dishes to cook with. Anyways I've discovered i can just put some creamy wheat (Enriched farina) and some water or soy milk in any container and microwave it. Takes like 3 minutes (with a couple of stops to stir it) and minimal fuss.
This is my breakfast. It's the only near-instant, tasty, meal I've found that doesn't leave me hungry an hour later. I use honey for sweetener and budget muesli instead of oats, and the fruit is either cheap frozen berries or a banana. I like to put in a spoonful of cocoa as well. Bonus: once you've used some of your yoghurt, you can pour your tasty ingredients directly into the yoghurt pot for enough instant-bircher-thing for the next few days. Also the oats will absorb the liquid and thicken. (Naturally this is pretty pointless if you use small-serving yoghurts. But it's good if you buy 1kg at a time, like me.)
Don't know if this was mentioned but you can microwave eggs. Just spray a microwave safe container with nonstick cooking spray, Crack in 2 eggs, whisk with fork, pop in microwave for a minute and a half and bam. You can add cheese and veggies or bacon bits and it's all good. Eggs have to be whisked though otherwise they'll explode.
Last night I made chai spice couscous for dinner. I'm pretty sure this thread has already covered couscous, but it was surprisingly good with a little powdered ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamon. One of my biggest food problems is boredom with everything I have energy to make, so anything I can do to make food "different" is good. Also, if you have an electric kettle, you can boil water for couscous in it, and then just make one serving of couscous in the bowl you're going to eat from. Cover with saucer to let water absorb. Saucer will only barely need washing.
I can't eat most of this food because I am a Vegetarian with other health issues. However, this is my favourite simply recipe. Take ramen. Boil the water and add the spice packet. Let the noodle soften slightly. Just.... put a fucking egg right in. It sounds stupid but if you give it about two and a half minutes, you have ramen with a poached egg and it thickens the soup with the yoke and provides more protein.
