For sure, cooking can be the best. I'd love to cook for me and a couple people on the regular. But cooking professionally would get real tiring real quick.
You either need to learn to eat from the pan(it's a one pan recipe, regardless if it is or not), cook enough for 3 days, or do impromptu fasting( absolutely for health and wellness and not because you don't want to wash dishes)
That's why I put everything in the dishwasher. Knives, scissors, sponges, brushes, nonstick pans... if you can't survive the dishwasher then GTFO my kitchen.
Lol. I'm with ya there except for knives. It took me a lifetime to acquire a full set of very nice, very expensive kitchen knives, so I treat them with the respect they deserve.
Depressed people, listen, I understand that pile of dishes is symbolically more than a pile of dishes. But trust me, get up now and do it. It will take you 5 minutes and you might even be rewarded with a hit of dopamine. Go now. You can do it; I believe in you.
2 hours!? You need to learn to cook easier meals or bigger portions so you can eat for multiple days.
Most of my daily meals take 30 min to prepare.
Chek out sorted food on YouTube. They make a big deal out of cooking easy dishes (as well as a lot of other fun challenges for themselves and comedy stuff)
They have a few "Chef/normal vs takeout" that you can start watching.
My guy/gal/pal, cooking is fun. I like cooking for two hours. It's just the cleanup I despise. Also, eating the same stuff for more than two days in a row would be hell for me.
Eating the same stuff for more than two days in a row would be hell for me.
Freezer.
Eat one portion, refrigerated one portion (don't have ot eat it the next day. It'll be good for up to a week), freeze the other two.
I make ragú for pasta, eat one portion when it's ready, refrigerate a small jar for another 2 portions, and freeze enough for another ~10 portions.
You can do the same with soups, stews, etc.
Vegetables (root vegetables I guess. Not things like salad) are usually pretty straight forwards: olive oil, salt, pepper, oven, 200C, for 20 minutes. Not worth freezing, but you can refrigerate and things like potatoes and carrots will be just fine for a week.
I enjoy cooking as well so that's good to hear. The washing up part is eased a lot if you get a dishwasher. Even a small tabletop mounted one can be a big help. It's also good for the environment since it uses less water and energy.
About eating the same two days in a row I'll counter that with the use of the freezer or eat offset so make one large portion to divide. Eat something else the day after and then leftovers the day after that. Then its not twice in a row at least.
Or make dishes that can be twisted into different types. A bolognese can be used in a pasta dish one day and tortilla the next and then nachos if you have any left.
I mean, I've just created a cars coloring drawing for my toddler that took an hour, and it was 5 minutes of coloring fun for him. But we've got a nice new drawing on the refrigerator, so we have that going for us
Depression single parenting - paper plates and disposable plasticware. It allowed me to cook and feed us without the additional piling of dishes on top of everything else. If nothing else, the one pan got washed before cooking again.
If you're pressed for time, this cookbook has been great for my family. Basically it's a meal prep day where you prep ingredients (cook the protein, prep veggies), and for 3 different meals you mix some stuff together, throw it in the oven, and boom, a freshly cooked meal in 30 minutes, 20 of which was waiting for the oven.