[Poll] WFH Meal Reimbursement Policies Forum

[Anonymous User]

What do you actually cook? Because “most” meals take more than 20 minutes, plus spices aren’t a magic bullet. Chopping stuff takes more than 20 minutes most of the time. If all you do is dump chicken breasts and a soup packet into a crockpot, that’s one thing, but I don’t want to eat that every night. I agree with the person above who said you still often have time - it’s definitely not impossible - but it’s not nothing at the end of the day, especially when the magic of takeout means I don’t have to do it.

I definitely would probably take advantage of the taxable stipends, but to answer your question, random stuff I have made recently:

Panko-breaded shrimp with linguine in cream sauce
Roasted chickpeas over Israeli couscous with cucumber and tomato and homemade tzatziki sauce
Chicken pad thai (from scratch)
Seared flank steak in butter sauce with roasted brussels sprouts and potatoes

Counting all non-boiling stovetop as active cooking time, most were under 20 minutes; a couple were 20-30.

I have no idea how chopping would take 20 minutes unless you are making like 50 portions. Using a chef's knife reduces the time to 2-3 minutes for all the above. You can save even more time with a handheld garlic crusher and a mandoline (in which case choppping/slicing takes seconds).

[nixy]

That's all fair (though I was thinking 20-30 minutes to get it on the table, not active work). You're probably just a better cook than I am, in part because I find nothing about it interesting or satisfying at all.

[Bosque]

If you are trying to figure out how to cook for yourself when you are exhausted at the end of the day and have no time, I recomend you look at the numerous resources out there for parents, who face the exact same thing. You don't have to go to processed/boxed meals to do it, or takeout. Some tips I can think of I haven't seen yet:

Whenever you do have time to cook, double it and eat the leftovers later in the week. Obviously some things work better for this than others, but nothing is easier than zapping something in the microwave.

Make things that can be frozen and then finished in the oven or pan in big batches. Examples might include stuffed peppers or other veggies, meatloafs, meatballs, pot pies, enchiladas/tamales, and soups/stews.

Where appropriate, I would also have some cheat staples on hand. As one example, when I was single, I would often have a bag of breaded chicken tenderloins in the freezer for this purpose. If I was ever so busy I didn't feel I could cook (but couldn't get an overtime meal at work), all it takes is turning on the oven and putting the tendeloin on a cookie sheet. You can do a lot with cooked chicken to make it more interesting. I would chop it up on a salad, put some sauce and cheese on top for fake parmesian chicken, mix it in with noodles in a variety of different sauces, cook rice and slather it with miso, put buffalo sauce on it and make a sandwich, ect. And it scaled well for one person.

[nixy]

To be clear - I’m personally not looking for tips on how to make meals when stressed/tired/busy. I was just pushing back against the idea that only people who haven’t cooked much find it time-consuming or burdensome.

[Bosque]

To be clear - I’m personally not looking for tips on how to make meals when stressed/tired/busy. I was just pushing back against the idea that only people who haven’t cooked much find it time-consuming or burdensome.

That's fine too. I know people that, given the choice, would just drink a nutritionally ballanced paste because they see eating as a burden and a waste of time (I know a programer that actually did that for like a year). And everyone decides for themselves how much it is worth to them to avoid tasks they either don't like or don't have time to learn, pretty much every job including law exists because one person is willing to pay another to do a task they would otherwise have to perform themselves. If that's why you don't cook, you do you.

[feminist.supporter]

To be clear - I’m personally not looking for tips on how to make meals when stressed/tired/busy. I was just pushing back against the idea that only people who haven’t cooked much find it time-consuming or burdensome.

Are you married? If not, your best solution given the circumstances could be finding a spouse who is not as busy as you, is an excellent cook, and loves making food. Best of both worlds.

(for real, not joking or trying to mock you)