My life has fallen apart because of Trump/Musk taking my job and the American economy becoming a dumpster fire.
I have turned to frozen margarita pizzas as a source of nutrition. To spruce up my pies I chop up spinach, mix in a can of diced green chilies, and season with whatever I have on hand. If I have an extra bag of mozzarella I throw some of that in there too. I let it sit for five or so minutes then spread that on top of the pizza. I add five to ten extra minutes to the baking time.
Got any cheap and fast cooking tips along those lines?
–Extra points for vegetarian tips.
Buy a bunch of silicon containers or boxes that are both freezer and microwave safe. Take the biggest pot you have and make a massive portion of food. Eat 2-3 times, freeze the rest in individual meal portions. Repeat 1-2 times and you have a massive storage of cheap, healthy, delicious food.
Suitable dishes:
Big upgrade for your nutrition and kind of fun to cook such massive portions, while also allowing you to be lazy 9/10 days
One of my favorites, Japanese curry. My grocery has a box of spice paste which is extraordinarily convenient, tasty, and means I don’t need to buy all the spices nor follow a complex recipe .
Box gives easy directions: dice potatoes, carrots, onions, and chicken. Brown the meet, throw in the veggies, a little water and simmer 15 minutes, then mix in the paste.
Tastes excellent, made from actual ingredients, easy, make in bulk, stores well.
Ok here is another I am fond of.
Make a large cheap meat, (chicken thighs, pork roast, tritip) butcher into smaller pieces and wrap well and freeze, even better if you can vacuum seal it. You can basically sous vide in a pot of boiling water and then use in lots of ways. Fajitas, casserole, poutine, shredded BBQ sandwich, etc.
I do this with tonkatsu and charsiu which are nice to have and do as a big batch.
Seconding this - batch cooking is the way to go. Sometimes on a Sunday I’ll just spend a day making large batches of 2 or 3 meals like this, almost all of which will be frozen and then used over the next few weeks.
I recently newly “discovered” soups, though, and it’s crazy magic food! If you don’t overuse oil for searing onions or so, they are very low in calories, high in fibers, and with some chicken also high in protein. Basically you can eat as many portions as you can possibly fit in yourself, roll back to your room and snooze for 3 hours before repeating 😄
I used to love the black bean soup at Panera before they discontinued it and the restaurant started going downhill. But recently I made some from a random online recipe; it’s easy to make and it’s excellent!
I even got a baguette so it’s just like Panera used to be, only better, less sodium, more veggies, and much cheaper
I never made soup before because my family only ever made chicken noodle soup, but it was easier than expected
Soup is Good Food 😁