I put rice and lentils in a rice cooker, then eat with peanuts and aioli. Add microwaved frozen soy beans / corn if I’m feeling fancy. 5 minutes preparation, 20 minutes of wait.
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ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
When I need to eat but don’t want to put in any effort: half a cup of rice, half a cup of lentils, two cups stock (I use veggie stock, but you can use chicken, beef, etc.) Season with whatever you have in your spice drawer that looks good. Bring the water to a boil then lower the heat to low and let it simmer covered for 20-ish minutes. It’s bland but filling, lentils provide protein, it’s ready in less time than it would take to get delivery, and you don’t have to watch it. Rice and lentils will keep in your cabinet forever. You can get stock paste or boullion that keeps a long time too.
You can still have two beers, but now you’re not drinking on an empty stomach.
Hybris@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
Can I suggest putting some frozen kale or spinach in it as well? For extra veggies and taste. We basically cook that every week and I love it. Granted, I put a tad more effort into it (stir fry onion and garlic and tomato paste before I add rice, lentils, greens and broth) but it’s basically the same.
Also try adding soy sauce, smoked paprika, and liquid smoke. Just a drop but it does wonders. Yeast flakes are also great.
KernelTale@programming.dev 15 hours ago
As a depressed person myself this my a big part of my diet.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 14 hours ago
Your “no effort” meal, sounds like a lot of effort to me.
My low effort meal is “open packet, put ready meal in oven or microwave”
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
This is low effort and cheap and relatively healthy compared to those microwave dinners though, a big bag of rice and lentils doesn’t cost much and is shelf stable for a year easily
Lazylazycat@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
What you’re saying isn’t untrue, but if I’m drunk I shouldn’t be in control of fire.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 14 hours ago
Massively cheaper and almost certainly better for you, yes - but arguably not as low effort as “beep beep beep, ping”.
SeptugenarianSenate@leminal.space 12 hours ago
The effort is in learning how to do it the first time. Though arguably that may be one of the greatest culinary achievements/contributions from the US food industry that comes to mind is the hardly canny ability for these food manufacturers to come up with a food that can not only be served in little plastic packet shaped packs, but have those packets reheat in “Approx. 60 seconds” in 8/9ths of all the microwaves in around and in use at that time, after I have taken the time to consider / have to learn the hard way [1] , how tough (another unintended pun this time) reheating meat pr breads could be in high power models with numerous modes, which are suggested to be used in order to heat certain types/shapes/consistencies of some common food object types. (shoutout to the models without the popcorn button, but with a “Potato” setting, with no other words aside from the weight input selection).
[1] I once microwaved a pop-tart for 2 minutes when the toaster wasn’t working as a kid, for reference of where I had been starting from. Worst looking pop-tart ever afterwards, completely unrecoverable smoking hole in the middle of the thing after I came back into the kitchen blissfully unaware that I had blasted it waay too much (in retrospect, at least I knew/had been taught to remove the foil wrapper…)
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
This is literally the same amount of effort.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 6 hours ago
I do appreciate that the listed recipe is “relatively quick and simple”, but I’m not convinced by “literally the same effort”.
If it was, then why would anyone buy the millions of frozen/boxed/packeted “just put it in the oven for 30 minutes” or “just put it in the microwave for 2 minutes” meals? They’re not buying them for the high-quality taste, surely?
Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
You know, I keep wondering this, because it genuinely is a similar amount of work. It’s just putting two dry and one wet thing in a pot. It takes me maybe 3 minutes. You don’t even have to do the ‘bring to a boil, then turn the heat down’ bit the other person described. Just turn on medium heat and leave it be. I’d probably take longer reading the package instructions and following them correctly on something ready made.
That said, I’ve gotten ready made meals for lunch when my work only had a microwave and no real kitchen.
kurwa@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Put the rice and lentils in a packet. You could also make this in a microwave. A rice cooker would work too.
This is easier than mac and cheese from a box.