How much time/money do you spend cooking?

[jacob]

I cook for all weekdays and a few weekends. I usually spend 30-60' each session and it lasts for 2-3 days(*). DW usually cooks something fancier during weekends and spends 1-2 hours. Both of us cook from staples(**). Eating out is rare because it's expensive and inferior (measured on personal/preferred taste... not overall laziness).

(*) I don't do marathon 30=day stuff into the freezer programs...

(**) I highly recommend 5 gal buckets and gamma seal lids combined with 20-50 pound bulk buying! Also, your local ethnic stores as per whatever flyers you regularly receive (here Mexican).

What's your time-cost routine/schedule?

PS: For refernece: Chicago underurb costs: ~$150/month for two adults.

[BRUTE]

brute cooks once a day, right before the meal. typically between 6pm and 10pm, depending on activities and social circumstances. friends usually want to eat sooner, whereas brute likes to eat later.

this take around 15-20 minutes, basically only depending on how many things there are to chop.

brute finds cooking relaxing, almost meditative, and is not convinced pre-cooking is worth the time saved in flavor lost. the few times he tried it, it didn't taste nearly as good as fresh.

while brute doesn't keep any food-accounting books, he probably spends $150/month just for himself. but he does go out to eat with friends 1-2x a week, and his diet is what one might call extremely meat-heavy.

[Did]

I don't know the cost - too much if you have a cheap carb diet - but we cook regularly, as in daily, and wouldn't have it any other way. We see it as one of life's great pleasures and not a chore to be dispatched on the weekend.

Cooking times vary wildly but we braise a lot and think nothing of cooking a curry for a few hours (although that would be a batch cook naturally). Someone gave me a few leeks so I bought some pork and will braise it with the leeks, white wine and butter for a few hours to make a delicious stove top roast.

Having given pasta a miss for health, quicker meals might be say a tomato sauce (always cooked from scratch from fresh) but with eggs poached in it, or eggplant. If we make a ragu we might make zucchini pasta with a knife.

We do eat beans and dahl regularly (low GI and not wheat). We soak the beans overnight and cook them in bulk either Italian style or in an Indian fashion. We tend to cook the dalh simply with onion garlic and dried chillies.

[GandK]

I prefer/aim to cook everything once a week and divide the result into daily portions to use, refrigerate or freeze. Life is rarely so neat, though.

Our food budget for a household of 4.5 (average, stepkids in and out) is currently $360/mo. This does not count G's business-related meals out about 2xW.

[IlliniDave]

I've never tracked it but I would estimate I spend 3-5 hours/wk cooking, and spend about $180/mo on food for a single person. I rarely have a lot of enthusiasm after work to invest much effort in cooking so I lean towards simple-to-prepare things. Cost is driven by a diet that is primarily meat/seafood and non-starchy vegetables, the occasional reliance on convenience items, and my sweet tooth.

[Ego]

Our meal prep goes something like this.

I put on the brown rice, ask Mrs. Ego to start making her salad then go back into my office. Fifteen minutes later I return to find that Mrs. Ego has not started making her salad so I lie and tell her the rice is almost done and ask her to hurry up. I go back to the office and post a testy response here to one of Zalo's posts. Ten minutes later I come back to find that Mrs. Ego has sliced a tomato in half. I wash, chop and stir fry all of the vegetables and tofu on the side-counter while Mrs. Ego makes ten beet squares (she counts!) into perfect little 1cm squares. I make my own salad while Mrs. Ego measures EXACTLY how much balsamic vinegar she will spread evenly on the salad. I serve my own plate, set it on the table, take a picture of it, and stare out the window, envying people as they walk to the park while wolfing down some indistinguishable food item they bought from the Starbucks down the street. Five minutes later I look back to the kitchen to see that Mrs. Ego is washing kale. I come back to the office and post the photo of my lunch in the other food thread here. Poke my head in the door to find her grating a carrot. Back to the office to package and ship a sale. Back to the kitchen to see she is serving herself the stir fry. She asks, "Did you put any temphe in this? I feel like temphe." I respond with a mumble. She shrugs and starts toward the fridge for some temphe as I say, "My food is getting cold. I'm eating!" She scolds me in Spanish for being impatience. I sit at the table, rattling my cutlery as if I am eating. She brings her plates to the table, kisses me and thanks me for waiting.

Every single day.

[BRUTE]

so is ego just in it for the kisses at the end?

[jennypenny]

DH says he didn't know posts like Ego's were allowed and now he wants to join so he can share how things roll around our house. I assured him that everyone on the forum knows exactly how annoying I can be, but don't be surprised if mrjennypenny shows up on the forum soon.

[George the original one]

Retired life single meal cooking time is 20 min or less, with salads not actually requiring any cooking. Multiple meal cooking (*) is typically 30 min with only one of us doing the cooking. We're much more efficient cooking multiple meals, both in labor & energy. We're averaging about $70/week for groceries for two, higher than the $50/week we had been doing, but that's been due to stocking up opportunities & luxury items.

Timewise, the roundtrip to a restaurant takes at least 30 minutes and, unless it's fast food, still requires waiting for the cooking. Therefore, unless it's a social occasion, we only eat out when combining it with trips for other reasons.

(*) Multiple meals are at least one more for the pair of us and as many 3 more. Breakfasts are typically single meal (because we eat differently at breakfast), but sometimes we'll make a double batch of blueberry waffles which lasts us a few days.

[Ydobon]

Cooking is one of my real pleasures, I considered it for a career for a time, although crap money and hours dissuaded me.

My weekly routine (as it is) basically goes:

1. Thursday evening/Friday morning trip to Lidl, picking up reduced meat and fish before they stock the weekend offers
2. Freeze anything that won't be used over the weekend, keep the rest
3. Complete 1-2 'cooking projects' on Friday or Saturday (typically a large roast or slow cooker meal + a large batch of baby food freezer cubes for my daughter)
4. Try to batch cook lunches for the working week on Sunday (something like brown rice/black eyed peas/veggies)
5. Use frozen items with veggie sides during the week, maybe 20-25 mins/night

We will typically eat one meal a week out of the house (usually breakfast or a snack meal like chips and a coffee after a long walk to the local park). This is more a convenience thing than anything else, time is at a premium with a baby in the house.

We're quite spendy compared to some (maybe £40/w ($240/m for the Americans), but 20-25% of this is formula, which we will only need to purchase for another 10 weeks. At that point, we'll be more like £30/w.

This doesn't inclue alcohol, which we purchase as a treat from our own spending money.

[7Wannabe5]

Lately, I have been spending too much money and too little time. My current spending on food just for myself is approximately equal to what I used to spend to feed my family of four 20 years ago ($150-$200/month), and very little of that is due to price inflation. I think this is mostly due to the fact that I am a selfish old woman who, although never employed as a cook/chef, spent most of her life cooking for other people (my very rough calculation comes out to at least 45,000 meals prepared by me for people other than me), so it is one of the tasks I have semi-retired myself from at this juncture. This is partially due to pure laziness, but mostly due to no longer wanting to have to give a damn about the preferences of others. "Soup is not a meal.", "I don't like beans.", "My new boyfriend who comes over every night for dinner is a vegan.", "I am lactose intolerant." ,"I am doing Atkins.", "Tomatoes give me a rash around my mouth." "Too spicy!" No longer my problem. No longer my problem. No longer my problem. Aaaaaaaaaaah.....like taking off a heavy pack after a very long hike or floating in a warm pool of bubbles.

So, many evenings I lapse into pure self-indulgence and just pick up a box of whatever is available at the hot buffet at either the Bengali, Middle Eastern or Polish market. These are all within easy walking distance, quite inexpensive for healthy prepared foods, and offer a range of vegetables, fish and meat. Most frequently I choose something like eggplant and peppers roasted with a little bit of ground meat. If I had to take a special trip in a car, pay Whole Foods buffet type prices, or eat what passes for food someplace at a venue such as Taco Bell, then I would definitely be cooking just for myself more often. Time-wise, it probably takes me 10-15 minutes to walk to the buffet and get a dinner vs. 10-15 minutes for me to just throw together something for myself to eat and maybe half-hour if I give the task some sensual attention. Typical medium-low effort sort of thing I might prepare for myself would be to ask my sister to put aside some of the rice she cooked for her dogs, and then I would stir-fry onion, garlic, ground chili, soy sauce, bit of brown sugar, vinegar, tomatoes, greens and eggs and dump it on some of the rice. Sweet , Spicy and Sour Eggs and Tomatoes is something I like that many other people do not like, so I eat it quite frequently in selfish mode. Unfortunately, the amount of food provided to me by either of my lovers has been quite negligible in recent week (likely due to the fact they are giving me more credit for functioning at a level beyond primitive contract than I deserve-sigh.) Anyways, I can't stand waste and I really do enjoy cooking when my attitude is better-adjusted, so this will all likely change once my garden starts producing again. I am going to try to grow enough potatoes to feed myself this year!

[vexed87]

Typically my week day meals require anywhere between 5-20 minutes prep time plus cooking time (with an occasional stir of the pot/pan) and rather annoyingly about another hour doing dishes and drying up...

Everything I make is basically from scratch, including sauces, garnishes, wraps, pita, pizza etc. I enjoy cooking, but not so much the mountain of washing up that follows. For this reason, I especially love one pot dishes which feature most days of the week where I can get away with it (SO complains about basic meals!).

I'll make something more fancy when time/energy allows (Fri-Sun)

[GandK]

@7w5 I sympathize! I'm not quite at that point, but I definitely cook way more than I enjoy it, and find myself asking for meals out as gifts from pretty much everybody these days. Beats the heck out of having more stuff in my house.

[zarathustra]

I do a batch cook for 4-5 big lunchy-dinner meals once a week which takes ~2 hours then I cook or prep another meal each day which takes no longer than 30 mins including dishes/clean up. I also enjoy the meal prep time and find it meditative but I wasn't always like this.

I am playing around with adding more legumes to my diet to cut costs but have to see how it impacts my athletic performance and body comp before making a final decision.

I average $300 a month for eating. I eat quality meats and chocolate Also, I eat out 1-2 times a month and usually treat someone each time.

I spent almost $100 on alcohol a month as well due to my 1-2 glasses of red boxed wine a night and maybe one night out a month or so.

[vexed87]

(**) I highly recommend 5 gal buckets and gamma seal lid...

Where do you get these from jacob? They are quite expensive online.

[Ydobon]

Aye, they're like £50 on Amazon!

Bit cheaper here: http://www.elitecarcare.co.uk/gamma-sea ... id-red.php

[jacob]

@vexed87 - Home Depot or random survivalist stores. Try army surplus?

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Leaktite-5-g ... /203205720

[cmonkey]

The cheapest 5 gallon bucket with lid I ever found was Emergency Essentials. They are good quality and will last a long time.

Time spent cooking is a little longer for the DW probably 30-45 minutes in the evening. When I cook its usually something simpler (and thus less desirable to the DW) and I will be 25-30 minutes. Cooking is one of those inconveniences that just keeps popping up everyday, at least when I cook. I try to like it but I can't when I'm hungry and have other things to do. I am the kind of person that could eat the same thing for 2-3 days and rotate between 4-6 different things. I'm not fussy. I know what I like. DW on the other hand hates it and wants to eat new things all the time. It continues to be one of our stronger differences.

[jacob]

@cmonkey - The gamma seals are much superior (I have one of the snap-on lids you link to for my wine brewing and it's a bit like comparing a car to a tank) so just get the food grade 5 gal buckets without the lid, e.g.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Argee-5-gal- ... /204082827

So that's $4 for the bucket and $7 for the gamma seal.

Alternatively, I hear that restaurants sometimes give the buckets away since they get flour and lard in those buckets.

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Confirmed you can get free 5-gal buckets from restaurants. A friend collected between five and ten of them to use as planters for tomatoes either last year or two seasons ago. They had held things like olives, salad dressing, and "whipped topping" (aka cool whip).