The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Do you cook? I think there's a lot of people out there that would say they don't know how to cook and yet most people can't eat out every meal, so I wonder what are most people actually doing? I'm trying to learn to cook and I've realized something. There are so many cooking resources out there but they are all focused on recipes and techniques. It gives the impression that learning to cook is just about finding recipes and executing them well and doing this over and over. The problem with this is 1. it's a lot of work and 2. ingredients get wasted. This is even more of a problem if you are cooking for one and the less frequently you cook.
I see two ways out of this. First way, develop an understanding of how to use ingredients flexibly across a variety of meals, knowing when and what ingredients to buy ahead of time, understand how food can be preserved. It's actually a pretty high bar, especially when you don't even realize these are skills you need, which I think is why I've bounced off learning to cook in the past. Second way, cook the same few things over and over. I'm guessing most people are actually doing this, but doesn't it get boring eating the same thing repeatedly?
So I'm curious how often posters here actually cook. What does your cooking situation look like: are you cooking for one or more, are you cooking everyday or less? Do you have a system that makes it work for you?
I cook nearly every day for my family, two teenage boys and a wife in her 40s. She is easy. The Golden Rule of My Wife is if there is a salad, she is happy. So a salad, which means usually two types of lettuce (one frilly, the other ideally bitter like rucola but not necessarily). Julienned carrot. Thinly-sliced paprika (red bell pepper). Thinly-sliced cucumber medallions. Thinly-sliced red onion, soaked first in ice water to take out the bite. Add something like homemade croutons seasoned with olive oil and oregano and salt, and/or some crumbled bacon but she doesn't love the bacon. A salad dressing. She doesn't mind bottled, but having more than one is good.
I've recently learned how to make a quite good miso soup, though I only do that if I have a more Japanese-y meal plan. Rice is then going to be the starch.
I usually, however, make pasta of some sort, or curry and rice (no miso soup in that case). The key is make things you know people like and don't make things you know that they do not like (neither my wife nor in my youth my mother follow(ed) this rule as much as I do). Also of course make something that you like, but I keep my own preferences secondary. A good bolognese sauce is not hard but easy to do poorly if you are lazy. It takes around 2 hours. Philly steak sandwiches aren't hard if you have good bread. Spicy mabou-doufu is good on rice (again in this case miso soup not needed). Chicken and broccoli. Various kinds of fried chicken (popcorn, something they call chicken tatsuta here, karaage or Japanese fried chicken). Pulled pork with mashed potatoes and cole slaw (again no miso soup). Various lasagnes with different meats or sauces. I used to make a shrimp pasta with feta cheese and spicy red pepper but I expect my boys wouldn't eat it. Beef stroganoff also used to be a standby. Twice-cooked pork with cabbage and onions. There are also things I cannot cook and haven't tried: Nabe or hotpot, which done well is amazing, but takes work on one person's part while everyone else eats.
In Africa I learned to cook down dried beans into a hearty meal. I learned to roll tortillas from scratch with a wine bottle, some baking powder/soda, and a bit of lard. Mexican food is great to learn on. I do fajitas once every few months. Taco rice, because hey, Japan. Eggs Benedict in the morning of a long weekend. I have recently discovered Harissa sauce and Shakshuka and it is amazing with crusty bread and hot coffee. Implausibly breakfast is my big meal of the day if I have time to make it, which I rarely do. I would kill for a good diner open early. Pancakes and waffles take a bit of practice. Chicken à la King on toast or rice. Sautéed spinach with onion and some mozzarella or something melted on it. Crocque Monsieur grilled with gruyère cheese and a nice ham. Then there's chili. Or beef stew. Or hayashi rice. I'm only listing things I make, but I am discovering new stuff all the time that is healthier. A good quinoa salad with lime, cilantro and cucumber is very refreshing and healthy. I can pan fry steaks but am still weak on the grill. Part of my burger recipe involves a cast-iron skillet. Ah, I used to make patty melts and mash the caraway seed into brown bread to simulate rye (which is hard as hell to find in Japan.) Now I'm hungry.
My wife is, like any of us, not perfect, but she follows this rule religiously and I am deeply grateful for that. These days I keep looking for new dishes not because I want to try something new, but because I want to find more straightforward dishes that everyone likes: me, her, her mother and our son. My recent success is cordon bleu (and before that it was American goulash).
You have a son with your wife's mother? Like, your son is your half brother-in-law?
No, as a German would say.
To keep up the pedantry, wouldn't a German say nein?
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