Anyone cook and eat actual meals most/all days?

Options
1356

Replies

  • aanderson317
    aanderson317 Posts: 17 Member
    Options
    Thank you both---I really appreciate your offering to share recipes, too. I always plan meals a week (or more) ahead, too. Then I enter them in my food diaries in advance. I find it really helpful for making sure I eat properly the rest of the day to balance out the day nutritionally and calorically (is that a word?).

    I do the exact same thing. I have been a "menu-planner" for a year for my budget, but since joining MFP this month, i've started using that menu planning mindset to my calories. I balance my week by adding in treats and balancing the rest of my food around them, and i love it!

    It's also really nice when I'm exhaused (i'm an overwhelmed college student), I don't have to "decide" what's for breakfast/lunch/dinner because I've already written it down. I don't have to think in the moment to make healthy choices, because I planned them. It's my number one tip for success - assuming you're as type A as I am. haha.
  • Saucy_lil_Minx
    Saucy_lil_Minx Posts: 3,302 Member
    Options
    I do a lot of cooking. However, since I work full-time, and have kids sometimes we slack off. You are welcome to add me, and if you see a dinner that you want to know more about just send me a message. I will send you my recipe :flowerforyou: I do a lot of cooking because my son has high cholesterol
  • annakow
    annakow Posts: 385 Member
    Options
    I always had, I was just cooking wrong way, adding to much oil (123 cal a spoon) or to much butter (80 cal for 15ml)...I eat more steamed veggies now, fish, soups, lentils etc
  • thatonegirlwiththestuff
    thatonegirlwiththestuff Posts: 1,171 Member
    Options
    I don't have an open diary, but I cook pretty much every day/every meal. I use a lot of lean meats for my meals. Chicken breasts, ground turkey (as opposed to ground beef), things like that. It's easy to substitute so many unhealthy ingredients to make better meals. Last night I made teriyaki chicken skewers with peppers, onions and mushrooms. For sides I made brown rice and vegetarian baked beans. Super easy to make and very healthy. For lunch I like to make wraps. Sometimes I will use a whole wheat tortilla with lean deli turkey and veggies. Sometimes I will do lettuce wraps for lunch. If I make spaghetti/chili/tacos, I will use ground turkey in place of the ground beef. They taste just as good to me. You just kind of have to acquire a taste for certain things. For snacks, I eat fruit/greek yogurt/fresh veggies.
  • PriceK01
    PriceK01 Posts: 834 Member
    Options
    My diary's open and you're welcome to look.I cook most dinners, which often ends up being lunch, too. Breakfast is usually oatmeal or a smoothie, sometimes I do egg muffins, a frittata, or casserole ahead of time. I do still eat lots of snacks throughout the day.
  • itsmandible
    itsmandible Posts: 88 Member
    Options
    One more reply came in while I was posting---thanks.

    What do we like to eat? We like spicy foods (as in hot!) and highly seasoned things. Mostly I like variety. I would love more recipes with ground turkey. I mostly use it in things like chili or tacos, but I would love to know how to cook it by itself so that it would be moist and flavorful. Love mushrooms, spinach, and zucchini. We don't eat a lot of beef, but I do try to cook it from time to time for DH. My preference is chicken. I like salmon and tilapia and would love to have halibut, too, but I just can't bring myself to pay the high cost. We have pork from time to time. We have everything from fish fillets, brown rice, and veggies to beef stroganoff, chicken pot pie, enchiladas, or beef burgundy. Of course, wtih some of the heavier entrees, I just have to eat smaller portoins. However, I can actually eat a regular serving of the beef stroganoff and beef burgundy because they have some low-fat substitutes included in the recipe. (I got the recipes for both of those from Diabetic Living.)

    Edited to add: I love, love soup! DH doesn't think of soup as a "real" meal, so I have to have a lot of add-ons for him, but if it is well seasoned, soup is my comfort food.

    For ground turkey, I LOVE this recipe! I don't even use the soup mix/parm and they're still SO yummy with just salt and pepper, and then I love to top them with salsa and sour cream! I bet they'd be even more yummy if I added those seasonings! http://allrecipes.com/recipe/black-bean-turkey-burgers/
  • silverinc13
    silverinc13 Posts: 216 Member
    Options
    Feel free to look at mine - I go out to eat only once a week at most (unless out of town for something). :)
  • kkclif
    kkclif Posts: 155 Member
    Options
    Disclaimer: My new lifestyle is an anti-inflammatory plan due to health reasons. So we have cut out all gluten and grain, eating as little processed food as possible, and cutting out refined sugar (due to TOM, my chocolate craving is pretty obvious on my diary atm). My meals are a lot of 'ingredients' listed separately because I don't feel like putting recipes in my database.

    I grill a lot of chicken, steak, pork, and seafood. Roast a lot of asparagus, Brussels sprouts (LOVE!), broccoli, cauliflower, fresh salads. from my garden. Tons of eggs - my skin is loving me for this addition to my diet! It's also a quick/easy way to cook my breakfast and lunch at work.

    Last night, for our 'quick' meal, I baked red potatoes, poured Trader Joe's veggie chili over the top, dollop of sour cream and cheddar cheese. Very filling! I had also roasted asparagus but was too full from the other. And this was one of my higher calorie dinners.

    One of my new summer favorite salads is getting a bag of the shredded broccoli slaw, adding EVOO mayo and vinegar, salt pepper, diced pears, blue cheese crumbles and chopped imitation crab. Topping with dried cranberries and cashews. YUM! Quick and easy with no cooking.

    Another quick meal, was that I bought a rotisserie chicken. Diced it into bite size pieces. Smeared goat cheese on fresh home-grown basil leaves and wrapped those around the rotisserie chicken.

    Made a cauliflower crust pizza that surprisingly good.

    Make tacos often. Just used romaine lettuce instead of taco shells.

    I also love love love my flaxseed pancakes with pure maple syrup or honey poured over the top.


    My diary is open if you want to peek.

    Flaxseed pancakes & cauliflower pizza crust sounds good! Do you mind sharing the recipes when you get the chance?
  • hungryhobbit1
    hungryhobbit1 Posts: 259 Member
    Options
    I cook and bake just about everything from scratch. If you see something like "pork fried rice" (like today) in my diary it's usually a recipe I made myself, with lots of veggies. We can't afford to eat out, and I love to cook.

    I use the recipe function all the time tp calculate nutrition info, but I don't bother to click the "share" option because that requires typing up a bunch of instructions, and MFP isn't actually sharing recipes yet. It's a lot of work for something no one will see.
  • McGruber03
    McGruber03 Posts: 113
    Options
    My husband and I eat meals from home about 99% of the time. For breakfast it's cereal, smoothies, granola bars, english muffins with pb and j, etc. He takes sandwiches for lunch, and I get to eat for free at lunch at my work (which is SO nice, but I work at a hospital with GOOD food, so it can be bad for my calories!) For dinner, we cook double and utilize leftovers so we're not cooking every day. Following are some of our meals at home...

    1. shrimp and grits
    2. meat and 2 - meaning 1 starch, 1 non starchy vegetable
    meats = pork tenderloin, grilled chicken, flank steak, grilled meatloaf
    starches = brown rice, couscous, potatoes (all kinds of ways)
    non starchy veg = steamed broccoli, steamed cauliflower, green beans, asparagus, tomatoes, etc
    3. sometimes we have breakfast for dinner
    4. shrimp and chicken jambolya
    5. different pasta dishes (lasagna, mannicoti) with green salad
    For nights when we don't want to cook
    6. guacamole and chips with fruit for dessert
    7. open a can of black beans and eat black bean burritos or black bean nachos with some salsa and jalapeno peppers

    Our dinners are normal, we just eat normal portions and eat at home, and eat fruit for dessert. We both maintain our weight without crazy diets. And sometimes we even go get ice cream "GASP!" ;)
  • weese17
    weese17 Posts: 236 Member
    Options
    I cook and eat actual meals pretty much all day, every day. (Today being the exception, because I took the kids out to lunch.) I'm pretty sure my diary is open, if you want to take a look.
  • JellyButter
    JellyButter Posts: 160 Member
    Options
    I don't go out to eat much so I cook, unless I'm feeding on meal bars and all that.
    I usually do cook for all of my meals but I don't have to ever slave in the kitchen. I eat lots of pasta and rice to cooking usually isn't a chore. If not I'm eating raw fruits and vegetables.
  • alpine1994
    alpine1994 Posts: 1,915 Member
    Options
    I do, and my diary is open. I have to admit there isn't a ton of variety though.

    For breakfast I make oatmeal. I bring lunch to work every day except Friday, and I usually make something that I can take for 2-3 days. This week I made the Summer Pasta Salad and Fiesta Bean Salad, both from skinnytaste.com. For dinners we usually cook meat on the grill, and roast or steam some veggies. If it's rainy out and we don't feel like grilling, I'll make baked chicken with pesto or a big salad or something.

    There isn't a ton of variety but it's healthy, most of it is homemade, and my boyfriend and I both like it!
  • Fitnin6280
    Fitnin6280 Posts: 618 Member
    Options
    One more reply came in while I was posting---thanks.

    What do we like to eat? We like spicy foods (as in hot!) and highly seasoned things. Mostly I like variety. I would love more recipes with ground turkey. I mostly use it in things like chili or tacos, but I would love to know how to cook it by itself so that it would be moist and flavorful. Love mushrooms, spinach, and zucchini. We don't eat a lot of beef, but I do try to cook it from time to time for DH. My preference is chicken. I like salmon and tilapia and would love to have halibut, too, but I just can't bring myself to pay the high cost. We have pork from time to time. We have everything from fish fillets, brown rice, and veggies to beef stroganoff, chicken pot pie, enchiladas, or beef burgundy. Of course, wtih some of the heavier entrees, I just have to eat smaller portoins. However, I can actually eat a regular serving of the beef stroganoff and beef burgundy because they have some low-fat substitutes included in the recipe. (I got the recipes for both of those from Diabetic Living.)

    Edited to add: I love, love soup! DH doesn't think of soup as a "real" meal, so I have to have a lot of add-ons for him, but if it is well seasoned, soup is my comfort food.

    If you like spicy, I make a mean stuffed pepper. I use ground beef, but you can use ground or shredded chicken. You just take 4 chilis (I use Serano or Pueblo, sometimes bell peppers if I can't find good looking chilis), cut in half and clean, boil about 5 min.

    Brown 1lb of hamburger, add one packet of taco seasoning, 1 can of black beans (drained & rinsed), 1 cups cooked brown rice. Fill each 1/2 of the chilis with hamburger rice mixture. Top with cheese, bake at 350° until heated through and cheese is bubbly.
  • lilRicki
    lilRicki Posts: 4,555 Member
    Options
    I cook every meal...most days :wink: ...I like a lot of variety too. And like another poster said, sometimes it's a recipe that i've entered, sometimes it's ingredients.

    I'm also a big fan of the "health and fitness" section on pinterest, there's tons of healthy recipes on there.
  • IreneAdler221
    IreneAdler221 Posts: 185 Member
    Options
    I prepare most meals, rarely eating out. My diary's open.
  • chunkydunk714
    chunkydunk714 Posts: 784 Member
    Options
    I make too many damn excuses why I dont cook everyday ....but when I do go on my cooking sprees it feels good and I save tons of money.

    Gotta get back into that! Although, I havent been eating a lot of fast food lately so cheers to that!

    Thanks for the post OP :)
  • victoriavoodoo
    victoriavoodoo Posts: 343 Member
    Options
    I don't know if I'd call it cooking, but at least half of my meals consist of frozen plain fish fillets that I bake in the oven plain, no salt or seasoning or anything.

    If it's salmon, I eat it smothered in lemon juice. If it's tilapia, malt vinegar. I used to bread the tilapia but it adds so many calories.
  • chelseascounter
    chelseascounter Posts: 1,283 Member
    Options
    Every day.
  • Lesa_Sass
    Lesa_Sass Posts: 2,213 Member
    Options
    Hey there, I stopped logging earlier this year but I do have a facebook page with lots of meal ideas as well as pictorial recipes.

    I am a big believer in eating real food and cook or prepare most of our meals at home since we both work from home.

    Feel free to take a gander at it. https://www.facebook.com/TheSassyGourmet

Categories