What's the biggest pain in the butt when it comes to cooking at home?

I didn't really learn how to cook until two years ago, when I decided to work on losing my excess weight. I found I really enjoy it! I like searching for tasty and healthy recipes online, and I like perusing the produce and selecting what I think is the tastiest. I LOVE handling the ingredients, washing, chopping, mixing, spicing. I don't know why it feels so satisfying. It's like, "Wow, I am in complete control of what I'm eating today. The only things in this casserole/stew/pasta/smoothie/oatmeal/whatever are what I choose to put in there. No weird preservatives or food coloring, no excess grams of salt or sugar, nothing I can't identify easily." It's just so nice, washing peppers, mincing garlic, measuring out oil, shaking in herbs, stirring a big pot or carefully assembling a lasagna or ratatouille.

The most obnoxious thing about cooking is my current kitchen. I have very little counter space (I live in a studio apartment), literally the only counter is the space over the dishwasher. Next to that is the sink, and then beside that is the stove. So, I have to be very efficient and clean up as I make things, which is annoying.

I don't really cook during the week, aside from assembling smoothies in the morning and salads at lunch. I usually cook my main dish and a side dish on Sundays, when I have free time, and eat leftovers throughout the week. I have time to cook during the weekdays, I just prefer to use that time for working out and then reading (I lament how much reading time I've lost, but I know I need those 90 minutes in the gym to be healthy, so it's a sacrifice I got to make).

I have two things I hate: one is all the weighing and measuring I currently do, which significantly slows down meal production. When I could just eyeball a wodge of butter, a couple pork chops, half an onion and a pepper, it went much faster.

The second is that my partner constantly requests meals that don't fit with the number of calories or effort to prepare them. I'm not spending 3 hours making eggplant parmesan when I can only fit one tiny piece into my calorie allowance. It's even worse when I'll make something that's a little calorie heavy (like beef pot roast), and he doesn't eat the leftovers.

Biggest drain is the prepwork for some recipes. If you make everything fresh, from scratch, the prep work can be very involved. I love eating bruschetta, but it takes forever to chop the two pounds of tomatoes to make it (we eat it as its own meal).

I tend to make 2 days worth of meals at a time, so obviously, we eat a lot of leftovers. We also eat a lot of lazy quick things like burgers and baked potatoes. We maybe eat out once every 6-8 weeks, usually either because it is a special event or we are on a very long day trip/vacation. It just isn't worth it to eat out the vast majority of the time, both in terms of calories and money. I hate spending a crap load of money at a restaurant and leaving feeling like it was...ok...but I could have done better myself for way less.

I am not skilled in the kitchen and hate feeling stupid when it comes to cooking. I'm just not a natural. But when I do get something right, I love it. I like it when I make my partner happy and family all likes the meal.

I don't cook. I have plenty of time and energy - I just have no interest. I can always find something more fun to do.

Not having enough counter space. We have literally one counter.
Dishes - goes without saying.
"30 minute meals" that are never 30 minutes because I don't have someone to set up my mise en place for me!

MynameisChester wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the insightful answers! So I see that some of the unanimous pain points are:

1) Lack of time
2) Lack of energy
3) Challenge deciding what to make daily
4) People really hate cleaning!
5) Family member may not like what you make

It seems to boil down to lack of time and energy. It really appears to be the story of our lives when it comes to anything! For simplification purposes, let's just say cleaning is still part of the cooking process. After all, it does take time and energy. So what do you all think is the best way to make the best use of time and energy when it comes to meal planning, cooking, and cleaning? Should you:

A) buy precut produce or just cut all your produce in the beginning of the week so the ingredients are "restaurant ready" and you can start cooking right away?
B. learn more general recipe "templates" or "guidelines" so you can easily make substitutions ie: recipe calls for 1 cup green leafy veggie, 2 tablespoon fat, 1 cup starch, 4 oz protein?
C) Organize and simplify your kitchen? Maybe you have too many pots, pans, plates that you don't use daily causing you to wash too many unnecessary items?

Thanks again everyone for sharing! I would love to hear your thoughts!

I like cooking, but I like it a lot more when Husband is out of town and I only have to cook twice a week. Even though he does the dishes when he's home (I HATE doing the dishes), it's really tiring to spend an hour in the kitchen after a long day at work and a hard workout. I usually don't get to eat until 8:30 or 9 if I have to cook during the week, and by then I'm grumpy. I've thought about making larger batches of food on the weekends so I don't have to cook during the week, but Husband likes variety, and I find cooking 8-10 servings instead of 4 a little challenging. Things that have helped:

-Common ingredients for the week. I can cut up a whole onion on Monday, use half, and have the rest ready to go on Tuesday. I would never use pre-cut ingredients; they're so overpriced.
-Slow cooker recipes. I can get up early, dump everything in the slow cooker, and have food ready for us when we're done working out. This also makes more servings, usually.
-Templates do take some effort out of planning. Pick a protein from the freezer, use common spices for seasoning, pick up whatever veggie looks best as a side, make rice. It's not as elaborate and creative as I prefer to be, but it's fast.
-I practice cooking techniques on the weekends, and I don't try recipes that sound complicated or outside my comfort zone during the week. Getting practice in when there's time to screw up and start over means I'm not stressed and hangry at 9pm on a Tuesday.
-I am hyper aware of how many dishes I'm using. I'll cut all my veggies before cutting meat so I only dirty one cutting board and knife. If I can get away with only using one pot, I do. I put my cooking/mixing dish on the food scale and weigh food directly instead of using measuring cups and spoons whenever possible. I'm very careful to buy dishwasher-safe items so the only things that ever have to be cleaned by hand are knives, pots, and pans.
-Sometimes cleaning waits until the next morning, or even the next night. That's just how it is, and giving ourselves permission to be messy sometimes means we don't stress ourselves out when we're too tired to deal with it.

My sister-in-law HATES cooking. If her husband doesn't cook, she makes a sandwich (with pre-sliced bread and no veggies, so the only thing a knife is used for is to spread on mustard) or gets take-out. She's very uncomfortable in the kitchen - she hasn't ever practiced knife skills or basic cooking techniques - and her list of food she thinks she likes is very limited (as in, she won't try new foods because she's already convinced she'll hate them). She's content with the taste of convenience food and can afford it, so it leaves her with no motivation to learn a new skill.

TheBigFb wrote: »

Cleaning afterwards

Yes - clean up and dishes. I try to use as few pots as possible. I have a whole repertoire of one pot meals.

For me I also think how you feel about cooking starts when your a kid. My mother cooked almost every day so I grew up on home-cooked meals and when I turned 16 she started teaching me to cook certain meals so she could have breaks from cooking on certain nights. Now I'm 22 and I developed a love for cooking and cook dinner nearly every night. However the biggest pain in the butt thing is my Fiancee he is extremely picky he hates almost all vegetable and fruits and if he does like them he likes them only one way and its a chore just to get him to eat those. I've learned how to use/create recipes that i can cook and then add the veggies or fruit to after separating his share. Ive become quite adept at this. His grandmother also makes cooking a pain in the butt because she doesnt allow cooking after 5 o'clock and i can only use the oven once a week and the stove top is broken so im limited to a foreman grill, an electric skillet, a toaster over, and the microwave. I've had to get really creative (i use the toaster oven as a mini oven often makes heavenly baked stuffed pork-chops) as for time im pretty good at planning a mix of quick and easy meals (ex hot dogs and homemade fries; i buy these yummy minimally processed mushroom and Swiss chicken hot dogs comes in 4 pack so 4 meals yay!!) and doing more complicated involved meals most of the time i cook from scratch but not always. I used to hate clean up till i discovered that listening to music while doing it makes it fun and the fiancee gets a kick out of watching me sing and dance while doing dishes and ect, LOL pus i try to clean up as much as I can while cooking

Time is the big thing.

MynameisChester wrote: »

ejbronte wrote: »

kpeterson539 wrote: »

For me, as a single person, cooking every meal tends to be a chore, although I do enjoy cooking. Yes, that is a contradiction but it's mostly because of the clean up that I don't like. This is why I spend my Sunday mornings food prepping for the entire week. This way my kitchen gets messed up once and then cleaned.

My brother, who is a wonderful cook, and who taught me many things, included an important one when I first started cooking for my parents: Clean as you go. I practice this religiously and when I'm done, there's no mess to clean afterward.

This is what I do too! Anyone else do this or have other strateigies to share that makes cleaning more tolerable, or dare I say even enjoyable?

That is pretty much the only way to make it tolerable. Otherwise it is just depressing to start on the mountain of cleaning to do after.

moniyq1994 wrote: »

For me I also think how you feel about cooking starts when your a kid. My mother cooked almost every day so I grew up on home-cooked meals and when I turned 16 she started teaching me to cook certain meals so she could have breaks from cooking on certain nights. Now I'm 22 and I developed a love for cooking and cook dinner nearly every night. However the biggest pain in the butt thing is my Fiancee he is extremely picky he hates almost all vegetable and fruits and if he does like them he likes them only one way and its a chore just to get him to eat those. I've learned how to use/create recipes that i can cook and then add the veggies or fruit to after separating his share. Ive become quite adept at this. His grandmother also makes cooking a pain in the butt because she doesnt allow cooking after 5 o'clock and i can only use the oven once a week and the stove top is broken so im limited to a foreman grill, an electric skillet, a toaster over, and the microwave. I've had to get really creative (i use the toaster oven as a mini oven often makes heavenly baked stuffed pork-chops) as for time im pretty good at planning a mix of quick and easy meals (ex hot dogs and homemade fries; i buy these yummy minimally processed mushroom and Swiss chicken hot dogs comes in 4 pack so 4 meals yay!!) and doing more complicated involved meals most of the time i cook from scratch but not always. I used to hate clean up till i discovered that listening to music while doing it makes it fun and the fiancee gets a kick out of watching me sing and dance while doing dishes and ect, LOL pus i try to clean up as much as I can while cooking

Not really, at least not for me. My mother always cooked healthy home-meals and she was a good one. She died when I was 19 years old and I took over the kitchen, the shopping and cooking responsibilities. I didn't like it then and I don't like now, 53 years later, either. I don't have the "I like to cook gene," but I do it every day and I am also a decent (a very good one according to my not picky husband), cook. As I said before, for me it is more of a chore than a pleasure.

For me, the biggest pain is all the prep in recipes that have lots of ingredients, such as lots of chopping, etc. It's just time consuming. I don't use this an excuse not to cook healthy meals at home. I fix things with a few ingredients & limited prep--like grilled marinated chicken or steak & veggies, or can be made in large batches for freezing like soups & pasta sauce. Since hubby doesn't like to cook, he makes us a tasty salad every night.

The next biggest pain is the clean up, so our deal is: I cook, he cleans up.

The dishes afterward

watching my husband eat whatever he wants and any mount. I can and want to eat a bigger portion the. he doesn. unfortunately im not an athlete so he burns waaaaaay more then he does. and having to pre weigh/log all my stuff and keep it seperste then his stuff