Easy to make meals for someone who is not much of a cook

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beckysjerven121
beckysjerven121 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone! I am excited to try this app to see if it helps me lose some weight in my mid section. I am not much of a cook and deal with ibs. So i think I am mostly bloated as I'm skinny everywhere else. Any help is greatly appreciated..:)

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  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,943 Member
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    I wasn't cooking very often when I first started. It's not a necessary skill. Lots of food can be eaten without cooking. Just start logging food and learn from your food diary, use Google when you have to, maybe learn to cook a couple things so you can have a hot meal now and again.
  • LiveOnceBeHappy
    LiveOnceBeHappy Posts: 432 Member
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    I managed the first 9 months buying a lot of chicken (for us it was 2.5 lb cooked chicken from Costco). I'd heat up 2 portions of the chicken in a pan and apply whatever sauce sounded good (spicy Chinese, Indian curry, Korean bulgogi, whatever). Then I'd make brown rice or quinoa (cooked with some chicken bouillon in it) and some frozen veggies. Very easy, very quick, healthy, easy to track. Of course, we cooked other things like frozen fish or spaghetti (I used frozen butternut squash for my noodles). You've got this. You don't need to be a chef, and you can eat what you've always eaten with modifications or substitutions.
  • Xellercin
    Xellercin Posts: 924 Member
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    It's really, really not hard to learn how to cook, and it's really, really not hard to keep yourself well fed with very minimal cooking skills.

    What is hard is figuring out how to feed yourself when you have IBS, because that's going to come down to your specific digestive system.

    So our advice might be useless depending on what you already know exacerbates or alleviates your IBS.
  • TicTacToo
    TicTacToo Posts: 76 Member
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    Get some raw chicken fillets. Put them into a ziplock bag with your choice of rub or marinade eg enough olive oil + lemon juice + lemon rind + cracked pepper to coat them. Close the ziplock bag and squidge gently with your hands so the chicken gets coated. Then you can freeze it raw and cook as needed by thawing and grilling or baking or steaming. Or you can cook up a big batch in one go.

    There are lots of recipe suggestions for rubs or marinades online.

    This works for fish fillets too eg salmon or barramundi.
  • TicTacToo
    TicTacToo Posts: 76 Member
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    Salsa chicken: put 1kg of raw chicken fillets (no need to slice them, just chuck them in as they are) into a slow cooker or oven dish or pressure cooker with one or two jars of supermarket salsa to cover. Cook slowly until done. Shred the chicken and eat it with salad in wraps, or with rice and veg.
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,365 Member
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    I have adequate cooking skills but I HATE it. However, I'm on restricted sodium so eating food prepared by others isn't a good option. And I'm cheap so I'm definitely not going to pay for take-out or pre-prepared meals on a regular basis.

    Get a slow cooker. Research suitable recipes online. Buy a bunch of portion-sized freeze containers. One batch in the slow cooker makes 8 servings for me. That's 8 future meals I just have to nuke and eat!

    Bag salads are another great option. There are probably 10 different varieties in my grocery store. Half a bag with added protein of your choice = a meal.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,897 Member
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    I love to cook and am very good at it, but because of circumstances too complicated to detail here, lately I've been regularly buying rotisserie chicken, which I can then turn into all sorts of meals.

    My mom has IBS and, in addition to probiotics, takes acacia powder. http://www.heatherstummycare.com/wholesale/fiberlaminate.pdf

    Her IBS acts up in times of stress, and when that happens she has to eat foods with insoluble fiber after foods with soluble fiber. https://www.helpforibs.com/diet/fiber1.asp
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
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    Simple recipes are the key. Especially if you are just starting out. I know the basics and then some, but I'm not very daring or creative in the kitchen. A recipe with too many ingredients, or more than 1-2 'new to me' ingredients is not something I am eager to try.

    Chili is a really easy one. 1 pound of ground meat, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 can kidney beans, 1 packet of seasoning. (I buy store bought seasoning. Brown & crumble the meat, drain the grease. Then mix in everything else and simmer for 20-25 minutes of medium-low heat.


    Steak wrapped asparagus. It is as simple as it sounds. I buy thin sliced steak in the meat section, and for asparagus I like the thinner stalks. I start by seasoning the steak with salt & pepper or garlic salt, and maybe some Worcestershire sauce. Wrap 3-4 stalks in a piece of the steak and close w/ a toothpick. For me, 3-4 'bundles' is enough for a full meal. Cook in a skillet - add a little olive oil and then cook over medium heat. Turn to cook the other sides. Does not take long, and of course you can cook the steak more or less depending on how you like steak. Because the asparagus are thin stalks, they cook pretty quickly also.


    Black beans & rice w/ andoille sausage. I buy the Zatarain's brand black beans & rice. The beans, rice, seasoning is all in the box. I also buy the same brand sausage. You can actually use any protein source though. Slice/cut up the sausage and put mix + sausage + olive oil + water in a pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low covered for 25 minutes. <--I make 2 boxes at a time, which is enough for my husband & I to have dinner one night and leftovers for about 4 lunches for me.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,055 Member
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    Y'know, it's fine to just chip away at making gradual changes in what you eat, to dial in the right number of calories plus good overall nutrition, while eating foods you personally enjoy and find practical/affordable to prepare.

    If you'd like to learn more about cooking, that's great: It really opens up a lot of nice possibilities for getting good nutrition within sensible calories, because most restaurant foods and many prepared foods are relatively high in calories and not very nutrient-dense. But it's also fine to seek out healthier choices from restaurants or the healthier prepared/frozen microwaveable meals, and things like that.

    From talking with friends, I think many people kind of blow up in their minds the complexity/difficulty of a practical skill like cooking, that they don't know how to do right now. It seems huge, because . . . I dunno, Julia Child or something - aisles full of cookbooks - complicated cooking shows?

    It's not that big a deal to start down the cooking road, really. What's the worst that can happen? One sub-ideal meal, maybe two if you make a big batch? Meh.

    Start with easy things, the simple methods and ingredients like people are describing above. Don't be afraid to use some prepared foods as inputs. (I'm talking about things like spaghetti sauce in a jar, rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, tuna or chicken in ready-to-use packets, microwaveable vegetable combos from the freezer in the grocery store, etc. Just check labels at first, pick one of the more calorie-efficient and high-nutrition options. You'll get the hang of it.)

    Learn to make a burger, cook grains (like rice, quinoa, whatever), fry or scramble or hard boil eggs, roast one fresh veggie at a time in the oven - simple things that lead to more complicated things in the longer run as you get comfortable. When you do something like that for the first time, look up a "how to" on the internet (comparing a couple may be reassuring), then be attentive and mindful the first time you do it - like checking to make sure things on the stove-top aren't burning or boiling over/boiling dry. You'll get a feel for the heat levels and timings as you try/practice. It's not hard. Not-very-bright people like me can cook, after all.

    Again: What's the worst that can happen? Nothing truly awful. Don't let the giant umbrella term "cooking" psych you out. Just grab onto some little thread of the giant thing, a small start that seems manageable, do it . . . you'll gradually and successfully expand what you feel comfortable doing, and achieve increasingly tasty results.

    It's worth the effort.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    beckysjerven121 wrote: »
    Hi everyone! I am excited to try this app to see if it helps me lose some weight in my mid section. I am not much of a cook and deal with ibs. So i think I am mostly bloated as I'm skinny everywhere else. Any help is greatly appreciated..:)

    Most of what I cook isn't any kind of "recipe" or require any particularly great cooking skills. Usually some kind of protein that is seasoned or marinated with whatever I feel like at that particular moment...usually grilled or in the case of fish just a quick pan fry. Some kind of veg usually saluted or roasted, and some kind of grain or starch.

    As recipes go, I learned to cook in my 20s, namely because I couldn't afford to take ladies out for a date all that often. It was not nearly as complicated or intimidating as I had initially thought...maybe not a master piece, but if you can read and follow directions, you can cook. As you learn you start kind of making your own thing or adjusting certain seasonings to your taste, etc...and more complicated recipes become less so.

    I learned using some updated version of the Betty Crocker Cookbook which by design is for the most part relatively simple home, for the family recipes. The recipes use primarily what would be considered staple type of foods and herbs and spices. I think a lot of people get intimidated by the idea of cooking because they are looking online at blogs and such with delicious looking dishes with many steps and a laundry list of "exotic" ingredients...IMO, a lot of these go out of their way to be more complicated than need be and/or are in fact, more advanced level cooking. The basics are pretty easy and delicious and usually ready pretty quickly. I only play with complicated recipes on weekends when I have time to be fooling around, not on weeknights when dinner needs to get on the table in 20 minutes.
  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,164 Member
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    Not sure what any IBS constraints would be, but I keep it pretty simple. I honestly don't cook much, but a large portion of what I cook is just scoops from my freezer/pantry. I keep frozen cooked meat and frozen vegetables in the freezer. Sometimes frozen rice or pasta, or else I use the pre-cooked packets you can microwave. Scoop some of everything into a bowl, add the sauce of your choice, microwave for a few minutes and dinner is ready!

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