Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cooking and meals

Vegetarian cookbook recommendations sought!

Phire — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:22:19 -0800

Give me your favourite vegetarian cookbook that has illustrations of simple but delicious meals, and offers the nutritional information for each meal. I'm starting to cook by recipe, rather than throwing anything I have in the kitchen into a pot and improvising. At the same time, I'm trying to decrease on the amount of meat I have on my diet. Though there are lots of awesome websites with an abundance of information on cooking veggies, I find the wealth of information makes it hard to find one starting point. So I'm asking for your recommendations for a vegetarian cookbook with the following criteria:

Simple meals: I really like the concept of the Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourment, which restricts each meal to 5 ingredients or less. I'm not terribly fussy about an absolute limitation on number of ingredients, but simple to make would be good - I'm pretty pressed for time. Michael Smith's Best of Chef at Home is a good standard for how simple I'd like the instructions and prep to be.

Nutritional information: Rather than laboriously looking up every ingredient online myself and then calculating the portions, I would prefer if the book listed these for me. This is totally essential.

Illustrations: These are more or less optional, but pretty pictures totally motivate me to cook.

Optional: This is totally nitpicky, but if that book only focused on cooking actual meals rather than desserts/drinks, that'd be great, too. I drink water and eat fruit, and having a book that spends 1/5 of its real estate on smoothies and cakes that I won't be making seems like a bit of a waste.

Does my dream cookbook exist? Thanks in advance for any help!

Help a health-conscious snacker bake!

schmoo — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:28:08 -0800

Please suggest me some snacks, light or portable dishes that are both healthy and involve baking or cooking. I love to cook. I especially love to cook recipes that involve lots of chopping, stiring, mixing, frying or baking. I don't like recipes that are just an assembly of ingredients, or which only take 2 minutes. I like to be in the kitchen! That said, I'm not looking to spend hours in the kitchen, so something that takes 3 days isn't really an option!

I cook a lot of meals like this in the evenings, but I'm looking for snacks that I can bake or cook. - Things that I can take to work in my lunchbox, snack on after work, or leave in the fridge and graze on for a few days.

However, I'm also pretty health-conscious and trying to, if not lose a few pounds, definately not put any on. This rules out the normal things that I think I would find fun cooking - cookies, cupcakes, muffins, quiche, samosas, breads, etc. That list seems biased towards sweet things, but savoury are just as welcome, if not more.

The kinds of things that I am looking for, and have experimented with already are: falafels (baked, not fried), healthy lo-cal dips (would welcome more of these!) and glazed nuts (not the most low-fat of snack but at least has health benefits). I would love any and all suggestions for things along these lines. I would also welcome low-calorie versions of the things that I don't bake - cookies, cakes, etc.

So - give me your recipes for low-fat, low-cal or just plain healthy snacks and light dishes which involve cooking or baking.

I have searched previous posts, and while there are many on health snack ideas, none that meet my particular criteria! Thanks in advance!

Go Small And Go Home

scrump — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 07:05:19 -0800

Help us cook a holiday feast for just the three of us. What are your favorite recipes for the holidays for small families? We love us some Cooks Illustrated, but it's proving to be a little...challenging to scale a recipe that's meant to serve 12-14 back for 2 adults and a 4-year-old.

So suggest away: we'd love to hear what tried-and-tested favorites you've made for your four-people-or-fewer families for the holidays.

Tasty, nutritious and healthy frozen food wanted

reenum — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:56:47 -0800

Need recommendations as to tasty prepared frozen meals available in the U.S. Work has gotten out of hand, so my time to cook has been severely limited.

I need recommendations as to frozen meals (TV dinners) or other foods that are healthy and somewhat nutritious, but that also don't taste like cardboard. I've been subsisting on some passable Lean Cuisines for a week, and need to branch out into other brands.

Suggestions as to things that can be cooked quickly (e.g. 20-30 minutes) and frozen are also welcome.

Thanks!

Meal planning for dummies?

CrayDrygu — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:15:17 -0800

I need help learning to plan meals, both to improve nutrition and cut down on costs. I don't want general advice or strategies so much as specific guides and menus. What's out there? My boyfriend and I eat rather crappily. We don't plan ahead very much, and so typically have very little on hand. We waste money on near-daily trips to the grocery store, we purchase too many pre-made meals, and we eat at restaurants way too often. We also frequently miss out on vegetables and grains, for lack of easy and tasty ways to incorporate them.

I'll admit a large part of this is due to laziness, but there's also a general lack of inspiration that comes into play. So, I'm looking for a source -- either web-based or print -- that'll give us pre-made menus for a week or so at a time.

I picked up a copy of Saving Dinner, which is an awesome concept -- a full menu for every week, complete with grocery lists! But the boyfriend doesn't eat fish, and there's at least one fish recipe every week -- which turns an easy pre-made grocery list into a chore of eliminating unnecessary ingredients -- made more difficult by the fact that some ingredients are shared between multiple recipes. This can be dealt with (I customized one of these lists once, it was a pain), but it'd be so much nicer to just grab a list and go shopping.

So what other resources are out there like that book? Something where I can pull up a full week worth of dinner ideas (a little customizability, like "no fish", wouldn't hurt) and just go shopping?

Lists of super easy meals?

jesirose — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:24:02 -0800

Any lists of super simple meals? I suddenly find myself with no money and rising food prices. I am not a chef, and I either eat out or eat frozen meals. I know, I know. Anyway I am looking for lists of dinners / entrees with 2-4 ingredients so I can save money. Bonus points if they can use store-brand items.

Example:
Fettuccine Alfredo (the grownup Mac & Cheese!) (Got 4 meals out of $3, whereas the frozen one I used to buy cost $6 for one meal)
Peanut Butter & Jelly, obvious staple for lunch
Taco - Tortillas, ground beef, cheese.

I found a lot of websites with "simple" recipes which have more than 6 items and lots of steps to do with them. I made cookies the other day and it cost $15 and took 2 hours. I need to save money and time and eat on the mediocre side for a while.

Thanks for any suggestions or lists! I never did the poor college student thing so I have no idea what to buy. So I am hoping somewhere out there is a list of cheap & easy meals that really are cheap and easy, and not $20 worth of ingredients and 1 hour to make.

Quick and easy organic low carb?

krisjohn — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:20:00 -0800

Does anyone have any suggestions for quick and easy organic low carb meals, where "quick and easy" takes into account washing up time? I want to go low carb to lose weight. I'm currently avoiding artificial additives as much as possible due to a suspected (unconfirmed, but looking increasingly likely) allergy. Also because it's a good idea. I got "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Quick and Easy Low-Carb Meals", but it fails on two counts; It ignores the preservatives typically found in most (if not all) packaged, sliced meat and it makes a lot of things (kitchen utensils, bowls, saucepans, various electric cookers) messy such that cleaning up afterwards is likely to take as long as the original preparation.

So, I'm looking for low carb ideas that are actually quick and easy, and don't rely on (heavily) processed foods.

Bonus round: Both tuna and crab are also on my potential allergy list. And I'm trying to cut down on dairy products (mostly due, though, to the junk cows are pumped full of, so I can always use organic milk).

Can you help me determine a ballpark calorie figure for grandma's stew?

Chorus — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 11:56:50 -0800

Can you help me determine a ballpark calorie figure for grandma's stew? So my grandmother makes this stew/concoction everyday and whoever passes through her house [a family hub central] usually grabs a bowl. The school year means I'm passing through every weekday, and before I chow down I'd really like to know what sort of calories/nutritional values I'm dealing with.

Receipe:
-500g steak mince/ground beef [the kind with hardly "white" in the meat]
- Carrots
- Parsnips
- Mushrooms
- Onion
- Packet o' oxtail soup.

According to my investigations, grandmother boils the mince, leaves it stand overnight and then skims off the layer of fat the next morning [I've never heard of that before, but whatever]. Then the raw, chopped veg are added, then the soup. It's brought to the boil again and then left simmer in a veritable cauldron [oh you think I'm joking] all day and people just take what they want from there.

So far, I've been grabbing a cereal bowl for dinner - any idea of the calorific value of that?

Everyone else grabs say a pasta bowl of the stew, and then they add in boiled potatoes, sprinkle cheddar on top and a few cuts of buttered bread - surely that must be calorie overload?

A part of me says the stew is fine and to stop being so anal - but I've worked really dilligently to lose a stone in weight this past month through exercise and good diet, so I dont want my dinner everyday to be a possible blind spot.

And we're Irish, in case you couldn't tell [not that it impacts anything, but yeah. Suspecions confirmed.]

I'm Starving! Help Me Eat!

miltoncat — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 05:25:20 -0800

Help a girl who is kitchen challenged and has goofy food restrictions put together a grocery shopping list/easy meal ideas. I am single, no kids. I have no clue what to stock my house with. I need things that are pretty easy to cook and are healthy overall, without spending tons of money. I'd like to go grocery shopping every 2 weeks.

Here's what I can't eat: dairy, alcohol, bread (except whole grain), anything fermented, sugar or anything with sugar or its derivatives.

I have an oven, stove, toaster oven, and a George Foreman grill to work with. I have a Crock Pot but it goes unusued.

I've grown very very very tired of pasta.

Visitors from the Planet Vegan

majick — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:41:02 -0800

Ack, I'm not vegan! But I've got a friend with three kids under 9 who is, and they're coming to stay a few days. This hapless carnivore and starchivore needs your culinary assistance to feed adults and kids. I know the basic rule of vegan cooking -- use no animal products whatsoever -- and will have a chance to make one grocery run before the horde descends upon me, but this is a dietary restriction fundamentally incompatible with my cuisine. What can I make that my (also carnivorous) and her (also vegan) children will all eat, but that will also delight adults? I need breakfast and dinner ideas, since lunch isn't my problem.

Please share your vegan-friendly ideas for family meals that won't cause a couple of carnivore kids to start throwing food at me! I realize I can probably squeak by with pasta and some clever saucework, but I'd like to try a little harder than that.