so tired of cooking

[Julia]

Does anyone else get tired of cooking and dishes. I feel like that's all i do when I'm home... i love cooking but after 14 days I'm getting burnt out. Today i didn't even wasn't to eat because i didn't want to cook our do dishes. What do you do when you feel like this

[Susan W]

Yes, I feel like that sometimes. I have found that doing cookathons once a week (sometimes I do two partial days) really helps. I steam saute a bunch of veggies and then put them in containers. Then, all I have to do is throw them in a pan with some ghee. I roast 2 whole chickens (I use one for dinner and the other for soups and chicken salads) and roast a tri tip. I make a bunch of hard boiled eggs and egg salad with about half of them. I cook a spaghetti squash in my slow cooker. I make chicken or beef stock and usually a chili or stew all in my slow cooker. The rest of my week is so nice after stocking up.

[JJB]

I feel the same way. I work full-time and go to school part-time. I try to cook multiple dishes at once so I don't have to do much on work days (12-hour shifts), but it still takes 2-3 sessions for me to get everything done for one week. I feel like most of my "spare" time is now spent either planning the menu, grocery shopping, preparing/cooking food, or washing dishes! However, if I had to cook up meals daily I think I would go insane. My only advice to you is to cook several meals in advance, and/or put some meals in the freezer...so on the days when you really aren't in the mood to deal with it, maybe you can just heat something up.

[kshacklett]

I'm a big fan of using my crockpot on busy nights...it lets me prepare the meal whenever I have time a day or two in advance, and then it's ready to go when I get home from work.

[Aberrantatavia]

I agree, and I really love to cook. But I get burnt out if I don't give myself a break. I try to double things at least once a week so that I can freeze the other half and use it for a night I don't want to cook. I also do weekly cooking so that most nights dinner only takes me a few minutes. I use some of my own techniques as well as some of the ideas from Well Fed.

Some time and effort savers I've never used before but implemented now are using already chopped garlic, frozen onions and peppers, and more frozen vegetables. The first month or so is overwhelming, but it gets better as you start to plan more efficiently and have more things already done in the freezer.

I made Well Fed's best chicken you will ever eat tonight, and now I know I'll buy enough chicken breasts for a month and brine all of it and then marinade and freeze or just freeze. Then I can pop out some for a quick grilled dinner the night before. Same with hamburgers, it just makes it that much easier when you make hamburgers all formed and freeze them that way. I bought a whole pork loin this week (commercial, yuck, but it was on sale) and I froze half of it. I wish now that I had sliced it and marinated it before I froze it so I could make grilled pork loin chops.

It cost me a bit more at the beginning, because I didn't do as much good prep, and spent more on convenient compliant foods.

Hang in there, it gets better when you get in the groove and prep ahead.

[Fenderbender]

Ok sister.... I'm a professional chef!!! I cook all day, everyday, every night for thirty years!!!!! The last thing I want to do every morning and night is cook something for myself!!! I'm sick of cooking! I never want to cook again! If I could i would murder cooking I would....slowly and painfully.... I want to torture cooking and beat the snot out of it!!!! I look at a knife and just want to go on a rampage instead of doing veg prep!!! Next time you turn on the nightly news, you may just see me being assaulted by the SWAT team for killing cooking!!!!

So next time you feel like " oh poor me, I have to make a salad and a piece of chicken" think of me this Thursday night cooking a five course meal for 1600 people and then getting all the dishes cleaned and packed into a truck, just to turn around and do another banquet Friday morning ,sat morning,sat night,sun........

All I want to do is come home and eat a friging bowl of cereal.... But noooooo. I've got to be healthy.... I've got to spend another half hour cooking some tasteless compliant slop that my dogs don't even bother begging for!!!! Then hearing my wife bitch about she just mopped the kitchen floor today and don't get it dirty!!!!!

GET THE PICTURE!!!

LMAO..... boy I crack myself up.... Sorry, I was just kidding, I love to cook, really! But it can be a drag when your tiered and just want to stuff your face with something quick.... Price we gotta pay now to be healthy later down the road.... Time well spent!!!!

[1Maryann]

I got in that slump last week and realized why the SAD is so popular. It's so easy. When you don't feel like cooking, you can order a pizza, go to the drive-thru, pick up a frozen dinner, boil a pot of pasta, call for take-out... I had 2-3 days where it was too much trouble. Zapping a sweet potato was about as much as I could motivate myself to do. Fortunately, I had a cold roast to slice up for meals, and breakfast casserole made.

I did get my groove back though, I just needed a couple of days to play hookie. And I did stay compliant, even if I didn't have a lot of variety.

[LibLady]

It was really hard for me to do the cooking at first, especially after 10 hour days at work. I quickly learned to pre-cook on the weekends and that helped a lot.

[Julia]

I just keep thinking well maybe I can go the next 15 days without eating... I wont starve right LOL

I know thats not the way. I'll try to figure it out...

[missnikka28]

I know how you feel! My sister started the program with me and by the second day she threw a fit because it was 9 o'clock and she hadn't done anything all night except be in the kitchen! Needless to say she has quit but I am persevering. Before, all I would do is come home and watch TV and order in delivery and then drag myself to bed and barely be able to get up in the morning. I am moving around a lot more now and just figure it is better to spend time walking the grocery aisles and whipping things up in the kitchen than sitting around and burying myself in mindless TV.

Stick with it! I figure once I get more familiar with the recipes and approved ingredients I can just toss things together rather than re-read a recipe a million times to make sure I have measured out a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon! Good luck

[Julia]

Well I should say I dont really mind cooking so much its just that all the approved foods are so unappetizing right now. I tried to eat breakfast and gagged so I ate nothing and all I could manage for lunch was some soup. The thought of another sweet potato makes me wanna be sick. I sound dramatic, maybe this is my brains way of trying to push me back to my old habits. I WILL NOT let it win no way! Just being a whiner, I am sure I will wake up more cheery tomorrow

[Michaela Elmore Cogswell]

Sounds like you need to take everyone's advice and make some things that you can freeze or that will last you a few days. Start doubling or quadrupling those recipes you like so you have minimal work to do the next day.

Also, you may need to vary things a bit. Skip the sweet potato for a few days and swap in some winter squashes or root vegetables instead. They'll still give you starchy veggie option and won't be what it sounds like you've had a bunch of. I cut my into small chunks and roast them for 30-45 min until they feel fork tender. Toss in salt pepper oil and I like to add cumin and smoked paprika but go with spices you like.

[caitlin]

i love cooking, but i got into this rut as well right around day 20-22. My boyfriend was also getting annoyed with all of the dishes I was leaving him - it wasn't a great time.

I pushed through the slump, and finished the 30 strong. Things that helped me were definitely doing weekend cookups, going to the greenmarket to get nice veggies, and trying not to think of cooking as a chore. I like to download a bunch of podcasts (some This American Life, some Moth, things that I want to listen to but never seem to have time to do so). I prop the computer up in the kitchen while I cook, and it makes the time go soooo much faster.

I also really liked to take a day off. So like other people suggested, instead of making one chicken at a time, I would roast two, and make enough vegetables to be able to take the next day off completely. I also had to cut out eggs for breakfast, because I was getting so sick of them! I'm hoping my taste for them comes back soon.

[Psalms96:6]

Cooking is very time consuming, so if I need something fast and good, I get an avocado, slice a little onion and tomato in it, mix it, then wrap it in lunch meat. Viola! Done and done. If you want, you can sear it on a pan with a little olive oil. It's super fast, easy and delicious!