• Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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    22 days ago

    That’s why I get take-outs, don’t have to do the dishes.

    Also, can we take a moment to talk about how great the performance of whomever that woman in the meme is? Looks like an Oscar worthy performance to me.

    • wunami@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Just don’t think about dying and all the dishes get cleaned and put away in your dream house magically somehow.

      • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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        22 days ago

        But the whole point of the story is that choosing to be human in the real world, instead of being an everlasting symbol in a fantasy world, is to accept everything that comes with being human in life: dying, doing dishes, but more importantly, the ability to choose your own path in your story.

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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          22 days ago

          Inspiring, thank you esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress and producer Margot Robbie. Very wholesome.

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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          21 days ago

          Are you saying that Barbie is the metaphorical equivalent of Arwen, the mortal Elven Queen of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor?

  • snooggums@midwest.social
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    22 days ago

    Everyone is focused on the cooking time and not the punchline, which is still needing to do the dishes.

    • athos77@kbin.social
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      22 days ago

      Making a meal falls into three parts: prep, cook, and clean. I used to hate the ‘boring, standing on my aching feet’ prep bit, so I’d try to fit the prep into the little gaps in cooking. Of course, 8 couldn’t do it and I had to keep adjusting things - taking something off heat/down heat, whatever - to finish the prep for the next stage. The constant adjustments made the food not as good, the cooking unnecessarily stressful, and left me exhausted with a sink full of dishes at the end.

      Nowadays, I sit in front of the tv. I do my prep there, all the peeling and chopping and slicing and dicing. When I cook, everything is ready for me to add to the dish, so the food tastes better and cooking itself is much less stressful. And I use the little bits of spare time during cooking to rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. When I’m done cooking, I only have the last handful of things to put in the dishwasher, plus whatever plates from the meal itself.

      My life is much easier, all because I now watch TV.

        • athos77@kbin.social
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          22 days ago

          Ah. So, I get a farm share every week. ‘Planning’ is looking at the list of what I’m getting and figuring out what I can make from it - although I’ve been doing this long enough that I actually have a selection of recipes that I re-use year to year, so I spend more time digging the recipe out then I do actually ‘planning’.

          The weekly shopping is usually about 5 ‘missing’ ingredients that I need for my chosen dishes, plus whatever staples I’ve run out of. I usually go shortly before the store closes for the night, and it takes about 15 minutes.

            • athos77@kbin.social
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              22 days ago

              Search for CSAs near you. A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Usually a farmer has to borrow money from the bank at the start of the season to buy seeds, service the machines, hire the hands, etc, and hope to have a good enough crop to pay back at the end of the year. In a CSA, the farmer figures out his much they need to make all that happen, plus insurance, living expenses, some money for improvements and retirement, etc, etc. They figure out how much did they think they’ll produce that year and how many people it would feed, then sell the shares at a price that brings in the money they need to keep the farm running: they’re no longer dependent on the bank.

              They’re also no longer dependent on the big agriculture practice of having your crops harvested early, sent to a middleman for sorting and packaging, sent to a distributor, sent to a warehouse, before finally sitting in the back of a grocery store before it gets put out, where the under-ripe produce is sold to you and you have like a week to eat it before it goes bad.

              Instead the produce is brought in the day before distribution, so it’s at or close to the peak of ripeness and has more flavor. Since it’s not spending time traveling between middlemen, it lasts longer in your fridge. Since it’s not being bounced around lots of places, you get access to a wider range of things than normally show up: my CSA plants several types of regular tomatoes, but also a bunch of heirloom tomatoes as well. We get regular basil, yes, but also twelve other types of basil - lemon, Thai, red rubin, lime, holy, etc. My CSA also grows some fruit: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, figs, watermelon, paw-paws and pumpkins.

              Each week, I get a large box of pre-picked food, plus I can pick some more in the fields if I want. Thursday night, I sit in front of the tv and cut everything up, Friday I go grocery shopping, Saturday I cook 2-3 large meals then stick half the servings in the fridge and the other half in the freezer. Odds and ends will get tossed into a salad for the week; larger amounts may get frozen, or pickled or canned or dried for later on. I get enough each year that I can eat most of my meals from farm produce, and it’s all made specifically to my taste and without a ton of chemicals in it.

              I should note that I also assume some risk with my share: if it’s a great harvest year, I’ll get extra, but if it’s a bad harvest – well, prices would’ve increased at the store as well, so I figure it works out. I think mine was like $700 for a full share for 26 weeks which, like I said, it feeds me for an entire year, so the rest of my weekly grocery budget is like $20-25 (and I could get by on a lot less if I needed to). That said, I get an awful lot of food for the money - you can usually sign up for smaller/partial shares (or split it with a friend), and some places have shares available on an alternate-week schedule or let you choose which weeks you want to get it (which is useful for avoiding lettuce month, lol).

              Some places will deliver to your door, some you pick up at various drop-off locations or farmers markets, some you have to pick up at the farm - when you look into it, don’t just look at the farm location, look into where you can get your food from, which may be closer to you. Oh, and some include or have add-ons for other things like honey or eggs. And there are also CSA’s for things beyond veggies: there are CSAs for meat, dairy, grains, mushrooms, etc.

              Anyway - search for CSAs near you, check them out for drop-off/delivery options even if the farm isn’t in your immediate area, and see what turns up!

              • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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                22 days ago

                +1 for farm shares, except they’ve mostly closed and sold off their land to developers in my neck of the woods. Getting into the remaining ones has proved difficult.

                Also we have a nutty growing season that means it’s mostly root veggies for 8months of the year.

                We still want to support local ag, but it ain’t easy in a cold state with aging population.

                • athos77@kbin.social
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                  21 days ago

                  I can see where that’s gonna be hard. You might try local harvest.org , though that’s less helpful than it used to be - I think something happened during the pandemic and they stopped double-checking the listings were still good each year, but it’s the last site I had for finding good CSAs.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          21 days ago

          pasta, protein, some vegetable, fat to fry the protein in, cream boiullon and some spice for the sauce.

          oh the horrors

        • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          Honestly, meal kits are clutch for this since they provide everything and the most effort needed by me is putting them away. 2 nights a week it makes my job of figuring out what to eat and how to make it a lot easier.

            • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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              22 days ago

              The cheapest meal kits are only slightly more expensive than the equivalent grocery store order. However, you will be limited in options for price points on the items. For instance, if the meal kit only uses products with labels that don’t really mean a whole lot, but are charged a premium for, you often don’t have the option to select the less expensive option. So someone who is a little adept at getting the most for their money from a grocery store will end up with a significantly better price. This is all before you consider that these services, as a whole industry, are plagued with late deliveries, spoiled food, incorrect ingredients, and damaged goods (though this one is more on the side of the delivery service).

              So you will be limiting yourself in these ways for the trade-off of not having to go out and shop, and shopping by selecting meals, rather than ingredients. However, grocery stores, at least in even semi-urban areas, are already likely to delivery grocery orders, eliminating the the expense, and time, of brick and mortar shopping.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      22 days ago

      Well yeah. Unless you’re using disposable plates, you’re going to still have to do dishes. Fewer, but still.

      But you can reduce that with things like a slow cooker, and one pot meals.

    • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 days ago

      The only time I need to do dishes after cooking is when I am cooking something that needs constant attention, too many things at once, orI’m just lazy

      Usually I just have the skillet I cooked in and the plate/silverware I used

  • dkc@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    I used to feel this way about cooking. I started trying to find joy in the repetitive parts of life, so they didn’t seem so annoying. It’s definitely a journey, but if you keep at it, you get to a point where cooking feels like a creative outlet. Once you have enough experience to create something new from your pantry and quit following recipes verbatim you’ll have fun. It took me a few years to get there, but you’re going to have to cook your entire life anyway, might as well get something out of it.

      • Moghul@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Do you have a tip for enjoying scrubbing the shower, the toilet, and behind the toilet? Everything else is ok, but I hate those. As a result, I try to keep them as clean as possible in day to day use (squeegee the shower after every use, use toilet cleaner, etc) but I still have to dedicate time to cleaning them occasionally and tbh I’m considering paying someone else to do it.

    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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      22 days ago

      Yeah, honestly. It’s a crap meme. Maybe it feels like 2 hours because its boring for you. If you cook for 2 hours likely one part of it is putting something into the oven for 1 1/2 hours.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Not everyday can be a Rachael Ray 30 minute meal.

        I make chicken pot pie weekly. Mirepoix, peel dice potatoes, constantly stir so roux doesn’t clump. It’s 90 minutes of non stop cooking and 30 minutes of oven.

  • teft@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    What are you cooking that takes 2 hours every day? I cook most of my own meals and i don’t often go over an hour of cooking and most of that is just waiting.

  • PenisWenisGenius@lemmynsfw.com
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    22 days ago

    Clean the dishes while waiting for your food to cook and then leave the remaining dishes you didn’t clean because you were still using them until the next dish run.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Yep. This is how I do it for even when I’m cooking for large gatherings. Yea it can get hectic but you’re not going to be drowning in dishes at the end of the night.

  • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    22 days ago

    I know the standard advice is to wash dishes as you cook, but I never know when the cooking is passive enough to warrant doing dishes. If I stop staring at the thing I’m doing I get distracted and it burns.

    • Black_Mald_Futures [any]@hexbear.net
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      22 days ago

      What you’re supposed to do is get your MISE EN PLACE, that means get your shit ready, prep all the ingredients, mince and dice whatever and get them into prep bowls, and then start cooking when everything is actually ready to be cooked.

      If you want to do dishes while you’re cooking,

      the cooking is passive

      adjust the heat, dawg, nothing should be burning in the 2-3 minutes it takes between stirring to wash something. If it is, you’re cooking it too hot

    • Telorand
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      22 days ago

      Rinse as you go, especially for things you know will stick (cheese, eggs, sauces, etc.). You can still use the tool if needed, but it’s a lot easier to clean later on if there’s no dried food on it, and stuff rinses off really easily while still fresh (usually).

      I can’t manage to clean as I go either, but this has saved me a mountain of effort.

    • Orcocracy [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      22 days ago

      Hang on, if you’re washing dishes before you are done cooking and long before you even set the table or start eating anything, what exactly is it that you are washing? One big knife and a chopping board? How did this become the standard advice?

    • Jajcus@kbin.social
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      22 days ago

      I get distracted when I leave the kitchen, so doing the dishes while waiting until the next cooking step is done fixes two problems for me: 1) I get less mess afterwards, 2) less destroyed food because I left the kitchen and forgot to check it.

  • Muscar@discuss.online
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    21 days ago

    I always cook as much of whatever I’m making as I can, then put it in containers in the fridge or freezer (depending on the dish and how much).

    And I have some base recipes that I cook that are easy to quickly make other things with. One thing I’ve done for almost two decades now is make a basic kinda “half-bolognese” (can’t think of a better English description right now). Just onion, garlic, meat (or in my case vegan alternative), salt, pepper and some stock of your choice. Then freeze that divided into a couple of portions per bag or container. Very easy to use for a lot of recipes.

    I also buy bags of dried beans (way cheaper than undried or pre-soaked) and soak those then freeze them like above, same thing there with being good bases for many things.

    One of my current favourite recipe that’s quick, cheap and filling without any of the above prep is falafel in tomato sauce. A local brand here in Sweden makes almost weirdly nice falafel that’s $5 for 800g (28oz), which is like 50 falafel balls. I put the falafel in my air-fryer (oven or frying pan works just as well) and while those cook I sauté some onion and garlic in olive oil then add spices (the current version I love is with some smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, thyme, black pepper, lots of turmeric, a bit of soy sauce, a stock cube and either MSG or other umami base). Then add the falafel once done and crushed tomatoes and let cook for a few minutes. Works great with rice, pasta, potatoes in whatever variation you like, couscous, and my current fav which is coarse bulgur with vermicelli (roasted noodles). I wouldn’t have guessed it before trying but the falafel is so good in the sauce!

    • Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee
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      21 days ago

      It’s always the fucking french fries. Put in a liter of oil and you still have to make an least four batches.

      Leaves a hell of a mess, too!

      • Moghul@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        If it’s the pre-cut freezer kind, roast them in the oven with a bit of oil a 170-200c. When they’re done, switch the fan on to crisp them up for a bit. Way less oil, only one sheet pan to clean, and you can cook single batches. Bonus, you don’t have to constantly watch them. Just check on them every 5 min after about 30 min. No oil bath to worry about either.

        Downside is you have to wait for oven to heat up.

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    I cook and clean for an entire family inside of 40-50 minutes 5 nights a week. All of that is mostly “from scratch” and delicious. At some point it becomes a skill issue.

  • curiousaur
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    21 days ago
    1. Eat slower than 10 minutes. My God have some company over. If you’re spending 2 hours cooking there’s no way doubling the recipe takes much longer.

    2. Make the company or your significant other do the dishes. If you’re in a situation where you’re cooking for two hours then doing the dishes yourself, something is wrong.

      • curiousaur
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        21 days ago

        Don’t be like that. It’s just that if you work that hard on food, have someone else enjoy it enough to want to do the dishes each time. And always have a dishwasher (the appliance), so it’s easy.

  • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    You’re doing something wrong if it takes you two hours to make dinner.

    Skill issue.

    • kabynbojski@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      So you basically stick to 30 minute meals or under and there’s nothing wrong with that since they do typically take less skill to prepare. There are plenty of recipes that take 2 hours or longer to make.

      • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Ok but if you’re new to cooking and you can’t make a meal without complaining about it taking forever maybe stick to easy meals?

        Like I said it’s a skill issue. You don’t need to cook gourmet meals every night.

      • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Ya so baked potatoes? Just chuck them in the oven for an hour straight on the rack. You literally don’t have to do anything other than wash the potatoes and pierce them. Fucking easy.

        If that’s just too much for someone to handle then I really don’t know what to tell you.