Being an adult is so fun

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

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.
- You also forgot about planning and shopping.
- Mise en place avec télé
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.
- Dump ingredients straight on the countertop.
  Use a Boring Company(tm) Not A Flamethrower(tm) to roast/flambe.
  Lick the finished meal off the countertop.
  ...
  No dishes!
- I absolutely went through a phase (6-8 years) of just using paper plates and paper cups, and just tossing it.
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
Do some dishes while you're cooking.

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.

Lmao I was about it comment about who this was but then I saw your name.
Margot, I think of you every time I think of Wolf of Wall Street. Kisses!
Just don't think about dying and all the dishes get cleaned and put away in your dream house magically somehow.
- 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.
This. Sometimes it's even cheaper than making a meal at home depending on what you get.

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.

We absolutely hit a specific age where the annoying parts of life, like cleaning and tidying, suddenly become one of the most satisfying parts of life.
- One must imagine Sisyphus happy and all that.
- 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.

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.

Even if it does take 2 hours start to finish, I have to imagine there's at least SOME part of the recipe that involves waiting for something to cook. That's dishwashing time right there.
- Yup, and unless you let it dry in for a few hours after eating, then final cleanup should be done in a jiffy.
With leftovers most meals take a couple minutes!
What meals do you cook?
I once made Coq au Vin, it took around 2 hours, and I never felt like cooking that again.
At least it was really tasty.
- and that's why proper coq au vin is a fancy schmancy dish, not something you cook every day.
Not everyday, but some dishes take time

You are both cooking too slowly and eating too fast

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.
- 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.
Try cooking a whole chicken a 700°C for 30 minutes and see what happens.
- Is that the only option everyday? A whole fucking chicken? People are ridiculous.
- Well you're not really supposed to use a pottery kiln.
- Take 10 minutes to spatchcock your bird and it will cook in 40 minutes
  Wash up whilst it cooks
- I tried this recipe and it was awesome. The charring made the chicken absolute 10/10, would bang.
- so maybe don't cook a whole chicken?

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.

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
- When I say I get distracted, I don’t mean that I do something for 2-3 minutes and then come back. I completely forget I was cooking for sometimes long periods of time. Even if I’m still in the kitchen.
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.
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?
- smh my head, amateurs not even dirtying up a few bowls with prep
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.
I always end up needing the thing I washed again

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.

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.

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!

I'm gonna have to try that falafel sauce recipe sometime - sounds delish

That's why you cook enough for 15 meals and re heat it over the week.

Meal Preppers rise up
Even better is finding someone to cook with and make 30 portions instead. It goes faster, is more fun, and when you're making that much food doubling the amount doesn't appreciably increase the work.

You're cooking the wrong recipes if its taking 2 hours every time.

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!
- Buy tater tots and bake them for 25 minutes.
- 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.
- Yeah, that's not something I make very often lol

Big batch of pasta gang represent.

Big batch of meal soup chiming in.
- Can opener gang inna howze

As someone who has been cooking for himself for a long time, cook large amounts and refrigerate each serving in separate microwavable containers for later.

I also try to make things that can all go onto a single plate to create less cleanup.

This is the way

I heard dishwashers are actually more energy efficient than hand-washing, so no that's one problem mostly solved. As others commented cook portions that last two or three days or freeze some of it.

As long as you have a dishwasher. Many apartments (and some homes) dont have them nor a space for them.

This is why my SO and I try to clean as we cook so it's easier for later.

This is the way for me too, seeing a stuffed sink full of dishes just makes me stressed let alone how dirty it feels in general.
Also, make more one pot meals. And make big batches so you have leftovers for days. If you are spending more than 15 minutes actively preparing a meal, you can and should probably be lazier.

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.
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.

somebody mentioned a dishwasher. Is the SO considered as an appliance ? :-D
- 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.

I had this whole comment typed up but I genuinely don't know where to start because I don't have this problem. If you do, and you want some help, let me know and we can work something out together.

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.

imagine thinking cooking is the hard part of adulting

I mean... just yesterday I slow cooked something for 8 hours and ate in 30 minutes with some left over. That doesn't mean I have to treat it all as "cooking time".

If I am cooking something more labor intensive then I may just simultaneously cook something else for the week/meal prep/clean used dishes in the gaps in time.

Still It does feel like that sometimes. The only other thing you can really do is cook enough portions for a few meals so that you can reheat for later meals.

When you put it like that, being an adult is so fun!
- I think it's the exclamation points! For example: I'm constipated!
Yeah, slow cooking, especially in sous vide, is the best! Especially with 24 hour recipes. You just put stuff in a bag for tomorrow!

Skill issue

I just got my first ever dishwasher and it's a game changer.

It doesnt really save anytime in my experience. You can’t just throw stuff in there covered in food or it will just dry up and cement itself to the dishes/silverware in the day or two until it’s next time to run a cycle. I guess if you have a family and are running it every night, it might let you skip the initial rinse off but idk.
- It took me years of living on my own to learn my parents were doing it wrong:
  The dishwasher doesn't need to be full to run it. You can chuck everything in after a meal and start it immediately.
  Detergent and water are cheap, and even if it's only a few dishes the machine uses less water than doing them by hand. Also, use liquid or powder detergent and make sure to fill the pre-wash detergent holder -- detergent pods are a rip off.
- When I cook, I am extremely strategic about what I use, and clean as I go. The dishwasher wouldn't really save me any time based on how I operate in the kitchen.
  When my wife cooks, it appears to be her goal to use every fucking dish and utensil we own in the process.
  But I don't care. Hell, I'm proud of how successful she is at reaching this apparent goal... because MOST of it can go right in the dishwasher. Now I don't even bother to ask how we have 10 greasy teaspoons after she made chicken.
- I have a family and we make a LOT of dirty dishes. The real value is that I don't have to wash them all by hand, even if it takes a couple hours who cares at least I ain't doing it
- Mine does a fine job washing off crusty dishes. Mainly need to make sure the temperature is high enough, 50 or ideally 60°C. Also helps against grease build-up in the internals which will make it last longer.
  Or maybe your dishwasher just went so hard on the water saving it no longer does its job, which is a real issue sadly
- Use normal powder detergent so you can fill the pre wash and run the kitchen sink hot before you start the dishwasher so that the water starts hot. For me it gets even the dishes with dry cement clean most of the time.
- Is your dishwasher like 30 miles away? Why would it take you multiple days to run a cycle?
- I'm talking about a dishwasher bro

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

Skill issue.

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.
- 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.
Depends on what you are cooking. Just the potatos I made tonight take more than an hour.
- 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.

Cook 4 portions.

1 for now

1 for lunch

2 to freeze

where on earth do you live? cooking at home is like 20x cheaper than even the cheapest fast food here in sweden.
And it now costs twice as much to dine out. So there you go. Greedflation working as intended.

PB&Js are quick and Delicious

Cast irons are awesome

LOL, no. I make eggs Benedict every morning, sauce and all, 15-minutes start to finish.

That's a lot of hollandaise sauce, boss.
Please share ingredients and recipe you use, if you would be so kind

The more often you cook a specific recipe the quicker you get at it.

That s why I meal prep

I live with my mom and brother, I cook and they take turns washing the dishes.

2 hours of cooking is when you are feeding other people or food prepping for the rest of the week, you spend the same time scrolling some predatory food delivery app and waiting for the food as you would spend making the tacos or wings yourself

And that's where the dishwasher comes in. Toss things in the sink as you go and no longer need them, eat, load the dishwasher with the sink things + the final dishes to wash, wipe things down and done.

I've found that if you empty it immediately and then put the dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher it's a lot easier to clean up and gets them out of the way.
My flat doesn't really have space for a dishwasher :(
When I move out I'm for sure gonna bump it up the priority list, but that won't be anytime soon
- They make small countertop versions if that's an option for you. Many are designed specifically for small apartments so they have non-permanent connections and stuff, mostly using your existing sinks faucet and drain

If you're spending that long cooking, then you're using your time poorly.

Meal prep doesn't have to be like making 20 of the same meal and freezing them, instead, meal prep is supposed to cut corners and make cooking more efficient.

Say, for example, I'm making a sweet potato chickpea curry. I need half a cup of sweet potato. I'm not going to peel and dice half a sweet potato. I'm going to peel 3 sweet potatos, dice half, cube the other half, refridgerate half my diced, blanch and freeze half my cubes, and roast the other half of the cubes in the oven in olive oil and put them in the fridge. Then make my curry with the rest of the dice. Now I have some roasted sweet potato to put into a salad tomorrow (along with some leftover chickpeas), cubes for the next time I do a roast, diced for next time I do a curry or pizza (sweet potato and mushroom pizza slaps) and any leftovers or scraps can be frozen and go in a soup.

Then later, I'm not going to cook 1/2 a cup of brown rice, I'm going to cok 2 cups, set aside 1/3rd in the fridge for a stir fry later in the week, freeze 1/3rd of the cooked rice to heat up some other time later in the microwave and use the remaining 1/3rd in my curry. These two steps alone might cost me an extra 30 minutes today, but they are going to save me hours later in the weeks to come. And I can still freeze half of my curry to defrost and eat later.

This meme is occasionally true in our house, once you factor in prep time. My wife definitely makes this complaint once we’ve finished eating in 10 minutes.

man people here really just don't want cooking to be easy huh?

Never trust food that takes longer to eat than to cook.

A steak cooks in 5 minutes and buy a dishwasher already.

Such a bad time investment.

Use uncoated paper plates. Save some water

it's absolutely wild to me how some people cook, if i cook something for 2 hours i'm going to end up with like 50 fucking portions that taste really good.

A normal meal should take like 30 minutes if you're feeling fancy, and oftentimes way less than that.
Just fuckin boil some pasta, fry some protein, and make some sauce..

Beef bourguignon.
Takes around 30 minutes to get through the preparation of the dish, then another 2 to 4 hours to be thouroughly cooked.
I can understand and respect if someone does not enjoy cooking and all their patience to do it is exhausted in basic, comforting meals, but you can and should enjoy meals that demand a little more time to make in order to indulge in something, even if only a little, beyond basics.
The dish I mention is perfect for lazy people: except for the first thirty minutes, the remaining time is just check if there is enough liquid in the pot and add more if necessary. And it is even better if allowed to cool overnight.
- Beef Wellington gang chiming in. Took me like 2 hours to get the tiny mushrooms right and flambé my green peppercorns for my sauce. But deffo a special occasion dish not a midweek meal.
Don't even get me started. Cooking is my love language. I'll work from 9-5, the start cooking at 5:30 to have dinner on at 7:30 for my family.
It's fun and enjoyable. It's a form of meditation. I like to drink while I do it. Its a way to practice skill mastery outside of my normal job. I'm a foodie myself who can't quite afford to eat at Michelin star restaurants every night but appreciate that level of cuisine.
I'm mastering the French sauces, the Asian stir fries, the curries, American BBQ. I'm my biggest critic and my greatest benefactor. Nothing reminds me that life is good quite like setting down a meal that I'm pretty sure could get a Michelin star to my family and enjoying it together.

gross

Are you actually trying to scam Lemmy users... with a cryptocurrency scam? How stupid are you?