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I'll be the odd (wo)man out here. I love to cook, but I've been doing since I was 11 yrs old, and frankly cooking 7 days a week is drudgery. Add in breakfast and/or lunch and it's a pain. I loved my career and it wasn't unusual to be gone 12-13 hrs, 5 days/wk. Weekends were crammed with errands and family/friends. We are fortunate to live in one of the greatest restaurant areas in the world: the San Francisco Bay Area. There is great food at all price points. You can eat for $5 or $500, but either way you could eat well -- check out NYTimes' Seth Kugel's visit last month to Portland, where he gave himself an $8/meal budget and was wowed by the amazing meals he got from the local food trucks. When I worked it wasn't unusual for us to go out 4-5x/wk. The question was, "What country do you want to eat today?" We could do Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Cal-Mex, American, Moroccan, Korean, French, Italian, Burmese, Greek, and more - all within 1 mile walk, and usually several iterations of each one (you couldn't even count how many Chinese restaurants of various regionalities there were). Now we're retired. We have both money and time. When I feel like cooking, I make the dishes that took too much time when I was working - long slow braises or slow-roasting, or dishes that just require an enormous amount of prep. But we still go out 3-5x/wk, When we travel around the area as we like to do (we just got back from Napa last week and will be in Sonoma next month), we travel specifically to eat. In Napa, we had amazing, elegant, fabulous Cal-French food that I would never bother cooking in a million years. There were brilliant combinations, such as the black cod served with a seafood sabayon, roasted matsutake mushrooms, and the tiniest perfect baby turnips that had no bitterness at all. Or an amazing carpaccio, dressed with nothing but a touch of Meyer lemon EVOO. I cook when I want to, but dining out is simply more fun. No shopping, no prep, no dirty dishes, no leftovers, no fuss. Yes, I could grow my own piquillo peppers and buy Ceylon cinnamon -- but why? I'd rather go to the great Spanish tapas restaurant a few minutes away and have them roast, skin and stuff the peppers with fresh chevre; roast, skin and sprinkle the cinnamon on fresh beets; and make that perfect paella 'tradicionale" for my spouse and the dreamy Fideua Negre, noodle paella with squid ink, for me. I mean, do I seriously want to buy a pressure cooker just for my octopus? Why should I bother cleaning and skinning a cephalopod when there's at least a dozen restaurants that make fabulous smoke-grilled octopus within 5 miles of our house? Should I want to soak the bacalhau in 8 changes of water over two days? It would just be so much easier to go to the Cuban or Portuguese or Italian restaurants, and have a couple of orders of really amazing salt cod fritters or roasted salt cod with polenta, instead! The take-out food these days is so much better quality than before. One place offers a marvelous frozen (bake it at home) chicken pot pie - perfect butter pastry, organic chicken breast and organic vegetables - all they offer is either a fried chicken sandwich on artisanal roll with housemade slaw, or the pot pie. That's it; they open 4 days/wk for 3 hrs a day and then go home to raise their baby daughter. Lines out the door every day. One specialty market with various food sellers (we lust after their pork tomahawk chop - wowie! What a hunk of meat!) has lovely little frittatas with artichoke, red pepper and Gruyere. My DH hates frittatas, so I buy one for myself while he gets the penne with San Marco marinara and Kurobuta pork meatballs; that way we both win. I loathe Food Network. When I write up reviews on the restaurants we've eaten at (I do it for my own archives, not to publish them), I often refer negatively to "Food Network chefs" - cooks who slop the food out as fast as possible, in ridiculous combinations of too many ingredients. They don't know the difference between a sauce Amoricaine and a Bordelaise. Bleh. It's taken me decades to get my DH off the crappy food he grew up with. But he's finally come around, so that when we drop $$$$ on the perfect dinner at Etoile or Spoonbar or La Folie, he says, "That was absolutely worth every penny." And you know, it is. Here is a link that might be useful: NYTimes Frugal Traveler does Portland on the cheap This post was edited by jkom51 on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 0:17

When it's chilly, potato soup will hit the spot for the family and the patient. Ditto congealed fruit salads and freshly made chunky applesauce slightly sweetened with some cinnamon added. This recipe for Lasagna in a Hard Roll over in the Recipe Exchange is from Lizzynola: The kids love this quick & easy recipe: 3/4 pound of ground beef and or ground sausage or a combination of both 1 8oz. can of tomato sauce (I use the garlic/seasoned) 1/2 of an envelope of dry onion soup mix About 1/4 t. dry oregano About 1/8 t. dry basil 1 large egg, beaten 3/4 cp cream style cottage cheese, drained 3/4 cup mozzarella or other cheese 8 hard rolls Cook the beef/sausage in a skillet and drain off the fat. Add the tomato sauce, sout mix, and seasonings, Simmer covered for about 5 minutes. Uncover and cook for another 10-15 minute longer, stirring frequently. Mix the egg with the cottage cheese and 1/2 cup of the cheese. Cut a thin slice off the top of each roll. Hollow out the center leaving about 1/2 inch thick shells (save and freeze the bread chunks for a dressing, bread pudding, etc.) Spoon half of the meat mixture into the bottoms of each roll. Spoon cheese mixture over meat, then spoon remaining meat mixture over cheese mixture. Sprinkle the 1/2 cup remaining cheese over the meat mixture and replace the tops of the rolls. Wrap each roll in heavy foil.Place foil packets on a baking sheet. BAKE at 400 (preheated) oven for about 25-30 minutes. You can add your own seasoning to your liking if you wish. A nice salad is all you need with this one!

You did not say how many men you must feed at each meal? Make many ground beef dishes healthier by using ground turkey instead: ~ taco meat (black beans added?) with all the toppings for tacos, flour and corn tortillas, fresh fruit, cookies and lots limeade and lemonade, iced tea - keep the taco meat filling hot in a crock pot, covered, insulated with newspapers and/or towels ~Italian meat sauce and cooked penne/ziti layered in the crock pot and kept hot, garlic bread and tossed salad, brownies, iced tea ~Pulled chicken or turkey BBQ in the crock pot, buns, slaw, fruit, baked beans, Pig Pickin' Cake, iced tea I'm going to make this for my guys at my local service station soon: ~Supersize Stromboli Sandwiches 1 lb ground beef (or ground turkey) 1 lb pork sausage (or turkey sausage) 1 green bell pepper, chopped 1 onion, chopped salt and pepper 1 jar(s) pizza sauce 1 tsp italian seasoning 1/2 tsp dried basil 1 loaf italian bread 1 pkg sliced pepperoni 2 c mozzarella cheese 1.Preheat oven to 350ð. 2.Fry ground beef, sausage, bell pepper, onion, salt and pepper until browned; drain well. 3.Add pizza sauce, Italian seasoning and basil. Stir to coat and simmer 15 to 20 minutes. 4.Split Italian bread in half lengthwise; place on large sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil. Place a layer of pepperoni on bottom half of bread. 5.Add a layer of the meat mixture; top with a layer of grated mozzarella cheese. 6.Place top half of bread on the layers; wrap well in foil and bake 15 minutes. 7.Cut into 6 pieces. Teresa This post was edited by teresa_nc7 on Wed, Apr 16, 14 at 8:36