I have greatly simplified this recipe. I just boil the beets until done. I cook Christmas Limas in salted water until they are done. I combine them and make a dressing of garlic olive oil, meyer lemon olive oil and whatever vinegar I'm in the mood for (red wine or sherry most of the time). If I have the beet greens, I blanch them, squeeze out the water, chop them and add to the salad. This last time that's all I did. It might sometimes get some green onions or fresh herbs if I have some handy. Recipes for Health Marinated Giant White Beans and Beets By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN Many Greeks love giant white lima beans. This recipe is an adaptation of a dish prepared by the Greek chef Jim Botsacos for a Clean Monday celebration to benefit the Gennadius Library in Athens. DonâÂÂt soak the beans or theyâÂÂll fall while they cook. Mr. Botsacos serves this with skordalia. For the beans: 1 pound dried large lima beans 1 large white onion, cut in half 4 garlic cloves, crushed 1 bay leaf Salt to taste 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/2 cup finely chopped celery 1/2 cup finely chopped yellow or red bell pepper 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion, soaked for five minutes in cold water, drained and rinsed (optional) 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill For the beets: 8 small beets, greens cut away, scrubbed 1/3 cup red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar Salt to taste 2 garlic cloves, cut in half 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1. Place the beans in a large pot. Cover by 2 inches with water, and bring to a gentle boil. Skim off any foam, and add the onion, garlic and bay leaf. Turn the heat to low, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Add salt to taste, and simmer an additional 20 minutes until just tender. Remove from the heat. Remove and discard the onion, garlic cloves and the bay leaf. Allow the beans to cool in the liquid, then drain through a strainer set over a bowl. Gently toss the beans in a bowl with the lemon juice, olive oil, celery, peppers, onion and herbs. If desired, add 2 to 4 tablespoons of the bean broth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside. 2. Cook the beets while the beans are cooking. Place in a saucepan, cover with water, add 1/4 cup of the vinegar and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until tender, 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the beets. Remove from the heat, add the garlic to the pot and set aside to cool. Remove the beets from the pot (do not drain), slip off the skins and cut in wedges. 3. Combine the remaining vinegar, the sugar and 1/4 cup of the beet broth (discard the garlic). Toss with the beets. Arrange the beans on a plate or in a bowl and surround with the beets. If you wish, serve this dish with skordalia. Yield: Serves six to eight. Advance preparation: The beans and the beets can both be prepared up to three days before serving.

Meems is a sweet girl and if she doesn't like to cook I don't think she has to learn a whole lot of cooking techniques that fit someone else's lifestyle. I think that's what AnnT is getting at. Everyone needs to find their own system of what works for them. My brother and BF are "plain food" people. They eat like LindaC suggests, a good cut of meat, a cooked vegetable, a quick salad and some kind of starch, all in their neatly arranged individual corners on the plate, lol! Me on the other hand, I like stir fry, a jumble of pasta, a melange of soup. That's why I can't really give quickie advice here, my quickie stuff is mostly some version of rice and beans, something most folks don't eat for dinner as the sole dish. My system is to cook some larger, more complicated dishes on the weekends and freeze them. And I love leftovers. Someone else's system might be to throw something fresh together every night. There are lots of quick and dirty ways to get a fast meal on the table. I am learning more and more of them everyday as I venture into the wonderful world of "cooking for two." Sooner or later you'll get a repertoire together that suits your new lifestyle realities. Seems like that's what you're asking for here, not a treatise on how to get along with your adult children. There are certain dishes I just won't do, not because I can't do them or they are particularly difficult, but because I just do not want to fuss with the process of making them. Pie is one example. I love pie, so I make it, but I rarely do the crust from scratch, I don't care how easy someone tells me it is or how much they enjoy homeade pie crust. I buy boxed pie crust, haven't found it to be all that much worse than my own homeade, and a whole lot less trouble. It is a compromise I'm willing to make. This week I'm making a quiche with one, which then makes quiche one of those easy, delicious, semi homeade meals. Add a salad, some good rolls and you're good to go. The pre-shredded gruyere at the market was actually way cheaper than the whole cheese, what a boon!! Sometimes it's not just the process of cooking that makes getting a meal on the table a no-fun endeavor. My kitchen set up is so awkward it has greatly reduced what I'm in the mood to cook. No matter how I've reconfigured it, it is still a pain. I love to cook with a good music or other NPR show on the radio as accompaniment. Maybe that is one part of motivating yourself to cook dinner--make the kitchen environment seem fun and welcoming to you when you come home tired from work. Unfortunately, mine is not, which explains a lot of why I don't like to cook. The other thing for me is cooking with someone else. I am WAY more motivated to cook something if someone else is helping. I am an extrovert who loves to be with friends, I love to cook with others so when BF helps me in the kitchen I am way more motivated to make things. Being a craftsman by profession, he loves the process of dicing and slicing, which I hate. So I would suggest that is part of the equation. Take a look at your kitchen and see if there are ways to arrange things that make cooking faster, easier and more enjoyable. I rotate my crockpot and my bread machine, one or the other is going on my counter almost every day. The joy of those appliances is not that they do such a spectacular job of cooking food, but that they fill up the house with wonderful, homey, mouth watering aromas, which makes you feel good about both cooking and eating. That's part of the process. A bowl of fresh fruit and nuts or a tray of muffins in a see through glass container on the counter, etc. I once lived in a big old farmhouse and the kitchen was loaded with counter space and was by far the biggest room in the house. I lived with some great roomates, we cooked together and hung out most of the time at the kitchen table. I cooked WAY more in that set up than I do now. I can't believe the baking and cooking I did back then, having no more time than I do now. Anyway Susie, I know I tend to be the alpha wolf in a lot of situations and sometimes what I need to do is ask for help, tell others I need help. Sure, you can cook everything all by yourself, but if you tell the kids you would really appreciate some help, they will find ways I'm sure!! Somtimes all you have to do is ask, because what one person automatically knows to do isn't the same for every other person.

I am happy to share, Sheilaaus. Some of my recipes have been adapted or borrowed in total from others' recipes (I talk about them as if they are truly my friends.. Ina, Giada, Julia). Those recipes are exact. This recipe is completely my own so I will give advance warning that the quantities are estimates. I did document this recipe for a family cookbook so it's likely pretty close. A few notes about this recipe. First, I developed it many years ago when a then bf and I were on the South Beach diet. He was missing (being a big baby) his favorite comfort foods -- like chicken parmesan. This was my healthy replacement for that -- and I actually like it more than the chicken parm. The recipe calls for two kinds of parmesan-- wrapped inside the chicken is the better parmesan. Shred yourself or you can use the fancy shredded parm that's prepackaged. You do want meltable parm though. Coating the outside of the chicken (in place of traditional breading) is plain old green can parmesan .. or you can use the fresh kind but it does need to be in powder form. One final note, I no longer bother with the egg wash before coating the chicken with parmesan. The wetness of the chicken and a little pressure is sufficient to coat.. this does result in a paler color when done. Ingredients 4 skinless chicken breasts 3 c fresh spinach ripped into small pieces 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese 1 medium onion, minced (a little finer than chopped) +/- 1 tsp minced garlic 1 Tbl olive oil 1 egg +/1 1/2 c parmesan from a can oregano (fresh or freeze dried) Parsley, chopped paprika 1 additional Tbl olive oil 1. Preheat oven to 375 deg. Coat a ceramic or pyrex baking dish with a light layer of olive oil. Prepare Filling: 2. Sauté garlic and onion in olive oil until onion is soft and translucent. 3. Add spinach and minced garlic. Continue sauteeing until spinach is wilted. 4. Remove from heat and add grated fresh parmesan. Mix the sauted vegetables and cheese with salt, pepper and a touch of oregano. Prepare the Chicken Rolls: 5. Pound chicken breasts between layers of saran wrap until about 1/4 think all around. Try to maintain a somewhat oblong shape. 6. Spread 1/4 of the filling in each of the 4 chicken breasts. The layer doesn’t have to be thick and do not take filling the whole way to the edge. Roll the chicken breast starting at a short end. Tuck any stray pieces in or under to make a nicely shaped package. Coat the Chicken Rolls: 7. In a flat dish or casserole, combine the parmesan from a can with a shake or two of your favorite herbs. I use garlic powder, oregano and parsley. Set aside 8. Beat the egg loosely in a wide shallow bowl. 9. Dip the top and sides of the chicken roll first in the egg, then in the parmesan mixture and place in the baking pan open side down. Be sure to cover much of the breast in parmesan. Repeat for each roll. 10. sprinkle a little paprika on top of each roll. Bake 11. Bake the chicken for 25-30 min. The top will be a golden brown and the chicken will be cooked through. Serve You can serve as is, with a dollop of your favorite tomato sauce or cool slightly and slice into spiral coins for a prettier presentation (or for appetizer portions)

Thinking more on the meal delivery service, the big problem is the sales point for profit is really only achievable and sustainable at a price where they have to have a certain amount of market saturation, especially for fresh, and a fairly accurate foreknowledge of the ingredients inventory, which means lack of customization. Not so far from where I live is a lively trade in having a private chef bring the ingredients for custom meals to your house and make a week's worth of meals ready to reheat or whatever in catering containers. Great for people who work crazy hours and are tired of the time and less-than-healthy options of eating out. There are also delivery services who bring the meals in cooler bags daily, before dawn, and leave them at the door. Great for people with special diets who can't deal with making the separate meals. Both cost big time. The reasonably priced versions start out with choices and custom options, and end up as this is what you get, perhaps with an option to skip. They basically end up being restaurants with delivery rather than dining rooms. Quite a few years ago i used a fresh daily one for a few weeks when I was injured. They were trying to be sort of custom. They accommodated all my ridiculous allergies, and one could chose which meals to buy which day so long as a minimum was met for the week. The food was good and well prepared, fresh, with plenty of produce. It worked well on the basis that I could still make a sandwich or quickie pasta or order in, especially for those meals where I didn't like or couldn't eat the options. When I had another injury a few years later, and went to their website, they had removed the options and the ability to choose meals to get vs. skip. In other words, they were trying to make a profit rather than their dream service. At that point, Instacart had started at Whole Foods, and I was able to cobble together enough between their prepared foods and salad bar, to make it through. Back then, the Instacart person would call on the phone and discuss details with you. They still will e-chat, and you probably can do a call over details. None of the above is good for a tight food budget. The truth, as I learned in college where the meal plan was mandatory, it's not the cost of the food at issue. It's the labor. And since LPink is looking to shift labor without adding much cost, I think all the time reduction strategies are the only way to do it. The meal plans, prep ahead, make ahead, big batch/freezer, etc. I've been wracking my brain trying to think of another way to do it, but it comes down to the price of labor, which means doing the work or get another, more fun than cooking, job, or labor swap with someone, to pay someone else to it. The only thing I can add, is I try to keep plenty of low prep produce around. Things that can be grabbed raw out of the fridge, needing little more than a rinse. Because I don't always want to be prepping for hours either! But if I'm eating with Mr. Picky, unless it's a special occasion, I'm not cooking his not-what-I'm-cooking!