Tonight I had a ham sandwich with mayo and sweet pickle relish. Topped it off with a piece of Pepperidge Farms Chocolate cake and milk.

Madonna

Polished off the broccoli salad from earlier in the week, and made a soft tortilla sandwich of cheese, mayo, spinach and salami.

ETA

I call them 'low prep' days.

Sushi, at least three times a week.

Don't have a no cook day! Lol

@bragu_DSM 5, love your "low prep" days; going to steal it. I do try to have a sandwich once a week for dinner. Sometimes it is a "low prep" sandwich, sometimes it is a cooked sandwich.

The closest I've come to a no-cook meal in a while was tossing some Gorton's fish in the oven & a Stouffer's Mac&Cheese in the microwave. It almost felt like cheating to not be standing over the stove!

ediej1209, that is definitely not cheating. That is giving yourself a well earned break.

Friday has been no-cook night for many years. It's changed due to Covid and we've been doing a lot of take-out on Fridays. Last night I had intended to make Caesar salad tossed with leftover grilled tri-tip. However DH decided Greek food sounded good. We ordered take-out from a new place and the food was outstanding. Lunch today is the Caesar and tri-tip.

Especially in the summer, we live on salads. I know that's not very imaginative, but we enjoy mixing and matching components, plus everyone can have something with a different taste profile if they want. They are only limited by what's available in the refrigerator.

Like Islay, I don't have any "no cook" nights. We've never eaten out very much, I don't care for fast food or pizza or any of the "convenience" dinners. Now with Mother here, I cook even more. She only likes about 5 or 6 things and the only take out she would eat would be Kentucky Fried Chicken. Only regular and only the thigh, LOL. Anything she will eat, Elery will not, and what she will eat today she probably won't like tomorrow. Elery and I will eat leftovers but Mother will not. (sigh)

She only eats yogurt for breakfast, only Oikos, only greek full fat and only raspberry. (shaking head) Elery eats leftovers from last night's supper and I usually have eggs. After that I make Mother lunch, which Elery and I just skip, it's too hard to deal with. Two suppers daily, one for Mother and one that's acceptable to Elery. At 8 pm exactly Mother has one glass of Merlot and a few slices of colby jack cheese.

Annie

Oh, Annie, I feel for you. Is your Mother with you because of COVID?

I usually have a salad if I don't want to cook, but I put a lot in it, so it's kinda like cooking anyway..... just not on the stove.

Annie, I sit here hoping on the one hand that if I ever live with DD, I won’t be difficult to please and knowing on the other hand that I do not like most things she and DSIL eat. Bless your heart for being so sweet to your mom.

Starting when my daughters were about 7, Friday nights became YOYO dinners (you're own your own.) I worked full time and the weekdays were fraught with swimming, dance, soccer, PAC meetings, music lessons... Anyway, it was a hit! Could be grilled cheese, boxed mac and cheese, soup, eggs and toast (or sweetly talk Daddy into ordering pizza) ...Before long the girls were saying "I'm making X for my dinner, do you want some?" One daughter decided she could easily replicate her favourite chicken casear wrap and that became her specialty. While we had cooked together since they were toddlers, YOYO night gave them a chance to experiment. It was a good thing, they are both proficient, imaginative cooks now. Funny story, one daughter, about 9 or 10 at the time decided she would make nachos. When I quietly told her that the guac had so much salt that I didn't think we could eat it, she said "I know, I like it like that and no one else will eat it, so I can have it all." Now whenever one of us has a cooking disaster, we say, "I know, I like it like that."

Kate, my brother lives with my Mother in her home, but he has muscular dystrophy (I keep thinking multiple sclerosis, and that's never right) and she's 85. Now he has a kidney stone and when doing the scans to take care of that the doctor found a couple of small aneurysms. He's already had three heart attacks and two strokes so now before they will do the kidney stone procedure they want him to see a vascular doctor and have a stress test. So, the stress test is tomorrow, the vascular guy on Tuesday. If he gives the OK, the kidney stone gets treated on Thursday. And, truthfully, Mother has been here 8 out of the last 12 weeks because my brother is an obnoxious old fussbudget (2 years older than me but a LOT older, trust me!) and he and Mother argue and get on each other's nerves. He can't go anywhere because of the pandemic to "get away", and she can't get a break because he can't leave. So, she comes here. She won't use a walker and she's already fallen a couple of times, and she asked me SEVEN times in 25 minutes whether she should put bowls on the table. She knows everyone, knows who the President is, remembers the month, remembers to pay her bills but she can't drive because she gets lost and she can't cook because she'd forget to turn off the stove. She likes the farm (it's the family farm that I grew up on) and the garden and feeding the chickens, plus I have a walk in shower, she has trouble using the shower at her home because she has to step over the side of the tub. So I perm her hair, trim her nails, drive her to medical appointments, replace the battery in her hearing aid, bake some cinnamon rolls and then she wants to go back to her own house. That lasts about a week and then she comes back here.

Annie

Whew, Annie! Can I come cook for you? Then you can run away every once in awhile!

I always have several different things on hand that I can toss in the air fryer with little effort. Shrimp, fish, chicken, etc. I nearly always have some hand made tamales in the freezer that I can throw in the steamer, make a box of Spanish rice, and heat up a can of re-fried beans. I guess that is cooking but very low effort.

made some chicken salad out of an overnight crockpot cook. had it with a tortilla after it chilled; easy and tasty ...

Never had a designated night of the week for anything. Ok, I was raised Catholic, which meant Lenten Fridays were meat-less (but not fish-less) back in the day.

If I'm not cooking, it will be a salad. I've done one pizza takeout during COVID. (Otherwise it has merely been breakfast takeouts, which I eat while driving to my next destination.) I don't care for sandwiches unless grilled or toasted.

I guess I would consider leftovers simply re-heated as "no cook", and even that take out pizza had to be re-heated as the location is nearly a half hour from home, and I hate cold re-congealed cheese. I do often make large meals, to provide for leftovers.

Salads can take a variety of forms, depending on what's in the fridge or in the house. Right now, local tomato season has begun, which makes this a logical main ingredient. Or, yogurt may make a good base component.

I have lots of no-cook nights :-) And they can occur any day of the week and also several times during the week! Just cannot be bothered to cook a full dinner meal every day of the week nor do I feel the need for one. Microwave popcorn (not really cooking) is frequently featured. Also crackers and cheese, sometimes with fruit, sometimes with salami or pate. Lots of sandwiches or wraps. I also do take-out but infrequently these days.

When I do cook proteins, I always try to do enough so that I have leftovers for salads and sandwiches - steaks, chicken, salmon, etc. And there is usually always some soup in the freezer that can be reheated if I feel like a hot meal.

how about firing up the crock pot early in the day, and settling down with a warm meal in the evening. I like my Chili and stews that way, or even a good roast beef. Just shred and turn into a sandwich, or slice and add to a previously roasted/boiled potato to make a hot roast beef sandwich, sans bread. gravy from the drippings takes no time. Use a bag in the crockpot for easy-peasy clean up.

bragu, that's still pretty much cooking cause you have to put it all together in the morning.

After fixing breakfast/lunch/dinner mostly 6 days a week I wan a real break!

I do, however make soups/stews/chilis and freeze them to use later and sometimes I heat these up.

@bragu_DSM 5, try this for your slow cooker. https://leitesculinaria.com/84152/recipes-slow-cooker-barbecued-ribs.html I don’t make the rub. I use Rendezvous rub and add a bit of brown sugar. And I don’t remove the membrane.

My ”no-cook” dinner tonight was Serious Eats Tortilla Pizza. DH’s was sausage and pineapple (he’s weird). Mine was left-over creamed spinach and tomatoes (I’m weirder). Dessert was chocolate covered almonds from Costco.

DH & I both cook now. We always cook something to eat twice, and even better to put a 3rd or 4th meal in the freezer. Pre-pandemic, Fridays we often ordered a pizza or lasagna from a local Italian place but that's difficult now (even though Massachusetts has opened up a bit) because it's high tourist season on Cape Cod. So, for example, tomorrow night it's grilled ribeyes and a big salad with our first ripe tomatoes. Sunday night, we'll slice the leftover steak - put it on bulky rolls with provolone, wrap in foil and bake in the oven and have Stonewall Kitchen's corn relish on the side. So that's about as non-cook as it gets.

Leftover Jambalaya, leftover beans & rice, leftover roast chicken with potatoes and whatever leftover vegetable I cooked to go with it.

DH never cooks, it's only moi. So sometimes I throw in the towel and pull some left over out of the freezer for him and find something for me. Other times I keep frozen sausages and then I saute them with onions and peppers in white wine, served with grainy mustard. We don't usually bring in, but if I've ordered from Costco I will rarely, but occasionally serve a quicky chickie (aka rotisserie). My meals are usually simple and if there are left overs to repurpose, I'll do it for lunch or dinner. Last night I had two small filets of beef which I tossed on the bbq, steamed haricot vert, picked up an ear of corn for DH at the local corn/ produce stand and made him a small caprese salad to begin. Dessert was fresh strawberries -- his with sour cream and a bit of grand marnier, mine mixed with some leftover watermelon.

Those costco chickens are huge! They'll feed us for a few days! Or a BIG pot of soup or white chili to freeze for later! Almost soup season! Just have to get through another 100* heat wave!

I don't eat in the evening so every night is a no cook meal I guess. Raising my family we never had a no cook night. I did all the cooking.

Sue