What's your go-to 'can't think' dinner or tea?

[BabyLlamaZen]

Would love some more ideas especially when I've had a day of it and baby brain.

Mine are:

• Jar of pesto and pasta (with salad if have any leftover in fridge)
• Baked potato with beans and/or cheese (again some salad)
• Dig out some leftovers from the freezer e.g. batch cooked curry
• Quorn escalopes with some frozen veg

Pasta puttanesca

After our last disappointing (and of course expensive) takeaway my resolution is to never have another! Beans on toast all the way.

Teriyaki chicken with rice. Only need ingredients we always have, ginger/garlic/soysauce/mirin(sugar), and chicken and few veg(normally leek and peppers) and rice. all done in 30 mins, and tasty. Can easily alternated to teriyaki salmon or pork ginger if we don't have chicken.

Alway use frozen ready chopped onions too! definitely! I’m worse than most when chopping onions on the crying thing practically blind! Plus I live alone so don’t usually need to use a full onions worth

@earlgreywithlemon - thanks. I like earl grey too!

Re micro rice - I don’t have a micro at the moment but would maybe eat rice if I could use this in a hob or oven cooked dish/method - is this possible? Preferably one pot wonders

I’m crap at cooking rice from scratch tried all the tricks!

I hate having to use more than one pot/pan when it’s only for me!

Been years since I've even considered rice, just been on Tesco app and checked micro rice as Tesco often include preparation info and right enough micro rice with hob instructions! Great!

Anything with pasta or noodles.
Anything with eggs.
Porridge.
Toastie or just plain sandwiches.

@Graphista buy a rice cooker

You’ll never look back

Honestly, they are great

Cereal if really desperately tired/late.
With Greek yog/fruit if I'm feeling posh.

I quite like cereal and I don't normally have breakfast so it actually makes a nice change.

@graphista, if you’re looking for easy rice try this one pot baked paella: www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bakedspanishrisotto_70241
It’s very easy, and you can leave out what you don’t fancy: e.g. the prawns, or replace the chorizo with a teaspoon of paprika.

@Pikachubaby I haven't the room! Stupidly tiny kitchen don't get me started it's why I don't have a micro I just bought a bullet style blender and that's having to "live" on the back hob of cooker (I only use front hobs)

@EarlGreywithLemon That looks doable, but I have a couple queries -

Could I do in a Pyrex style dish? Mine has better handles roasting tray can be hard to grip especially when full

Could I halve/quarter quantities?

As I'm veggie what could I use instead of the meat that would mean the dish still "worked"? Paprika instead of chorizo ok, quorn Fillets instead of the chicken?

Veg or sausage pasta bake
Pesto pasta
Chilli or spag Bol

@Graphista, you can definitely do a Pyrex dish. That’s what I always cooked it in!
For quantities, if you halve or quarter the amount of rice, I’d also halve or quarter the amount of stock. Otherwise I think the cooking time should be the same (based on the fact that you usually cook rice the same amount of time regardless of quantities).
I think quorn should work! The flavour comes from the paprika, rosemary and saffron anyway. If you can get smoked paprika I would, as that’s the most flavourful. Oh, and go for sweet rather than hot paprika, or it’ll be pretty spicy!!

Posting to come back to

Kids-
Eggs on toast
Bento/kids charcuterie- cold meat, (anything left in fridge), cheese, carrot sticks, flatbread (from freezer stash)
Ready Brek with fruit on the side

Me and DH-
Omelet
Freezer fish and chips with mushy peas

Thanks

I always have smoked paprika in as I use it a lot for flavour due to I can't cope with hot spicy food these days unfortunately

It’s such a lovely, rich flavour. I use it a lot too, as I’ve never been great with spicy food despite my best efforts.