Food that’s not worth the effort

[BarrelOfOtters]

Crab…picked yourself
Unfilleted fish
globe artichoke all that finiking for some little bites

Ah! Thank you! Maybe that’s it. My older cookbooks all say it takes a long time too so I never questioned it. Apologies to @Catspyjamas17 if you two are right. I’ll check out the article, thanks!

@BarrelOfOtters, I skimmed through the article and I do all the things listed, exactly my method, so not sure where I’m going wrong!

A lot of risotto is whether you care about cooking it ‘classically’. Mine probably isn’t authentic but is a quick meal, I sometimes even pop it in the instant pot.

Ice cream - whipping cream does work with condensed milk, it's what i've always used.

Frozen croissants - yes infinitely easier than homemade, we always have a bag of them at Christmas, but the ones in a tube from the chiller cabinet aren't great.

Definitely what one person finds too much faff is a doddle for someone else, also depends of you have the right kit. So mayo, takes literally a minute with a stick blender and the narrow jug it came with and it's much nicer than Hellmans. But if you like Hellmans (and I never did, I think its bland and gloopy) then that is a lot of unnecessary faff.

Really! Literally one of the easiest meals to cook!

It’s not the cooking though it’s the faff of cleaning up roasting tins etc. we do a roast in the winter for 8 most weekends. We have to be home by 4 to eat at 6.30 and have shopped for it. The actual prep is a doddle but then a fair amount of tidying up. 2 dishwasher full.

Making a home made cheesecake. It was nice but made so much washing up!

Peel the chickpeas?! You lost me right there.
BTW...I love caramelised onion hummus.

My poached eggs looks like a weird Sea Creature 😃

Yes! They look like jellyfish. It’s the size of the pot that I have to wash up afterwards that’s the hassle… all for just 1-2 eggs.

Get a Vitamix or similar blender and never will you get gritty hummus. I use soaked and pressure cooked chickpeas and never peel them.

This! See also pumpkin and any squash really. I don’t like them and they’re far too tough to peel. I always want to give them away but DP says no, he’ll cook them for himself but he never does so they end up in the compost bin.

I let dh make them his are perfect mine not somuch .

Yes! They look like jellyfish. It’s the size of the pot that I have to wash up afterwards that’s the hassle… all for just 1-2 eggs.

I have a tiny pan that's dishwasher safe.

Does a tiny pan work for freestyle poached eggs? I was taught to drop them in a large pan of water

Yes it does - I use the smallest size non-stick pan I have. I just boil the water, plop the eggs in and walk away for a couple of minutes (This last bit is important - if I watch them I'm overtaken by the urge to help them gather together which has the opposite effect!). Then the pan goes on the top rack of the dishwasher (you're not supposed to dishwasher non-stick but I've relegated this pan to the poached egg purpose)

But it isn't.
If you want home made gravy, Yorkshire puddings and the whole shebang, it's a tortuous process of peeling, part cooking, loads of ingredients, shuffling stuff around in the oven and multiple stages of timing and resting and insane amounts of washing up for a pretty ordinary meal.

It's fine for one or two.

@Elphame me too-I love mushrooms but I do NOT want a bowl of rice pudding with them floating in it, every mouthful tasting the same! At least it was filling I suppose...

@Westfacing I would mug you for that recipe ;)

@beguilingeyes it HAS to be done, game changer!
Regarding caramelised onion hummus...No. I've no words

I make a version of risotto which takes five minutes.
Take two microwave sachets of golden vegetable rice and microwave them.
While they're doing, chop up your cold meat/prawns. Put all ingredients into a bowl and add some chopped spring onions and chopped peppers.

Done.
Yum.

I usually serve some home made onion sauce with my risotto.

Macarons. Im bloody good at making them but don't often because they're so faffy!

Not technically risotto.

I use Gallo Risotto quick cook packs. You just add water/wine and stir. Then add any ingredients you want.

@TheShellBeach that's more like paella, add some saffron and a bit of tomato and I've done this too

Any food that takes more time for me to cook than for me to eat is a waste of time!