What are your go to low effort meals for challenging days?

[aperollingintotheweekend]

I suffer from endometriosis which means a good two weeks at least of every cycle I feel horrendous with so much pain and the lowest energy known to man. I make the worst nutritional choices during this time too which I’m sure fuels feeling even worse.

I am in need of low effort recipes for this time to stop me eating processed crap! What are your go to’s for when you’re exhausted, or unwell, or mega busy etc?

I am hoping to make a bit of a recipe bank of ideas so I can be better prepared next month 😊

Omelettes
Things on toast
Traybake with sausages or chicken pieces (oilier food dries out less) with potatoes, and whatever veg you have
Own made 'pot noodles' with noodles, cooked chicken, mushroom/spring onions, made stock/miso & seasonings
Poke bowl type meals - rice/salmon/grated veg/avocado, soy sauce

Packet Ramen with frozen spinach, frozen mushrooms and an egg thrown into cooking water.

Picky food like hard-boiled eggs and avocados.

Salad - leaves keep for ages in an airtight Tupperware with kitchen roll in it. Add sweetcorn and other jarred veg, mini tomatoes, cut up fruit or berries, some nuts and some form of protein. This can be precooked chicken strips (or chicken nuggets), egg, cheese slices. Add a sauce or dressing.

Your first priority is to eat vaguely healthily despite your health - which is what you’re researching . Once you’ve got some strategies going, may be worth looking at low-inflammation diets as I have heard this can alleviate pain a little.

Tub of cream cheese and some Lidl Gorgonzola melted together, add loads of fresh spinach (tough stalks removed) and stir till wilted. Stir in a splash of milk if you like a looser sauce. Add gnocchi cooked in boiling water for two or three mins. Grated Parmesan to serve. So quick and easy and leftovers keep well till the next day.

I feel awful today, but DD and I wanted potatoes - so I just boiled some baby new potatoes, added some tenderstem broccoli for the last few minutes, then drained them all, and vaguely stirred some pesto through and chucked some smoked salmon trimmings on top. Complete mishmash, but was bloody lovely.

I always keep frozen stir fry veg & protein pieces in the freezer - so it’s v easy to just bung rice in the rice cooker, stir-fry the veg & protein pieces, add some kind of sauce or paste (whatever’s hanging around - teriyaki, nasi goreng etc), then stir in the rice.

Spinach pasta is also easy - cook pasta, separately wilt a load of spinach with garlic, add cream cheese, nutmeg and Parmesan, mix in pasta.

DS likes frying onion, pancetta, peppers, add a tin of tomatoes & serve with pasta.

Honestly my most low-effort meals tend to be made up on the spot though - usually when I’ve come home and cba to cook what I’d planned, so I just look in the fridge/freezer/cupboard for anything I can chuck together in a pan/wok. A decent herb/spice cupboard and stock of store cupboard basics helps.

I had beans on toast last night...bloody lovely!

Anything on toast really.
Or sandwiches (love a sausage sandwich).
Breakfast for dinner also works.

If I'm feeling fancy I might do a big salad, stir fry or tray bake though.
TBH though as I live alone I'm not that bothered about dinner. Alot of the time I'll just have rice cakes and hummus.

My quick and healthy meals are:

• Stir fry - pack of ready chopped veg, add a protein and noodles. Sauce wise I tend to keep soy and teriyaki in the cupboard.
• Baked salmon with steamed new potatoes and veg. Might make a sauce or just dollop some pesto on the salmon before baking.
• roasted Mediterranean vegetables (red onion, courgette, peppers, aubergine) - add tin tomatoes and garlic after 25 mins, then add Halloumi after another 10 mins and leave for another 20. Can stir in beans for extra protein
• Jacket potato, hummus, salad, cheese

Same! Chilli con carne is actually a freezer staple!

Build in left overs.

So today I will be putting some mince in the slow cooker with passatta and herbs, I will eat some of it with pasta.

Tomorrow I will add kidney beans and spices to make a chilli, but before I heat it up I will wrap some in tortillas with cheese and freeze them.

Then I make the chilli and cook too much rice so the next day I can have egg fried rice.

If you make a baked potato put another one or two in the oven, then the following day mix the potato (not including the skin) with flour and you have gnocchi.

To make batch cooking easier we freeze leftovers in those foil trays with paper lids. You can put them straight into the oven frozen, without needing to defrost first. We buy a set of 100 on Amazon. They're perfect for things like bolognese / chilli/ casserole / curry.

All the supermarkets do microwave golden veg rice which you can eat with anything and feel like you're getting a bit of extra veg.

In summer months we like those filo pastry parcels you see in the fridge section. Adi have them in spinach + ricotta and tomato mozzarella. So handy to have with veg rice / salad / roasted veg.