There’s little hacks for certain foods too if you can’t cook worth much or don’t want to bother to. For example I don’t want to bother with cooking a chicken, so I’ll go get one hot off the rotisserie chicken counter at Walmart or HEB. $6 for a whole ass chicken already hot cooked and ready to go, take it home and shred it. If it’s hot the skin and legs taste good as a snack of itself while you’re processing it and you can hand shred the breast / thighs / etc and save it for using in meals. It’s how I make quesadillas or chicken alfredo really quickly.

It sounds silly, but when I’m on business trips I almost really like the Darden style restaurants for this reason. Think like Olive Garden, Chili’s etc. Sure it isn’t great food but damn is it a lot for a little. I’ve gotten a big ass bag of chips dipping sauce on top of burgers fries dessert for about the same as a small meal from Taco bell and a quesadilla from there. It’s almost double the amount of food for the same price, and they’re almost easier to deal with because they now all have online ordering. Place the order online as I’m about to leave work, go stop on the way and go pick it up, done deal and I got something for the next day too. I almost prefer takeout style restaurants like this now over “fast” food that’s anything but in their drive thru line.

I’m gonna agree that cleaning sucks ass, as does the time of it.

I made do by usually having to have something stimulating my dopamine-addicted ADHD ass while I’m washing dishes. Youtube documentary video, podcast, whatever is at least 30 minutes so I can just grind thru. Upgrade the dish tools as well, I really like these ikea dish brushes so much more than a sponge because I feel like I can actually clean with it and not constantly go through sponges, and replaced the flip top dish soap with one of those squeeze bottle ones. Big secret is you can refill those with whatever you want, you don’t have to buy a new one when you run out.

Yes there is still the time factor with cooking, but I like to cook enough that I can make 2-4 servings so it’s more like cook once and minimal work for the reheating. Also as for the time, idk how it is in your area, but where I’m at ever since COVID drive thru and in store times suck ass now for ordering. If you’re on an hour lunch break or on the way home where I’m at it always takes them 30 minutes or even longer to get my order ready from ordering to out the lot. At that point, I might as well just go home and cook the damn thing myself, that’s what set it for me.

Lastly for food waste, a few things learning to change how much you make so that you “use up” the materials is helpful. Same with freezing things, turns out most things can be frozen and thawed with minimal change to the item. For example I now buy bacon in a bulk pack but split it up into bags of 4 slices, keep all in freezer except one. Now I would only have four slices going bad instead of the whole package. A few other things I do is sometimes dried herbs / seasonings in a shaker are better than fresh ones that will go bad, learn what you use less of so you buy less (like I only buy eggs in a six pack because I don’t go through enough), etc.

Stick with easy meals. I really want to make a cajun red beans and rice sometime, but I looked at the list of what I need and said fuuuuck that. I’ve got a few easy to make items that I like to rotate through: homemade pizza, mac and cheese and hot dogs, got frozen burger patties and a george foreman, burritos with ground beef beans and canned hatch green chile, etc. I also get my groceries delivered, it helps me time and money wise because I’m not shopping in the moment and only buying what I need, and now the whole process of grocery store shopping that I hate is gone. No more traffic to the store, no parking lot spot searching, no walking around the whole store and dodging slow people stopping in the middle of the aisle to have a conversation, no bullshit line for checkout or receipt checks and packing / leaving. Now it’s literally just order only what I need and it shows up at my door.

I do like the idea of “take home meals” though, sometimes that just hits the spot I get it. For me sometimes I’ll do that and just get some store made chips and queso and fuck it I’m eating that while being a couch potato that night. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough :)

Their burgers are bomb AF, I’ll admit that, but my two complains from them are 1) they’re small, we’re used to big Whataburgers here so I practically have to get two of them and 2) their fries, yes it’s oversaid but their fries are just different and not always in a good way. Though I will say they do taste better if you get a salt packet and pour it on.

Where I’m at it’s definitely very restaurant dependent. Papa Racist’s (Papa John’s) and Pizza Butt (Pizza Hut) I avoid like the plague because their decisions have been jack up the price and nosedive the quality. Meanwhile Little Ceasar’s is doing a $6 lunch combo and most pies I get there are usually $6-10.

I get it it’s Little Ceasar’s, but I got one thing to say to the LC haters

Honestly I don’t think I’ve ate at Mcdonald’s in the last six months now that I think about it. The enshittification of their app deals, price hikes, quality going down, the whole disease outbreak thing, just really turned me off of them. I know they had a bad quarter recently I hope they have another bad one 🤣

Wendy’s is pretty decent, expensive but better if you use their app. I usually still see a code in there somewhere for $2 off or something, and their small frosty’s aren’t quite at fuck off levels of pricing yet.

Taco bell I feel like every restaurant is different. One near my house used to be bomb AF, then they had a changeover of all their staff and now it’s terrible. Even the drive thru is different now they now have an AI taking your order lmao. Another location down the road is better at the food quality, but they fuck up what is supposed to go with your order half the time so at that one I always have to check the bag in the parking lot before I leave.

The older I get the most I just feel like it isn’t worth it as much anymore. If I’m going to have to wait a half hour plus in the drive thru line, pay $15 for a meal now or $20+ if I wanted to get dessert or another side item too, and deal with people and the headaches of it, I’d rather just keep driving home and cook something there in about the same time. Plus I can usually get 3 or 4 meals out of that $20 worth if I make it at home so each leftover is faster to make.

Fast food industry is doing a great job making sure that I stay away as best I can and be inconvenient. The sole exception so far has been Little Ceasars, still $6 for a lunch combo and if you order in the app it’s great, get notified when it’s ready and I literally just park out front walk in grab my order out of the ready bin and off I go. I don’t understand why others haven’t pivoted that way as well.

Dark meat at least tastes better and is more desirable where I’m at. Now you just get less meat in general for however much you’re spending.

Give it five years and the taco bell quesadilla is probably gonna cost $10 and use the small tortilla instead of the big one. They may have won the franchise wars in fiction but reality is stranger.

“It’s okay, I put the park-anywhere lights on”

I’ll die on that hill with you. Most likely from self-induced health problems from loving the good food here too much, but for all the crap that we deal with the good food is a plus.