My wife likes cooking vegetarian meals. She uses the Ottolenghi books, and Deborah Madison. There’s some tofu and brussels sprouts recipe she likes a lot, and anything with eggplant, and anything with cabbage. Also eggplant parmagian from Marcella Hazan, but broiling the eggplant (lightly) rather than frying it.
Stuff I make that lasts for days, and it’s not hard:
Beef stew – Get some rump roast or chuck (a big hunk, maybe 2-1/2 lbs) and cube it, coat with flour, salt, pepper, and brown on all sides in as little oil as possible. Meanwhile, in a pot, saute lightly diced garlic, diced hot peppers,mushrooms, and diced onions in a little more oil. Add the beef and a large (20 oz) can of chopped tomatoes (or chop a can of whole tomatoes), and either about 10 oz of dark beer or a little less red wine. Add a bunch of good dried mushrooms, or better yet the powder from good dried mushrooms. Add herbs to taste – a couple of bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, oregano. After about 45 minutes of simmering, add cubed rutabaga, and 45 minutes later add cubed parsnip and cut-up carrots (or “baby” carrots). Cook about two hours total, or until everything is soft (but hopefully the veggies are not too soft). Stir pretty often, because it will burn. Add chopped parsley at the end.
Thai curries – Stir-fry whatever vegetables you like – green beans, broccoli, carrots, bok choy, with some shallots. Reserve. Stir-fry some protein – shrimp, pork, tofu, fish. Reserve. While you are doing this, soak about 1/3 - 1/2 a package of wide rice noodles in warm water. After the two rounds of stir frying, remove the noodles from the water and stir fry them quickly, with some water, broth, or rice wine in the wok. Before they stick too much, turn down the heat and add a can of light coconut milk, a little broth or rice wine, a heaping tablespoon of Thai curry paste (my favorite is masaman, I get it at Asian markets for about $1.29 for a can that makes two of these meals), the juice of two limes, and chopped basil. Let simmer for a bit, then add back in the veggies and protein, and get everything hot again. The noodles should be cooked but still chewy.
Other easy stuff:
You can do this with fish fillets (cod, haddock) (cut up into 3-4 pieces per fillet) or boneless chicken breasts (remove the tenderloin part, and cut the main piece in half horizontally, to make two scallops plus the tenderloin). Dip thoroughly in beaten egg, then coat with seasoned panko (salt, pepper, paprika). Saute in butter or oil/butter combination until golden brown on each side – about 5 minutes per side for chicken, less for fish. If chicken, it helps to cover the pan while it cooks to ensure thorough cooking. Serve with fresh lemon and hot sauce (or, for fish, tartar sauce = 2-3 tbls mayonnaise, 2 tsps relish. 1tsp hot sauce, juice of 1/2 lemon).
Braised fish: In a dutch oven, saute garlic, diced rutabaga and/or parsnips, mushrooms, carrots. Add a small can of chopped tomatoes, some red wine, and chopped fresh herbs. Bring to a simmer and cook until the hard vegetables are almost cooked. Add a meaty fish fillet or steak (salmon, cod, monkfish, haddock), cover, and cook for 10 minutes or so until fish is just cooked through.
Make pasta with any kind of sauce. Mark Bittman’s book How To Cook Everything has a whole bunch of easy sauce recipes.
I literally looked in every grocery store chain around. For a while they showed up sometimes at QF, but nothing for the past year or so.
If I’m making something that braises, like paprikash, I don’t.
I don’t mind doing the prep to save $$ and feed the stock collection. I do draw the line at buying whole breasts and boning them myself, although I used to do that.