We had salads last night. I enjoyed cooking when I had a nicer kitchen and less picky crew but now I’m burned out and find myself resentful after 20+ years. So now I make a meal I really enjoy once a week and otherwise it’s easy stuff.

When I absolutely don’t want to cook but can’t bring in I serve hamburgers or chicken fingers and baked fries. Sometimes I will also make quesadillas which are a big hit with my kids but not DH. When I want to serve something quick but healthy I serve burrito bowls. Microwaved rice, precooked or leftover chicken, a can of black beans, cheese, avocado, whatever veggies I have. My make it look like I put in effort meal that is actually easy is oven baked chicken with roasted veggies and homemade biscuits (total prep time is 10 minutes) or steak with potatoes and a salad or roasted veggies.

I love to cook but we had farmers market tomatoes so it was BLT night.

Grilled a steak, made a quick balsamic sauce, rice with fresh herbs and citrus and got some pesto from Wegmans and mixed it with pasta. Sliced some avocados. Took about 20-30 minutes max.

Lemon/wine baked fish, steamed greenbeans (put some of the lemon/wine sauce on the greenbeans). Kids and spouse also had pasta

In large microwavable bowl:

a lot of frozen kale (it cooks down)
frozen chopped onion and green pepper
one pkg ramen with just enough water to cook ramen without needing to be drained
Nuke a few minutes.
Turn ramen over, stir veggies
Add 1 can chicken and 1 can northern beans (drained).
Zap it again a few minutes till everything is hot and ramen is softened.
Sprinkle with grated parmesan
Pour some jarred pasta sauce on top.