Cooking When You Hate To Cook

What to do? Once again I have decided that I really do not like to cook. I know some women (and men, too) find their creative side in the kitchen and enjoy all that slicing and dicing and stirring and sauteing, but I don't. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing, even cleaning the toilet beats cooking any day.

But we can't afford to go out to eat every night nor can we afford to hire a private chef so somebody has to make a meal here and there and that somebody is me. Keith could probably do some of the cooking but he is one of those let's dump as much stuff as we can find in the cupboards into one pot kind of cook and while he tries his best his concoctions are not all that appetizing. Recipe? We don't need no stinkin' recipe!

However, he is very good at cooking omelettes but who wants eggs every night?

Wait, eggs are cheap, so maybe...

No, we'd get really sick of eggs every night.

Anyway. If we could still eat the fun stuff like pasta and rice I might be a little more inspired to cook but when it's basically some kind of meat and vegetables every night, well...it's just another chore. And then after you eat, another chore in having to clean it all up.

I did find a recipe for pork chops that is easy and tasty and since I found Farmer John boneless pork chops at Winco I've never bought any other store's pork chops cause Farmer John raises some very tender piggies and I haven't had a bad chop yet.

Cola Pork Chops
4 pork chops- I use the thick chops and cut off every bit of that nasty fat before cooking.
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup coke
1 tbsp brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste.

1/ Preheat the oven to 350.
2/ Mix together the ketchup, cola and brown sugar
3/ spray a baking pan with cooking spray, put the chops in the pan, spread the ketchup mixture over the chops and sprinkle with the salt and pepper.
4/ Cover the pan with foil and bake for about 1 hour or less if you use thinner chops.
5/ Eat. If there is liquid in the pan it's good poured over the chops.

This would be good with chicken, too, just bake according to whether they are skinless boneless (not so long) or if you like your chicken with bones in it (bake longer).

Here is the recipe for macaroni salad. This was from a retro barbecue cookbook and has that genuine 1950's macaroni salad taste.

8 ounces macaroni- the little tube shaped traditional macaroni salad size, whatever that's called.
3/4 cups mayonnaise
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp sweet pickle relish
3 tbsp finely chopped sweet onion
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper
1 cup baby peas- I don't know baby peas from adult peas so I just used some thawed frozen peas. I don't think canned would work too well for this, too mushy.
4 hard boiled eggs, chopped

1/ cook the macaroni according to package directions, drain well, rinse, and cool.
2/ In a medium bowl mix together the mayonnaise, salt, pickle relish, and onion.
3/ In a large bowl combine the cooled macaroni, celery, and green pepper.
And now here is where they left out part of the instructions and don't tell you when to mix the mayo stuff in with the macaroni but here is where I mixed it all together.
4/ After mixing in the mayo stuff, gently toss in the peas and eggs.
5/ Chill well before serving.


I liked this recipe even though I'm not supposed to eat macaroni.