Quote:
Originally Posted by
pitboss12 
How much planning do you go through to cook all your foods and plan your menu for the day/week? Do you just cook the same 5-8 things and get into a routine. Also, how do you manage all the prep and planning with your job? I know that when I get home, I'm usually pretty beat.
My original goal was to learn how to cook. I took some cooking classes last year. Learned the basics of how to prepare foods, use herbs and spices, and bought a bunch of cookbooks. I've always been a food enthusiast and spent the last several years eating at various "landmark" restaurants around the world. Basically, my process goes like this: 1) Open cookbook. 2) Select recipe that looks appealing 3) Rewrite version of recipe that I consider "healthy" 4) When time permits, buy ingredients (lunch break, after work, etc.) 5) Cook it .. prep and cook usually takes an hour or less I try to cook something different every time. But found I have fallen into a cycle of fish/seafood during lunch. Salmon, Halibut, Chilean sea bass, Red Snapper, "Rockfish", Lobster. They are all very quick to prepare and this works for lunch. I can kill, split, clean, grill and be eating a lobster in ten minutes. Bought a thirty dollar Victorinox ten inches chef's knife and an "accusharp" for this purpose and recommend both. I've found that having a shaving sharp (at all times) knife of considerable size has really made prep easy. I used to get home from work tired but on this diet I am full of energy. I can pull a 10-12 hour work day, cook both lunch and dinner, go the gym, go for a five mile run, and still have trouble falling asleep.