~6m skim, 1,110 words, updated Jan 15, 2025
2025-01-06
Content summary for Baking.
People ought to live with balance.
Neglecting any one of these three will result in a critical imbalance. Neither can they be regarded in isolation - we are all a gestalt, a whole greater than the sum of our interconnected parts. None of these areas should wither from lack of care.
You must also remember that you will die. As taught in Kerouac’s On the Road, it is sometimes important to be childlike and see life with new and fascinated eyes, totally enraptured by the present and your physical senses.
What all of this comes down to is striking a good balance between these three components - and with these life manuals, I hope to record my methods for each.
Be pragmatic. Be well fed. Be wise. May God bless you.
Everybody wants to eat, and sometimes life gets busy! Especially as a student with a tight budget and other high priorities, feeding yourself properly with a minimum of time and effort is crucial. Even for “adults”, having a plan will help to cut down on wasted food, reduce your decision fatigue, and bring some structure to your life.
Additionally - any of these meals can be split in a pinch. There are few things that are more kind and wonderful than sharing a meal and dinnertime conversation with your roommates or loved ones. We don’t get much time here to figure out what is really important.
So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
– 2 Corinthians 9:7 NKJV
If you are utterly devoid of motivation, broke, and just want to survive, avoid sustaining yourself on snacks and crap - go to the grocery store once and pick up the following food items. Following this plan will keep you reasonably well fed at a good nutritional baseline, while saving time with store-bought bread and frozen vegetables.
This assumes you only have a few kitchen basics and a coffee maker of some kind. Keeping your space clean is essential to reducing the amount of time it takes to make your food. Neglecting to clean and piling up dishes and dirt is extremely demotivating, and will end with you opting for takeout and a deteriorating body.
A warm cup of coffee in the morning is important for morale.
To cook cheap and nutritious meals for yourself, ensure you have the following items in your kitchen already.
In January of 2025 I purchased
Proof: The receipt below is an attempt to purchase all of these ingredients to get an estimate of the cost. In January 2025, in Alberta, Canada, it cost $136 Canadian dollars to buy the ingredients posted above - with some items like rice, coffee, peanut butter, and potatoes that will last multiple weeks.
| Day | Breakfast | Dinner (Always make double!) |
|---|---|---|
| SUN | Bacon & Eggs | Spaghetti and Sausage |
| MON | PB Toast | Chicken stir fry |
| TUE | Bacon & Eggs | Sausage skillet1 over potatoes |
| WED | PB Toast | Bachelor style Chili over rice, pasta, or spare bread |
| THU | Bacon & Eggs | Chicken vegetable pasta |
| FRI | PB Toast | Ground Beef and Onion Noodles |
| SAT | Bacon & Eggs | Fish and chips |
Use half of your sausage, some vegetables, and the pasta sauce to create a rich and filling pasta meal.
Fry up half of your chicken breasts, some vegetables, and soy sauce in your fry pan. Serve over your asian noodles.
Boil some potatoes, then fry them up in a pan with sausage and vegetables.
Chop up some onions and 1/3 kg of ground beef and fry them in butter in a pot. Add beans, half a bean-tin of water, crush two tomatoes with your bare hand into the pot, some frozen vegetables, and chili powder. Bring to a boil and simmer for 40-60 minutes. Serve with buttered toast.
Cube your chicken breasts and cook with onions, vegetables, and soy sauce in a pan. Start boiling water for pasta when you start cooking your chicken. Combine everything and toss in your frying pan.
Cook up ground beef, onions, and soy sauce in a pan.
Boil up some potatoes for less time then usual. Slice into wedge fries and stick them into the oven beside the fish you bought - and follow the instructions on the battered fish box.
Or pie dough - enough for two pies.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
From ryanfleck.ca/2022/homemade-apple-pie
The American classic.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Enhancements:
Simple whole wheat pancakes. Makes enough for you and some leftovers.
Ingredients:
Steps:
From fifteenspatulas.com
Pages are organized by last modified.
Title: Cooking & Baking
Word Count: 1110 words
Reading Time: 6 minutes
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