4 ms·

It's unhealthy, though, isn't it? I have a hard time finding places that are healthy, fast, tasty and cheap all the same time. Whereas I can quickly cook heal

It's unhealthy, though, isn't it? I have a hard time finding places that are healthy, fast, tasty and cheap all the same time. Whereas I can quickly cook healthy cheap and tasty meals.

zackattack 17y ago
I would love to hear a few of your recipes for healthy cheap and tasty meals that can be prepared quickly.
- caffeine 17y ago
  Below are some vague, probably bizarre ideas, mixed in with terrible CS metaphores. I apologize in advance: I think it's mainly about amortization. So you can prepare rice, a big vegetable curry, and a roast turkey on the weekend. These are time consuming but set-and-forget items (code and curry mix well). You can then add JIT customization during the week - get last-day shrimp and make a stir fry (use a decent vegetable oil, it doesn't need much) with your rice. This one sounds strange but is delicious - If you're feeling vegetarian, curry makes a great burrito filling (if you like cheese, melt a little on top). I've got a market nearby where I can get lots of cheap tomatoes (most are slightly squishy because they're almost old. These are the best kind). Throw 'em in a blender with an onion, garlic clove, lemon juice, and chili, and you've got delicious fresh salsa. Takes 5 minutes, and it's delicious next to fish (like cod) which can be seared quite rapidly. Get a chicken breast, just saute lightly. Then sear the sides - with oyster sauce for an asian theme, raisins and cinnamon for a moroccan one. Heat your salsa up and stew it with your rice to make a lovely spicy goulash (don't try this with canned salsa though, it's horrible). Nothing is more decadent than a hot turkey sandwich with gravy and cranberry sauce when it's nowhere near thanksgiving, and turkey can be a good deal off-season. Money-saving: spend a bit of money on: good breads (a sandwich is gourmet if served on sufficiently high quality bread), good sauces and toppings. Save money on veggies (buy last-day), drinks (drink water), starch (buy in huge bags). What works well for speed is parallelism (clean while you cook, cook everything at the same time), amortization, and JIT compilation of add-ons :) Spend time on your amortized foods to get them right (so do soak your rice in cold water etc.. this pays off in delicious flavor, and the time cost per meal is tiny).
byoung2 17y ago
Not at all. Living in California makes it easy...there are a lot of health-conscious options for dining out in LA (my favorites are Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai food), and all chain restaurants are now required to provide nutritional content for the whole menu.
- deltaqueue 17y ago
  Definitely not the case in Texas (yet); although, Austin is better than most cities over here.
deltaqueue 17y ago
You're exactly right. Dining out is an insignificant cost increase unless you're eating healthy (at which point the gap widens). Granted, this is entirely a function of how much your time is worth...
- byoung2 17y ago
  Remember when you calculate the cost of cooking that you have to add in the time spent grocery shopping, cooking, washing dishes, the cost of the electricity, gas, and water consumed, the time and cost of disposing of the trash, wear and tear on appliances, etc. Dining out is essentially outsourcing these tasks.
  - easyfrag 17y ago
    Time spent on grocery shopping, washing dishes, etc. are only opportunity costs, they only cost money if you were to otherwise use that specific time generating income.
    - byoung2 17y ago
      For someone working on a startup in his free time, there are only opportunity costs! If it costs $10 extra per day to dine out, that's $3650 a year. If it saves an hour a day which can be used for working on the startup, that's 365 hours, or the equivalent of 45 business days at a full time job.
      - caffeine 17y ago
        Is cooking really such a hateful activity? I kind of enjoy it, sometimes. It can be relaxing .. sort of like programming with edible code. And chicks dig guys who can cook (not to mention that guys obviously dig girls who can cook). Which means: cooking is probably the most effective way to use programming skills for romance :)
joubert 17y ago
New York City banned trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils) in restaurants. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/07/20/hscout629180.html http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/07/20/hscout629180.h...

It's unhealthy, though, isn't it? I have a hard time finding places that are healthy, fast, tasty and cheap all the same time. Whereas I can quickly cook healthy cheap and tasty meals.

zackattack 17y ago

I would love to hear a few of your recipes for healthy cheap and tasty meals that can be prepared quickly.

caffeine 17y ago
Below are some vague, probably bizarre ideas, mixed in with terrible CS metaphores. I apologize in advance: I think it's mainly about amortization. So you can prepare rice, a big vegetable curry, and a roast turkey on the weekend. These are time consuming but set-and-forget items (code and curry mix well). You can then add JIT customization during the week - get last-day shrimp and make a stir fry (use a decent vegetable oil, it doesn't need much) with your rice. This one sounds strange but is delicious - If you're feeling vegetarian, curry makes a great burrito filling (if you like cheese, melt a little on top). I've got a market nearby where I can get lots of cheap tomatoes (most are slightly squishy because they're almost old. These are the best kind). Throw 'em in a blender with an onion, garlic clove, lemon juice, and chili, and you've got delicious fresh salsa. Takes 5 minutes, and it's delicious next to fish (like cod) which can be seared quite rapidly. Get a chicken breast, just saute lightly. Then sear the sides - with oyster sauce for an asian theme, raisins and cinnamon for a moroccan one. Heat your salsa up and stew it with your rice to make a lovely spicy goulash (don't try this with canned salsa though, it's horrible). Nothing is more decadent than a hot turkey sandwich with gravy and cranberry sauce when it's nowhere near thanksgiving, and turkey can be a good deal off-season. Money-saving: spend a bit of money on: good breads (a sandwich is gourmet if served on sufficiently high quality bread), good sauces and toppings. Save money on veggies (buy last-day), drinks (drink water), starch (buy in huge bags). What works well for speed is parallelism (clean while you cook, cook everything at the same time), amortization, and JIT compilation of add-ons :) Spend time on your amortized foods to get them right (so do soak your rice in cold water etc.. this pays off in delicious flavor, and the time cost per meal is tiny).

byoung2 17y ago

Not at all. Living in California makes it easy...there are a lot of health-conscious options for dining out in LA (my favorites are Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai food), and all chain restaurants are now required to provide nutritional content for the whole menu.

deltaqueue 17y ago
Definitely not the case in Texas (yet); although, Austin is better than most cities over here.

deltaqueue 17y ago

You're exactly right. Dining out is an insignificant cost increase unless you're eating healthy (at which point the gap widens). Granted, this is entirely a function of how much your time is worth...

byoung2 17y ago
Remember when you calculate the cost of cooking that you have to add in the time spent grocery shopping, cooking, washing dishes, the cost of the electricity, gas, and water consumed, the time and cost of disposing of the trash, wear and tear on appliances, etc. Dining out is essentially outsourcing these tasks.
- easyfrag 17y ago
  Time spent on grocery shopping, washing dishes, etc. are only opportunity costs, they only cost money if you were to otherwise use that specific time generating income.
  - byoung2 17y ago
    For someone working on a startup in his free time, there are only opportunity costs! If it costs $10 extra per day to dine out, that's $3650 a year. If it saves an hour a day which can be used for working on the startup, that's 365 hours, or the equivalent of 45 business days at a full time job.
    - caffeine 17y ago
      Is cooking really such a hateful activity? I kind of enjoy it, sometimes. It can be relaxing .. sort of like programming with edible code. And chicks dig guys who can cook (not to mention that guys obviously dig girls who can cook). Which means: cooking is probably the most effective way to use programming skills for romance :)

joubert 17y ago

New York City banned trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils) in restaurants. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/07/20/hscout629180.html http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/07/20/hscout629180.h...