You know, I can’t say it enough. Spend $30 or less and get a crockpot. Seriously.
Get yourself a nice cut of beef, throw in a packet or two of Lipton onion soup mix (it tastes NOTHING like onion, so don’t worry), a few small potatoes, and a bag of baby carrots. DONE. And you’ll have food for a whole week, depending on the size of the meat.
Get some boneless, skinless chicken thighs and/or breasts, salt and pepper them generously, throw them in a crockpot with one large can of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. Serve over rice.
If you don’t want to go the crockpot route, you can always spice up your pasta dishes a bit. Boil a tubular pasta of some sort until it’s just a hair underdone, mix with sauce, ricotta cheese, and mozzarella cheese… spread that out into one of those throwaway roaster pans, top generously with shredded mozzarella, and bake until the top starts to get crispy and the cheese is all melted.
And if you happen to have an Asian food store around and you feel like being adventurous, go pick up a package of spring roll wrappers from the freezer section, and a bottle of garlic infused vinegar. There’s usually all kinds of stuff floating around in the bottle… peppers (it’s not spicy though because the peppers are whole), garlic, whatever else… it’s a white vinegar. Then go home, thaw the wrappers (they dry out quickly so always keep them covered with a damp paper towel)... take one wrapper, fill with plain old mixed vegetables (that you’ve already cooked, heck, even in the microwave… roll from the bottom, then the sides, then all the way (you can seal with a bit of water or egg white), and fry them in corn or canola oil until they’re just a bit browned. When you eat them, slice a slit down the roll and drizzle a bit of the vinegar in. It sounds weird, but trust me, it’s amazing… and it’s a fun way to eat your veggies!