Shows how crap my brain is working - I totally forgot pies by post a dozen orderd
Get some decent cajun spice and make the best chicken burgers. I use Slap Ya Mama but whatever you can find.
Learn to cook something you like that you've never managed. For me, out of sheer laziness I'd never learned to poach an egg but got inspired by a thread on here and it always cheers me up when I do it now.
Think of a pub meal you have that you don't make and learn to do it better than the pub. Tuna Nicoise, chicken caesar salad are 2 of mine. Both even better if you can grow the lettuce yourself.
Try cooking something Asian. The typical street food like noodles is always quick to do. Look around till you find a recipe you like the look of and go get the ingredients and give it a go. try doing something new every month and practice till you can do it quickly.
Invite friends to try your new , tasty, fast, simple cooking and pretty soon you'll be getting a meal or 2 in return without it being a horrific dinner party.
Stir fry- simple cheap and quick.
You might need to buy a wok or a deep sided frying pan as it's almost impossible to make 1 portion.
Ingredients:
1: Pre made fresh noodles (i'm lazy and dry noodles are crap).
2: frozen veg mixture, or actually any veg you have laying around.
3: whatever sauce you fancy, a pre made stir-fry sauce or whatever
4: a bit of meat if you like, probably chicken
Method:
1: Pan/wok fry some chopped up chicken till its about 50% cooked
2: Add random veggies
3: add some chilli and some sauce or whatever you like
4: add fresh noodles in the last min or so just to warm them up
Conclusion:
A: Nom nom nom
Sort of opposite situation to you here but having kids reminds you that a proper meal needs pudding.
A blob of ice cream or custard with the remnants of the fruit bowl cut up makes a pretty good pud. Even a yogurt will do. It does make it seem like more of a meal than egg on toast / frozen with oven chips / whatever was in co-op on the way home from work.
My other tip from when I was living on my own with no freezer is one or two ingredient meals. Mushrooms on pasta, cabbage and bacon, pea soup from frozen peas and an onion in 20 minutes. You don't have to balance every meal and frozen chips and uninspired co-op purchases are OK, probably not great every day but eating something is always better than not.
Hope you manage to keep reasonably same and bon appetit.
To save on the washing up, eat out of the pan, the slow cooker pot, or even the griddle.
I'm a stickler for table manners, but when no one's around you just need to fuel up and go.
Remember to soak things that need washing up until you purchase the dish washer or do a weeks worth of washing up (eeek).