Amy, when I am truly done with cooking I grab a handful of a variety of lean cuisines and keep them in the freezer for meals.

Other go tos: whole wheat wraps with hummus thin sliced veggies or turkey.

spaghetti squash with chopped: onion, greens (usually collards), whatever other veggies are around and a can of white beans or grilled chicken.

grilled cheese with bacon or tomato.

caprese salad

egg spinach tomato scramble

chicken in tinfoil with any root veggies and sprinkled with spices

Needs to be cheap, super easy, and hopefully not too unhealthy?

I made chili for this week's lunches that sort of fits the bill.

Ingredients: 1 small onion (chopped), 1 can black beans, 1 can Bushes chili beans (medium heat), 1 larger can diced tomatoes. 2–3 tablespoons olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon cumin. 1 splash of cheap red wine (optional). Salt. You can add ground beef if you have some handy.

Sauté chopped onion in oil, with a shake or two of salt. When it's translucent, add ground beef (if any) and wine, and cook until meat browns. Add both cans of beans, the tomatoes, and the cumin. Bring to a boil and then simmer for a couple of hours. Salt to taste. You can add more chili powder if you like it hotter. Without the meat it's pretty healthy. Even with the meat there's not that much added fat if you drain it off before adding the beans and tomatoes. It keeps a week in the fridge and months in the freezer. Aside from sautéing the onion, it's basically a stir everything together and simmer for ages recipe, which is my favorite kind. Sure, I look like I'm sitting around reading fanfic, but don't you see that pot on the stove? I'm totally cooking!

My go to meals have been chicken thighs microwaved in a stonewave bowl and then mix3d with a bag of steamer veggies woth a dollar of ricotta. Which is not all that exciting but it was relativley fast and healthy.

At some point I moved up to frozen ravioli. I'd throw a handful in saucepan of water and take them out and add spinach of let wilt on and ricotta but I couldn't eat tomatoes. Now if probably do pasta sauce.

Also easy is sauteed onion and pepper then add black beans and some salsa and eat in a tortilla or over rice.

Needs to be cheap, super easy, and hopefully not too unhealthy?

If you don't already know about it, you can download a PDF of the the Good and Cheap cookbook, which this author wrote as part of her Master's in food studies. It's meant to be recipes that are healthy and fit into a SNAP budget: [link]

I don't know where the recipes fall on the "super easy" scale, though.

Thanks, Buffistas! Good ideas there. Feeding me is less hard than feeding me + the two kids, between pickiness and appetite and needs of growing humans, etc., so any ideas for things that aren't take-out and aren't frozen pizza are helpful.

WTF with this explosion in Manchester at the Ariana Grande concert?

I've been into tuna melts lately, not sure where that falls on various scales.

Just saw the news about the concert bombing. I don't know if I can handle thinking too much about that right now.

So I won't, and will instead recommend my favorite easy/cheap meal, which is ramen noodles with frozen veggies (broccoli, peas, carrots, corn, whatever) and a can of chickpeas. You'll want some extra water to cover the chickpeas, which means possibly throwing in a bouillon cube too, otherwise the flavor is a little thin. Easy, tasty, inexpensive, and relatively healthy too!

Between the concert bombing and the news about Trump's budget, I want to get in bed and stay there for about a month.

WRT to meals, S. got the kids accustomed to very meat-and-potatoes meals. It's been hard to retrain them. The ramen is a great idea, though -- I bet shrimp ramen with tiny frozen cocktail shrimp and snow peas would be a hit. It would with me, anyway.

Ariana Grande concert

Awful. And a really bizarre choice for a target.

My cheap and easy go to is eggs. Often scrambled with spinach and some hot sauce.

My quick and easy is any pasta with a sauce that can be made in the time it takes for the pasta to cook. To make it a bit healthier, you can use whole wheat pasta and pesto just about any vegetable you have. I use frozen broccoli or the salad mixes with kale or spinach. If using frozen veg, defrost in microwave and puree in a blender of food processor with garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and any nuts you have on hand. Also having some marinara in the freezer with some spinach and other veg mixed in which can be quickly defrosted.