Reddit mentions of Marinades: The Quick-Fix Way to Turn Everyday Food Into Exceptional Fare, with 400 Recipes

I totally hear you. Even though I work from a home office, I don't have time to cook as much as I'd like. I don't want to admit how often I buy ingredients for a great dinner, only to have them go bad because I haven't had time to cook.

Well, at least I can get a paleo-friendly fast food dinner at Chipotle.... Do make a list for yourselves for takeout and fast food that's on-diet. It may not be perfect, but it's better than a burger joint. For instance, order Asian food without rice, and go to a better burger joint where, when you order it without a bun, you don't see a sad little patty reminding you that 90% of what you were paying for was bread. There's a high-end burger restaurant near us that lets us order essentially burger salads.

Anyhow, when I'm better organized, here's some of the things I do:

• Make stew. Like the chili /u/sweatpantsromance suggests, you can cook it on the weekend, and it only gets better over time.
  
  Do freeze one dinner's worth, though, because you'll get tired of even the best stew during the week... and then when you go puttering in the freezer in a few weeks you'll have a great surprise.
  
  
• Roast a chicken and vegetables. I'm a grand fan of recipes that take no attention, like this one from Nigella Lawson. Throw some sweet potatoes in the oven and you're done.
  
  
• Meat loaf! We make a huge one, then freeze it. Our go-to recipe is for "hedgehog" from the original Two Fat Ladies cookbook, which uses no bread and also includes chicken livers; but if you must use a filler, almond meal is good.
  
  
• It isn't make-ahead, but fish really is your friend. Last night I made a shrimp dish that'd serve 6... and start-to-finish it was 25 minutes, which is less time than online delivery would take to get to your house. For example, if you eat cheese, this shrimp-and-feta recipe might be yummy. (Mine was a variation thereof... no tomato, but the juice of two lemons and a dash of chili.)
  
  
• Similarly, if you have a grill, it's fast to grill dinner... assuming that you marinade it ahead of time. I recently reviewed this marinade cookbook quite favorably.
  
  This week, I'm making a shepherd's pie with parsnip mash, which I found in the BBC Olive Magazine. That should feed us for a few days. As well as a quick-dinner stew of chicken, mango, and cashews.