or just go to mcdonalds. for a few weeks, you can alternate with BK and kebabs for some variety.
just eat out or force yourself to cook. if you can't cook, then try living on a foods that don't need cooking: fruit, veg, bread, cheese, cold meats.
OK Oxon, here's my 2 rappens' worth, and I am a full time sole operator. No husband/boyfriend turning up so I always have to cater for one.
What I've been doing here in Basel is getting some salad stuff and throwing together an easy salad: greens, tomatoes, avocado, whatever you like and adding a chopped boiled egg (you can do that!) and some cheese and/or ham to give it a bit of bulk. Fling over some salad dressing and it's very tasty. You could grill/fry a piece of chicken (come on, you can do that!) and chop it up and have that with the salad - that's my variation for tonight's meal in fact.
Pasta takes about 10 mins to boil and you can chuck in some chopped tomatoes, maybe a bit of onion, even rip up a few basil leaves (I buy a whole plant at Coop and make pesto sauce then use the leftover leaves in a salad), top with some grated cheese and there's a meal.
What about some potato salad? Boil some of them, boil some eggs, cool and chop everything, throw in some chopped celery (if you can find the non limp stuff, this morning I decided to get radish instead) and chopped onion and I always add some chopped Gurken/gherkins/dill pickles for flavour, mix through some mayonnaise and a spot of Senf/mustard and there you are. Quick, easy, no skill required, tasty, have it along with your salad.
If cash is not an issue, you could grill a steak or piece of chicken, pork or fish to have with your salad. Throw a spice over it if you want some pep (I sometimes use a Cajun one). And if you have a microwave you can do your veges in there as a change from salad.
I do other simple, quick things as I have not been overly impressed with the fridge/freezer options here so don't bother much although I do like the Flammekuchen from Coop, but that's just for a quick lunch. M&S I think is sorely missed in CH.
So I think you should have a go at some of these dead easy things, you will surprise yourself at how simple they are and you will get a decent meal at much less cost than eating all the pre-packaged stuff.
Have fun in the kitchen!
Give a man a place where he can buy pre made food and he can eat at his current place.
Teach a man to cook and he can eat at any place on this world for rest of his life.
European proverb.
And for a variation on this one, before you have the couscous ready to go: put some cut up pieces of pepper, courgette/zucchini, eggplant/aubergine and red onion on a flat tray in the oven, sprinkle with some olive oil, roast till they are browned (you'll need to pull the skin off the peppers when it gets blackish, and don't burn your fingers!) and mix them through the couscous. Tasty. Use whatever veges you like of course but these work well in the oven and in the couscous.
Gotta love a man who can cook!
Ok, OP since you look like a nice chap and you are trully desperated, I'll share with you my famous chicken recipe. It is sooooo easy, your egg boilling with looks very hard next to it.
But you must keep it secret, it is between you and me.
Take a pyrex bowl
Put some chicken breast in it
In an other bowl mix hot water with Chicken Base cube (quantity depends of your taste)
Pour on the chicken until it is completely covered. Put a foil paper on it and make some small holes.
Put it in the middle of the oven at 200 celsius. Let it cook until the middle of the breast isn't pink anymore and you can easily cut the chicken with a fork only.
If you want, once it is cooked, you take the paper foil off and put the bowl on the top grill. Put the oven on broil to get nice golden chicken.
After that, sky is the limit, you can pour a can of mushroom sauce on it, served with rice. You can use the chicken for a salad, fajitas, in a sandwich....
You'll find the chicken very juicy and tender.
Enjoy!
And don't forget, no one should know this recipe!
I know a professional academic whose wife once went out of town for three weeks. She left him $300 for groceries. He went straight out, bought three nice bottles of scotch and 10 packs of hotdogs.
When she came back from her sister's three weeks later she found him in a coma on the floor, not from alcohol poisoning, but from a serious nutritional deficiency.
So, yes, finding some good food to keep you alive until your family comes back can be important!
When the father of one of my girlfriends was in college, he spent four years eating cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yes, he was an engineer.
Perhaps the OP is really looking for somebody to make some healthy home-made meals for him ? ....maybe familiar anglo-saxon recipes (aka comfort food) ?
Do you have a freezer?
Then go on the bus to St Louis, or hop on your bike, to just beyond the geant Casino to a small place called Picard. It looks a bit like an Iceland chain store from the outside but do not be fooled. Inside is a paradise of (frozen) ready made meals which certainly beats the selection you have in any M&S. Indeed, BBC Radio 4's Food Programme ran a few weeks back an entire programme on this chain and the wonderful food it produces ... There is food to suit every budget, from simple to luxurious, and most just need to be cooked from frozen or gently defrosted in microwave. Plus the fact that they are prepared to be immediately frozen means they rarely contain any additives/preservatives etc. For example, the raclette and potato filled sarasin crepes contain exactly the ingredients you would use if making them at home. Plus if you have a very young child, they do a range of no added salt vegetable and fruit puree cubes. Not specifically aimed at babies but have noticed the French quite fancy a puree now and again. But sheer bliss if you are about to wean a baby ....
I really do not like going public with this guilty secret of mine as many a delicious "home cooked" meal in my house has come from this store, but I am feeling sorry for you.
http://magasins.picard.fr/2439-picard-st-louis
Enjoy the heaven that is Picard.
PS. they do diet menus too, so if you have gained a few pounds already .....
PPS they also do a wide bio (organic) range
Oops just realised someone higher up the thread posted about Picard, but in such an understated way that I suspect they too were anxious about sharing the secret of paradise on an open forum.
They are open until 7pm tonight so we look forward to hearing your full report later on today.
get one of these ..
especially if you have a small kitchen, not like you got much room for every single piece of gadget that John Lewis has got on display!
If it's high end you are looking for, then the Delicatessa in Globus is brilliant. Costs an arm and a leg but great stuff.
You want whole foods prepared meals. I feel you. It doesn't exist here. There's a decent selection of reasonably priced prepared foods by Betti Bossi and the like at the Coop, particularly, the one that's on Mulhausserstrasse near Spalentor. They are located not in the frozen section but in the aisle adjacent to the meat, and are not frozen but refrigerated, with something like a five day shelf life- pasta, rice, meat, etc.
I would suggest us establishing something like a dinner club for single expats. Some of us can cook and some I am sure would like to learn or at least contribute.
That way we could get together once or twice a week, cook a meal and complain about the price of food in Basel, the price of housing, the high taxes, the unsupportive EF community and all those little things that wind us up.
Anybody else in?
This reminds me:
Apparently the Coop on Mülhauserstrasse is due to close sometime soon as the larger ones nearby have taken much of their business (including mine).
So, the two nearest the area to go to will be the one at Volta Center / Bnhf St.Johan and the one at Spalenmarkt.
However, for the topic of the thread, I'll say that the one at Volta Center has more hot things ready - not particularly "healthy" necessarily though as it hot sandwiches, individual pizza squares and "würstweggli" at lunchtime as well as baked chicken, cooked sausages and a few similar prepared-meat sort of things both at lunch and dinner. Not horrible if you're having them with salad but lots and lots of salt.
Someone tried this a year ago, but when she said she didn't want children to come people swamped the thread to complain. She then quit EF and now spends her days cooking for me, or trying in vain to find other amusing websites to visit ;)
They don't mind that you have many of them and mention so in a public forum?
I kneel at the feet of the master.
I am hoping that there are few solo expat kids hanging around Basel...lol.
...it's been nine days now...
Oxon?
Oxon?!?
Oxon!!
...uh-oh...
I realise that it's been done to death already, but I just thought I'd pile onto the 'Picard' bandwagon. For those of you who haven't been there, it is a world away from the frozen food section of the supermarket. I was astonished today to see their new line of 'chic' savory sorbets (foie gras, pesto, and beetroot, if I remember correctly), and I stocked up my cart with truffled mashed potatoes, a stuffed guinea fowl, and scallops ready to go into the oven.
Their amuse-bouches are a staple at our dinner parties, and they have plenty of stuff that takes a little more than 'straight in the microwave' but little more than 'ten minutes in a frying pan' with fantastic results.
Like adrianlondon ,I miss the 'ready-for-the-oven' meals that you could buy as part of Tesco's Finest range, or in Marks & Spencer, etc. They're a million miles from the 'Betty Bossi' stuff that you get here. These were typically constructed of real, basic raw ingredients but needed nothing more sophisticated than being popped in the oven. Think things like a chicken breast, stuffed with spinach & cheese, drizzled with olive oil and fresh rosemary leaves. Pop it into the oven for 15 minutes, dinner's ready. Throw the mixed vegetables (all fresh, no additives) into the microwave for 5 minutes. Pop the potatoes (already parboiled and tossed with olive oil and garlic) into the oven.
Result? 20 minutes later, a no-effort dinner that is as good and as healthy as anything I can prepare myself. Yes, none of these dishes is fundamentally hard to make, but if I'm by myself I don't really like spending more time in the kitchen than I have to.