Other Easily-Thrown-Together Meals

If you hate the very idea of cooking, no one’s stopping you from opening packets or buying ready-prepared meals. And if you’re worried about salt and sugar and other additives, you’ll probably be able to find more virtuous though not necessarily more palatable precooked meals at health stores. You don’t want to foist your hysteria at the stove onto your offspring. Nor do you, on the other hand, want to make a cult out of cooking everything yourself, so that your children either become afraid of any alien meal or develop a terrible longing for microwaved junk food. We all know about the thrill of the illicit. Besides, it’s worth keeping a stash of ready-made meals on the grounds alone that it will make your life easier. But low-level cooking needn’t feel too demanding. The following suggestions occupy a culinary territory somewhere between the ideas above and the full-blown recipes below.