Let me be upfront: no cook week worked for losing weight. Still down 25 pounds, still on track. But the family verdict on the food itself was… divided.
Happy Healthy Wife called it hell week. Happy Healthy Son loved it. I was somewhere in the middle. Here’s the honest breakdown.
The concept was simple — a full week of meals that required no real cooking. Rotisserie chicken deboned and stretched across multiple meals, 90-second Uncle Ben’s brown rice in the microwave, bagged salads, store-bought soups, a BLT with oven-cooked bacon, cocktail shrimp thawed and tossed over a vinaigrette salad, and pre-marinated Costco salmon in the oven.
Some of it worked really well. The rotisserie chicken over brown rice with Trader Joe’s Thai red curry sauce — quick, easy, genuinely good. The cocktail shrimp salad was a personal favorite of mine. The BLT was the winner and was the most “cooking” we did all week, and even that was minimal. For someone who doesn’t cook, this week would feel completely achievable.
But Happy Healthy Wife has been eating my cooking for years. She knows what fresh green beans sautéed in garlic and oil taste like. Microwave green beans from a bag — rubbery, flavorless, tasting like disappointment — are not that. The pre-marinated Costco salmon came out too salty for her taste. The store-bought soups were passable but not something either of us would choose. The analogy she had was right: it’s like going from your favorite pizza restaurant to a frozen pizza. Technically it’s pizza. It’s just not the same.
Happy Healthy Son, on the other hand, loved it — specifically because Chef Barry was spending less time in the kitchen. Dinner ready in 10 minutes instead of an hour meant more time together upstairs. Kid’s perspective noted.
Could someone who doesn’t cook survive an entire week — or longer — eating the way we did in Week 17? Absolutely. But for a household that’s used to real cooking, it’s frozen pizza. It’ll do. It’s just not your favorite restaurant.
