That s why I meal prep

Just don't eat like Kirby.

And that's where the dishwasher comes in. Toss things in the sink as you go and no longer need them, eat, load the dishwasher with the sink things + the final dishes to wash, wipe things down and done.

I live with my mom and brother, I cook and they take turns washing the dishes.

2 hours of cooking is when you are feeding other people or food prepping for the rest of the week, you spend the same time scrolling some predatory food delivery app and waiting for the food as you would spend making the tacos or wings yourself

This meme is occasionally true in our house, once you factor in prep time. My wife definitely makes this complaint once we’ve finished eating in 10 minutes.

If you're spending that long cooking, then you're using your time poorly.

Meal prep doesn't have to be like making 20 of the same meal and freezing them, instead, meal prep is supposed to cut corners and make cooking more efficient.

Say, for example, I'm making a sweet potato chickpea curry. I need half a cup of sweet potato. I'm not going to peel and dice half a sweet potato. I'm going to peel 3 sweet potatos, dice half, cube the other half, refridgerate half my diced, blanch and freeze half my cubes, and roast the other half of the cubes in the oven in olive oil and put them in the fridge. Then make my curry with the rest of the dice. Now I have some roasted sweet potato to put into a salad tomorrow (along with some leftover chickpeas), cubes for the next time I do a roast, diced for next time I do a curry or pizza (sweet potato and mushroom pizza slaps) and any leftovers or scraps can be frozen and go in a soup.

Then later, I'm not going to cook 1/2 a cup of brown rice, I'm going to cok 2 cups, set aside 1/3rd in the fridge for a stir fry later in the week, freeze 1/3rd of the cooked rice to heat up some other time later in the microwave and use the remaining 1/3rd in my curry. These two steps alone might cost me an extra 30 minutes today, but they are going to save me hours later in the weeks to come. And I can still freeze half of my curry to defrost and eat later.