I had always justified my crap food habit by promising myself that if I ever worked from home, I'd cook for myself.  A few years ago I finally transitioned to working from a home office.  I decided that it was time to put up or shut up.

I obviously can't speak for everyone.  But personally, the reason that I never properly cooked until that point was A) I was raised as a latchkey child by a single working mother who was attending night school to earn her MBA.  In other words, I was raised on Hot Pockets and Lean Cuisine.  And B) pre-packaged food is just so EASY.  It tells you what to do right there on the side of the box!  No one ever dithered over a box of Kraft Mac 'N Cheese wondering if they were doing it right.

Never having eaten proper food before, I not only didn't know how to prepare it - I wasn't sure what the end results were supposed to be.  I had a lot of "Is eggplant supposed to taste like this?" moments, believe me.

It's not easy to learn how to fix meals for yourself.  But I tell you what, I've lost weight - without making any other changes.  And when I eat pre-packaged food now, it doesn't seem like food to me.  It tastes strange, like chemicals, and the texture is all wrong.  And it's surprisingly un-filling, considering the calories.

The first time you make a new recipe, it's going to take a while.  And it may not turn out well.  That's just how it goes.  I have learned to have a back-up plan.  Start with something simple, and something that you're familiar with. 

In my case, I decided to make my own Egg McMuffins, because I love them so very much.  It seriously takes two minutes to make an Egg McMuffin, which is less than the amount of time you'd spend at the drive through.  And it has a lot less fat and sodium.

You will need eggs, cheese, and English muffins.  Put the muffins in the toaster.  Crack one or two eggs into a pan, and poke the yellows so that they will lie flat.  Cook the eggs until they're almost finished, then flip them and count to 10 (more or less).  Slide them onto the muffin, add a slice of cheese, and go to town on that bad boy!  I like to add a dash of steak sauce for flavor. 

My two favorite cooking resources are:

1.     A Veggie Venture's A-Z of Vegetables.  Look up any vegetable you might encounter at the store, and Alanna will provide a handful of easy recipes, plus extra info on how to prep it.  And her salad dressing "recipe" is the best!

2.    Allrecipes.com.  Here's what you do: search for a recipe, then click to sort the results by rating.  Pick the recipe which has the most stars AND the highest number of reviews.  (For example, a 4-star recipe with 5,000 reviews is better than a 5-star recipe with only 2 reviews.) 

Before you write your shopping list, read the comments!  Most recipes are made far better by the amendments suggested by the commenters.  Look for the phrase "I did X like everyone suggested.."