Anyone have a magic oven they want to give me?

I wish cooking came naturally to me. I have several friends who seem to be able to just wing it and out of their magical ovens appear these amazing, glorious meals. That’s not me. Pasta, chicken, salmon, repeat, perhaps with different pre-made sauces. Let me tell you…I’m pretty tired of it. It’s good, but you can only have something so many times before it gets boring. My frustrations are as follows:

-Nothing seems to stay good in our fridge for more than a couple days. That means almost daily trips to the grocery store (in between working at 2 schools, taking 2 university courses and doing all the lesson planning and homework associated with them).

-I don’t know what to make!

-I need recipes with really basic ingredients. Nothing fancy. Trying to find anything even slightly unusual is nearly impossible here.

-I have to come up with some sort of system, because I’m the type of person who will end up not cooking because by the time I get home I’m hungry, and I’m hungry now, so planning a meal that takes 20 minutes to prepare and another 20-30 to cook just isn’t going to happen.

-I don’t have an oven…not even a convection oven, or a toaster for that matter. Stovetop and microwave only.

I seem to have this problem every time I come over here. I’m totally stuck and bored with food. I know there are so many good recipes but I don’t know where to start. Blaaaaaaaah.

I’m thinking of taking a cooking class at the Universidad Popular next semester, but I don’t know if I’ll have room in my schedule. I hope so, although that doesn’t help me much until then. I wish I could find some woman to take me in as her pet project. I bet there’s someone around that would love that.

I’ve started looking here http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/preparation/stovetop-recipes

and am already salivating.  I hope these turn out to be easy enough for someone cooking-impaired like me.

Between these recipes, the song playing in Itunes talking about key lime pie, and a friend on Facebook posting a picture of his chocolate-peanut butter cake, I’m beginning to think my lunch didn’t quite hit the spot.

Back to the recipe search…