Yes my wife is an excellent cook! She's the best I know and is famous for it amongst my social circle.
I understand which foods are cheap and decent. My main issue, unfortunately, is affording it all right now.
Hence my previous posts about what provides the most calories per penny (I'm from the UK). From this, it seems to me that some extra shots of olive oil in the day could be an option. However, there's no protein in it.
This is also why I have shifted to using big chunks of cheese in my sandwiches that I take to work. Cheap and high in calories, yet still providing some protein. But now I'm getting questioned on how unhealthy it is from people too because of all the saturated fats!
We're watching our budget at the moment down to the pound, so it's a bit of a struggle to work things out. I'll get there.
Thank you both for chiming in!