Cooking. You can cook for yourself or others. You can make simple or complex things. You can change recipes to fit your liking and get creative and come up with new things. And at the end, you get to eat it.
Along a similar vein - baking. I consider it different than cooking because you're not getting a meal out of it, but rather a dessert or snack. Work and friends are good ways of not having to eat all of it yourself. Free cookies in the breakroom tend to vanish quickly.
Lots of options here too, even healthy ones.
If you're more of a science-y type, once you get familiar with one recipe, you can modify just that recipe. I've modified a banana bread recipe to have less butter and sugar because I make it once or twice a month and play with it every time. You get a feel for what the consistency should be like to make a good finished product, and then bake it.
I prepare most of the meals that my wife and I eat. I find that having a routine is highly beneficial and keeps me on track. Here's what works well for me:
* Each week I make one meal from each of the following three categories: soup (or chili), meat oriented (usually chicken, sometimes beef), and pasta (or risotto). I make four servings, so we'll have the same meal for two consecutive nights. Each category has four to six different dishes, so even though we eat the same dish two nights in a row we're not making it too often. The limited number of dishes means I don't have a lot of ingredients in my kitchen that I'm using infrequently. On the seventh night we'll eat out or order in.
* A significant number of recipes come from a few different(don't laugh) Real Simple books that we own. The recipes are typically, well, simple to prepare, relatively healthy, and don't require a lot of time. They call for ingredients I can find without having to go to a specialty grocery store. I also have a few recipes from blogs and NY Times Cooking, which has a back-catalog of thousands of recipes.
* Lunches are usually sandwich based, though sometimes extra leftovers. Sandwiches can get boring quickly, so I find adding a lot of ingredients helps. A typically sandwich may be two slices of low sodium turkey, bacon, cheese, broccoli sprouts, and a slice of tomato. For a side I may add in a piece of fruit or a handful of almonds (sometimes plain, sometimes chocolate covered). Usually twice a week I'll go out for lunch. Makes it a little more special when it doesn't happen every day.
* I live in a smaller apartment with limited kitchen space, so I try to use recipes that don't require specialty equipment.
* I make a list of food I'll need for the week on Sunday mornings and make one trip to the store. No going back until next Sunday.
* I try to find recipes that will last for a few days in the refrigerator. Most Sundays I'll make two recipes, providing us with food for four nights. This means I'm usually cooking only one night during the work week. Start at around 4:30pm on Sunday, done eating and cleaning up by 7pm.
Tonight we're having broccoli soup, one of the more "challenging" dishes on my list:
I have made the below recipe before and it came out very well. With a cup (uncooked) of rice it makes five servings. Two possible shortcuts: (1) use a store bought rotisserie chicken and (2) leave out the cilantro, so that instead of having to blend the sauce you can simply stir it in a bowl.
Lots of options here too, even healthy ones.
If you're more of a science-y type, once you get familiar with one recipe, you can modify just that recipe. I've modified a banana bread recipe to have less butter and sugar because I make it once or twice a month and play with it every time. You get a feel for what the consistency should be like to make a good finished product, and then bake it.