Nicer food doesn't need to be a lot of work. For example: cook spaghetti, remove water, add in crushed garlic (raw!), some olive oil, pepper & salt and eat with cheese. Of course this isn't a great dish, but tastes much better than what you made for less work. If you have two minutes more time we can extend this recipe: put all the ingredients plus grilled pine nuts and a whole bunch of basil leaves into a blender (except the spaghetti and the cheese of course), and you have a very nice pesto.

Normal things usually don't take more than 20 minutes of attention. Stews are excellent: you just throw everything in and let the stove do the work and you have food for multiple days. Going further you have foods that you probably wouldn't cook for yourself but you can cook when you have people over for dinner. Stuff like tiramisu or chocolate mousse don't take more than 20 minutes to prepare. Making your own mayonnaise takes 2 minutes, and you can make it a bit different for example by replacing the vinegar with lime juice (excellent with fish). Then there are things that do take a bit more time (sushi, ravioli and pizza for example), but even this doesn't take more than 30-40 minutes (of course there exists things that take a long time to cook, but that's not necessary for serving a tasty meal).