When I make a dinner for Chinese New Year, which I do every year, I cook for about 50 and it takes me about 6 hours but 2 of those alone are just making 200 deep fried Egg Rolls from scratch. And to be fair people bring things as well. When I make a Stir Fry dinner for eight, which I do once or twice a month, it takes me an hour total time. My knife skills are pretty good but it is still about 45 minutes of chopping and the rest waiting for everything to get steamed. And making the rice. Or I could throw in a prepared Shepard's Pie and it would take 2 minutes of effort and an hour total. Or burgers would take 15 minutes for up to ten. Or the recipes I mentioned in the other thread could be 15 minutes up to an hour. The longest it ever took me to make a dinner for 2 was 7 hours of continuous work.