You can't go wrong with...

[chezlamere]

wine with cheese. If there's no wine in the house, I don't eat.

Cottage cheese on top of sliced tomatoes.

Pesto, pesto and pesto.

[lyz2814]

hmmm looks like a great place for my second post!

#1 fall back meal is my own basterdized version of dan dan mein. I make a peanutty, oily, salty, garlicky, hot peppery sauce, and slather it on cold cooked noodles, then sprinkle w/ lots and lots of green onion. Then chill and dive in! Totally eat/sleep alone food... But very satisfying.

#2 when I haven't crock-potted in a while. Bunch of chopped onion in the bottom, then salt n peppered skinless chicken, or maybe pork chops, then a 28 oz can of drained whole plum tomatoes that I crushed w/ my hands, red wine, chipped garlic, minced carrot, bell pepper, tomato paste, real black olives and maybe some dried mushrooms. Hmmmm. Served 8 hours later w/ couscous. Leftovers frozen for lazy, desperate days.

[clothier]

OKRA!

Not really, I just wanted to best mayhaw man to the punch.

At our house, chocolate chip cookies cure all.

Waffles. So many things to fill those indentations with.

[SobaAddict70]

Pasta with meat-based or vegetable-based sauces as a first line of defense.

Any type of soup -- from vichysoisse to potage to gumbo to borscht to ciopinno to consomme, etc. etc.

TRIPE!!!

Filipino comfort food if all else fails: dinuguan, pakbet, pancit, adobo, sinigang, kare-kare and above all, paksiw.

Soba

[paul mitchell]

Well it's not quite a dish but this afternoon I'm making stock. When I'm draining it you can't go wrong with scooping that soft marrow out of the bones with a spoon and giving thanks.

[Ling]

Chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, and brownies--these I can somehow manage to scarf down no matter how big my dinner was.

For regular meals, I'll never get tired of fried eggs, scrambled eggs, creamy cheeses, fresh crusty bread, cashews, and braised lamb with orzo and tomato sauce.

[browniebaker]

I'll say it again: pimiento-cheese sandwich. Sometimes three times a day. Can't think of any other food that comes close to PC.

[cheeseandchocolate]

It ain't fancy, but lunchtime often finds me eating peanut butter and jelly on good bread. I'm currently hooked on Whole Foods' 365 brand regular ole creamy, and I'm working my way through a jar of Sarabeth's strawberry-peach preserves.

Dinner fallbacks: mujadara , French lentils with sherry or lemon vinaigrette, simple soups (broccoli or pea) with a cheese rind thrown in...

[auntdot]

We are kind of like the poster.

We will go crazy over a dish, or ingredient, for a week or two, and then not touch it again for months.

For example, Kimchee. Will buy the normal cabbage Kimchee (although we also adore other varieties, particularly the radish) in gallon jars, will eat it straight and put it on anything (particularly good on hot dogs and balogna sandwiches). Kimchee and fried Spam, nothing better.

Have never had Kimchee and grits, but would probably give it a try.

Then, as if a switch was pulled, without warning, will shun the stuff like it was poison.

After that, we usually eat normally until we find another food passion.

Other than that, we are very stable folk.

Am not in to help groups, but are there more people out there like we are?

[mona]

Hi all

I'm a struggling college student so I don't really have much to fall back on but when I do it's usually

bread with sharp cheddar and HP sauce

instant Maggi Mee noodles with this floating tofu thing that absorbs the soup but is still kind of crispy on the outside

garlicky savoury french toast

[catdaddy]

Nigella Lawson

[bleudauvergne]

When I'm tired I bring out the cheese plate.

Otherwise SOUP.

Edited March 27, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[HKDave]

Please don't tell anyone.... instant raman. With cheese or sour cream, and the MSG-rich flavour packet sprinkled on top. Ready in minutes.

Luckily, the delectable Ms A also likes this glop, except she puts lime pickle on hers instead of the MSG packet.

- Hong Kong Dave

[balmagowry]

Nigella Lawson

How do you cook her?

For me - yes, soup, any soup. I'll second the vote for quick packaged ramen - I tart it up with frozen peas, bits of ham or chicken ("deli ends," though I liked it better back when they called it "doggie bag"), scallions, dry sherry - whatever else is around and might work, or needs to be used up.

Speaking of which - Cream of Refrigerator Soup!

Pasta Carbonara.

Or pasta with my quick & dirty sauce made from last season's frozen tomatoes (a convenience food for the ages!), with onions, OO, capers, olives, wine, bits of whatever, and served with a lot of parmesan and butter.

And I could live (sometimes do, when Himself is away) on bread and cheese. We have a little market nearby that sells the really good Portuguese bread from that bakery in Brooklyn whose name I disremember; this stuff is so good and fresh that I can make an entire meal of it, unaccompanied except perhaps by a glass of cold milk. When I've been really efficient and done a Costco run at the appropriate moment there will also be one of those tremendous hunks of Finlandia Muenster to hack at. Heaven. And if the bread isn't quite fresh any more, why then, toast it - with butter or cheese.

[auntdot]

Our fallback for company is baked stuffed lobster.

Kill the lobster by stabbing a cook's knife in the center of cross on its head, cut through the underside, remove the head sack, vein, and wash out the tomalley and roe (don't like that stuff). Then stuff the body with a dressing made of onions, crushed Ritz crackers, crab meat (or scallops or shrimp) and seasonings.

Can have dinner ready in one hour (including salad, raw clams if we choose, corn on the cob, you name it).

Can get home at five and have company at six, with one of our favorite dinners.

[Tmnoland]

Chili spaghetti. Fun to make, because you can vary the ingredients and toppings to your mood. Makes the house smell like heaven. I usually have all the ingredients on hand and the end result is always sooo comforting.

-therese

[chow guy]

Before Atkins... I fell back most often on Pasta Putanesca or pesto. These days (4th week of induction) I eat thinly sliced deli meats with two slices of cheese.

[hildi]

When there's a shortage of ingredients and too hungry to go to the store,spaghetti with garlic and chili fried in EVOO (I said EVOO!). Preferably good spaghetti,such as De Cecco or Rustichella.

[Cusina]

Fun to see the variety in the postings here.

Mine is bread/cheese/wine/fruit for snacky stuff. When I don't know what to make for dinner the fall back is pork tenderloin. It can be done so many ways reliably.

My husband's is a pizza guy, my daughter is all about pasta with butter and cheese and PBJ, my son has eaten at least 5 grilled cheese sandwiches weekly for 2 years (he is only 4) and will never turn down yogurt with fruit.

[ruthcooks]

If it's for me alone, a bowl of grits or mashed potatoes with a pool of melted butter will do just fine. In season, tomato sandwiches.

For a family meal, meatloaf or pork chops with my mother's cole slaw.

For first time company (when you don't know what they like), some kind of chicken, my fabulous mashed potato casserole, Mandarin salad, a green veg and a fancy refrigerator dessert, pie or souffle.

[hedoness]

I never tire of sushi... it's my favorite- maybe I just can't afford to tire.

[Dahomechef]

For company, when what I was going to make didn't come out quite the way I imagined, it's always flank steak. Yeah. Slather on some steak rub I keep in the pantry, heat up the grill, and in about 9 minutes, dinner's on the table and everyone's looking for seconds!

Fallback for late-night is always pasta puttanesca (assuming there's no stew or such frozen and vacuum packed in the freezer).

Lunch fallback (almost a religion) is tuna sandwich with mayo, evo, and a serrano chile.

[chezlamere]

Is there a staple dish that you never seem to tire of? An ingredient that you can't seem to get enough of? A fallback dish that you rely on to get you through less imaginative periods?

I have a tendency towards overkill when I begin a love affair with a new ingredient or recipe. After a couple of weeks, I never want to see it again.

There are only a couple of exceptions. One is a tarted-up oat bran of many years standing. It's failsafe, foolproof, and child-tested. Probably the only 1,200 calorie bowl of hot cereal in town. I could eat it three times a day, but then I'd never want to anything except lie around like a beached whale, napping and giggling listlessly between meals. It's what I make when I don't want to think about what to make. The finished product looks like it requires a certain amount of creative effort, but really doesn't. I always toast the cereal before cooking it, Always butter, almonds, Turkish apricots (made more plump and luscious by a brief soak in chamomile tea), whole milk. Honey, maple syrup AND brown sugar (indeed). Cinnamon, maybe walnuts or pecans. And a generous dollop of Greek yogurt.

Other than that, I can never have too many pistachios, broccoli, green chili, Rio Star grapefruits, and Michel Cluizel bittersweet chocolate. I have eaten all of these things nearly every day for years and I still hunger for them.

How about y'all?

you must be a TAURUS i bet. I"m one, my daughter is one and several friends are also. We all can eat the same thing three times a day for weeks. It's a taurus thing. That and argueing.

[chezlamere]

grilled cheese, because there are lots of ways you an modify it......add bacon, add tomatoes, roasted red peppers, sauteed mushrooms, ham, all kinds of cheese...

i remember when my daughter went for the first time to a BIG FANCY RESTAURANT for a wind up dinner for soccer or field hockey (can't remember)

That's what she ordered, because it was the "only safe thing to eat" as far as she was concerned,I think she must have been 14 or so

[chezlamere]

you take a baby dill pickle, put a piece of swiss cheese on top of it, and wrap the thing up in a thin slice of honey ham. Like a jelly roll

leftover coleslaw sandwich on white bread especially the marinated one as appossed to the mayo one

pickled beets

smoked oysters

pickled asparagus, or dilly beans