Stocking the Fridge

[rooftop1000]

My only comment is ...roast some chickens. I dont know what they do with them but they dissapear along with the bread, tomatoes, and mayo.

T

[MarketStEl]

I personally hate to cook when I am hungry, especially when it's dark and cold and in a city where a 25-minute commute can take up to an hour and a half if not more.

And that city is...?

As of today, and for the foreseeable future, a 25-minute commute on SEPTA will take an hour and a half or more...on foot. The commute by car will also be longer.

A friend with four to feed tends to keep an unbaked meatloaf in her freezer, or half of a double batch of something prepared the week before. 

I don't know why I'm suddenly moved to ask this, Karen, but:

Are you giving your Crock-Pot enough exercise?

There's always miso way back on the second shelf in the fridge and soba noodles, tofu, scallions and carrots.

Besides soup and salad dressing, I'd like to learn about more fun things you can do with miso.

If I intend to do actual cooking beyond pasta for the ragu [anyone know how to format diacritics here?],

Check your PMs.

What struck me about your Utopian plan was not just what your children did to compromise it.  The variety seemed rather ambitious.  Do you and others not count on leftovers?  I would think shrimp would be scarfed down all at once, but isn't a pot roast worth at least two nights of pot roast (maybe changing some veg the second time around, but why bother) and then even, if big enough, a third night as a ragu over wide thick egg noodles, maybe with flavors altered by dried porcini and their soaking liquid and some fresh mushrooms? If Harriet the Spy could eat a tomato sandwich every day of the year way back in the sixties...

then we could survive on an all-pot-roast diet?

Yes, it's possible, and I'd certainly encourage the leftovers route (I have a difficult time convincing a roommate that eating leftovers is a normal, healthy thing that people of all classes do all the time). But I wouldn't fault Karen for trying to do variety on a make-ahead basis.

*It amazes me when food sections of newspapers publish yet another article about the time-saving, resourcefulness of planning and cooking ahead as if readers might not have thought of this themselves.

←

If they were thinking of this, entire sections of the supermarket would be rendered unnecessary.

Now, to further counter your amazement, consider the following two quotes:

"Journalism is the first rough draft of history." --Philip Graham, publisher, The Washington Post

"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time around." --Anonymous

Which means that journalists must constantly repeat themselves, over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Edited November 1, 2005 by MarketStEl (log)

[Tepee]

Karen: Mother of 3 (?) kids with very healthy appetites and magical skills at making food disappear. Mom has commendable foresight to cook ahead to outsmart the Time Stealer. Extremely self-sacrificing...willing to cook on Saturdays.

TP: Mother of 3 (younger) kids with lacklustre appetites, yet to learn magical skills at making food disappear....a crash course at Hogwarts is in order, perhaps, or the residence of Karen Resta? Mom has always cooked just before serving time (has lived under the fear of Vitamins/Nutrients Depleted as The Clock Ticks), only just learning to slow-cook some meats to alleviate last minute cooking frenzy. Selfish to the core...pulling a donkey into the kitchen on a Saturday (and Sunday) is easier.

I'm now thinking very hard how to get from Point TP to Point Karen.

Edited November 1, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[TPO]

I second the Crock Pot suggestion. There are a lot of good recipes out there for slow cookers.

Also, instead of trying to fix most foods on the weekends, I'd suggest a mix of making some foods on the weekends, doubling recipes during the week and freezing half, and having some weeknight meals that are very easy to make out of typical pantry ingredients. Kids often love having breakfast for dinner, and there is nothing wronf with having spaghetti or sandwiches once a week.

Making a turkey once a month also can add variety to your menus.

[Carrot Top]

My only comment is ...roast some chickens. I dont know what they do with them but they dissapear along with the bread, tomatoes, and mayo.

T

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I guess you have teenagers.

Well. . .as long as they are eating them and not taking them to the mall to trade them for yet another new pair of jeans and a couple more CD's, that's a good thing, no?

[Carrot Top]

I don't know why I'm suddenly moved to ask this, Karen, but:

Are you giving your Crock-Pot enough exercise?

[. . .]

Besides soup and salad dressing, I'd like to learn about more fun things you can do with miso.

[. . .]

"Journalism is the first rough draft of history." --Philip Graham, publisher, The Washington Post

"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time around." --Anonymous

Which means that journalists must constantly repeat themselves, over and over and over and over and over and over again.

←

Heh. You are making me giggle when you ask me that about my crock-pot, Sandy.

It * would* be good to hear from more miso-people about their recipes. I don't use it "enough" and it is very good stuff.

Finally - did you know that Rogov says that journalists are really all monkeys? Someone else made the original claim. He is an excellent researcher so I have no reason at all to doubt him.

I am now enjoying this picture in my mind of millions of monkeys at their desks in the newspaper offices, all writing our histories for us endlessly as we run out to read it and then immediately to forget it so that we can read the monkeys writings again tomorrow. Sigh. What a life.

Edited November 1, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

I second the Crock Pot suggestion. There are a lot of good recipes out there for slow cookers.

Also, instead of trying to fix most foods on the weekends, I'd suggest a mix of making some foods on the weekends, doubling recipes during the week and freezing half, and having some weeknight meals that are very easy to make out of typical pantry ingredients. Kids often love having breakfast for dinner, and there is nothing wronf with having spaghetti or sandwiches once a week.

Making a turkey once a month also can add variety to your menus.

←

These are great ideas except for my own wierdnesses about freezers and crock-pots.

Why did you have to write that word "spaghetti" so close to the word "breakfast" TPO? I must go make some spaghetti for breakfast now. Yum.

[Carrot Top]

Karen: Mother of 3 (?) kids with very healthy appetites and magical skills at making food disappear. Mom has commendable foresight to cook ahead to outsmart the Time Stealer. Extremely self-sacrificing...willing to cook on Saturdays.

TP: Mother of 3 (younger) kids with lacklustre appetites, yet to learn magical skills at making food disappear....a crash course at Hogwarts is in order, perhaps, or the residence of Karen Resta? Mom has always cooked just before serving time (has lived under the fear of Vitamins/Nutrients Depleted as The Clock Ticks), only just learning to slow-cook some meats to alleviate last minute cooking frenzy. Selfish to the core...pulling a donkey into the kitchen on a Saturday (and Sunday) is easier.

I'm now thinking very hard how to get from Point TP to Point Karen.

←

Pah. I give up on the formatting thing. It surely is my fingers and even eating a slice of microwaved leftover pizza for breakfast has not helped.

My willingness to work on Saturdays is only equalled by my willingness to be selfish on weeknights. How else would I find time to keep popping onto eGullet and do the other silly tasks that need doing???

Your children will be hungrier the older they get, Tepee, I bet. The approach to the teenage years seems to turn children into eating machines from what I hear. And see.

The thing about cooking "at the time of eating" rather than ahead is sort of like my feelings about freezers and crockpots. Odd things that may not seem to make sense to anyone else, but they sure make sense to "us". For whatever reason.

I love donkeys.

And someday we should trade kids and living places.

I am not so sure you would like our version of the Ramadan street food fair, though. There isn't one. There is only. . . ..

McDonalds.

Everywhere.

[Carrot Top]

So quickly now I'll tell of the results of last night's plan for this weekly food thing.

It was Halloween last night. A fearsome night. Not for the goblins, but for the candy. The candy that follows one everywhere. It starts with the buying of tons of it to shove into the addled little chocolate-smeared faces that come to the door with huge sacks gaping for the stuff.

(Most children need to be taught to say "Trick or Treat" still, it seems. I insist on it. I want to hear the sing-song phrase. I am selfish in this way. Most of them just hold out their sacks. How dull.)

The candy is in the bowl. It awaits the trick-or-treaters but also beckons the household to continually nab a piece of this or that. This year was better than last year with the candy bowl scene though, for last year I grabbed a round lollipop that had a bubblegum filling and was seized with a passionate maddness to get to the bubblegum IMMEDIATELY and biting into it, I broke a tooth which actually required different sorts of dentists and lots of money to fix. This year I only ate softer sorts of candies and therefore only added unneeded calories to my diet.

More candy comes into the house later in one's own children's sacks, after you've spent the night walking around with them in the cold sticking pieces of their costumes back onto them as they endlessly trip in the dark over the curbs and bits or turfgrass in the neighbor's yards.

Then of course the candy wrappers haunt one for a month or so, turning up in trails that follow the children through the house. Ah! Halloween. I do love it so.

Anyway. So *if* the children are going to eat dinner, it must be done quickly before trick-or-treat time which happens at 6PM or the entire evening's food *will* be candy candy candy.

I grilled the chicken breasts on the griddle on the stove - microwaved the cous-cous. Put the sugar snaps out to nibble raw. It worked pretty good except that the boneless chicken breasts *should* have been cut into thin cutlets rather than being left whole - they took about 25 minutes to cook (and that could have been cut down to about ten minutes). No fuss, though. The meal was ready and mostly eaten. Leftover chicken today for curried chicken salad sandwiches.

So that worked.

Quick, easy, no-brainer. Heh.

We'll see what happens tonight.

[Carrot Top]

Everything actually worked well last night. Just re-heated the Mexican braised beef, microwaved the succotash, and (oops! did make one change) popped some corn muffins into the oven (instead of taking the time to cook noodles). (Ah, yes - the muffins were from a box GASP!)

Didn't take any time at all and it was really good. Time to prep dinner: Less than ten minutes.

Tonight I need to make some menu changes because the chicken is still here PLUS now there is extra Mexican beef leftover. So I am saved from making pizza dough.

Got any ideas for the chicken? (Remember -we're trying *not* to cook here. )

Will check in later.

[daniellewiley]

Tonight I need to make some menu changes because the chicken is still here PLUS now there is extra Mexican beef leftover. So I am saved from making pizza dough.

Got any ideas for the chicken? (Remember -we're trying *not* to cook here. )

Will check in later.

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how about make your own quesadillas or fajitas?

do you have tortillas? everyone could just pick a filling (beef or chix) and make up their own dinner.

Or, if you have lettuce, it could be make your own salad.

[jackal10]

a) Instant chicken soup (or tinned cream of mushroom) + bits of chicken +veggies (frozen peas, carrots) + dumplings or pastry lid for a pot pie or soup/stew

b) Batter + deep fry + sweet and sour sauce + salad + rice (or burger bun) or

c) Sandwiches

d) Curry + rice

e) Pasta topped with shredded chicken, parm, evoo and something green

f) Stir fry with veggies

Edited November 2, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[Carrot Top]

Great ideas, guys. But I find myself too lazy tonight to even really approach the stove so we did a big "Antipasto". Everything laid out on the table, everyone can nibble. There is so much stuff in the fridge to use! I am really glad to have taken that time on Sunday to cook ahead.

Let's see. . .on the table:

Grilled marinated chicken

Roast peppers

Pepperonata

Olives

Salami

Fresh mozzarella

Caponata

Oriental cous-cous "salad"

Sugar snaps

Celeriac-carrot salad

Breadsticks

With the pears poached in port for dessert, later.

Let's see if that can hold the ravaging appetites.

[Tepee]

Make a stack of pizza crust, parbaked. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers for possible toppings, I'm sure you'll find lots.

p/s From a donkey lover to another....just bought a Shrek Talking Donkey for the 4-yo.

[Carrot Top]

Good idea, that pizza crust thingie. If I had done that this past weekend, it would have saved me from ordering three large pizzas on Halloween night *after* trick-or-treating when the kids brought home friends and everyone was cold and hungry (and I had no intention of really *cooking* anything for I was cold and hungry myself ).

Donkeys are funny animals. What are they useful for *nowadays* besides for keeping coyotes away from lambs or horses out as pasture?

*Shrek* must be the answer! How could there have even been that movie without a donkey?

(Though I must admit to being madly and inconsolably in love with Puss in Boots who is in that movie. Madly because he is soooooo charming. Inconsolably because he only exists on the flickering screen. Sigh. I love that Puss in Boots.)

[Carrot Top]

Almost forgot to post the results of the last two days of the "week".

Slight menu changes. The baked potatoes which were supposed to have been stuffed and baked for dinner instead became homefries with eggs and bacon and pancakes and blueberry sauce for dinner -"Breakfast for Dinner" as someone had mentioned. The last day we did make pizza and had the escarole soup which was very quick and easy to put together.

All in all, the hour and a half was extremely well spent on Sunday, prepping stuff ahead that could then be put together quickly. We ate less junk food and we ate less packaged stuff.

Will try it again this week.

Off to the races.

[MarketStEl]

BTW, this probably wouldn't be a good idea for you, but:

If you go over to the "Chili: Cook-Off XV" thread in Cooking, you will see my post about a large batch that I prepared on Wednesday, with accompanying recipe in RecipeGullet.

I have a partner, a roommate and a couple of frequent guests for whom I cook.

Partner, roommate and I have all eaten at least three bowls of the stuff apiece. One of the frequent guests just had a little. There's still about two small bowlfuls, or one large, in the fridge.

Chili is one of my favorite Crock-Pot calisthenics.

[Carrot Top]

I love to make chili for a crowd. And the weather is getting perfect, too.

Strange writing about chili at this moment. From my house, I can actually hear the crowds cheering over whatever is happening at the Virginia Tech/Miami football game tonight. Strange sound, like waves at the ocean. Lots of tailgaters out there, too.

Hey. I should have made chili and peddled it up and down the street. Could have made a bundle.