discussion: cooking when tired

[panda]

One of my healthy eating goals is to cook more from scratch, using fresh ingredients. But when you are tired/low on spoons, this can be very hard to do. Last night I made ramen with ground beef and frozen peas. I personally try not to eat things like ramen very often because of the sodium/saturated fat content. But eating ramen is certainly better than not eating anything at all. And when I'm low on spoons, saying "I'm just too tired to eat" is tempting. But of course, skipping meals would only make me feel worse.

So, how do you get yourself to prepare food when you're exhausted/spoonless?

My thoughts:

-when you do have spoons, make extra of dishes that reheat well and eat them as leftovers. If they freeze well, freeze them as individual serving sizes for an instant heat-n-eat meal.
-when you do have spoons, do prep work in advance. I'm going to be tired/busy starting in 3 weeks when school starts, and my plan is to wash/chop a day's worth of vegetables in the morning, when I still have energy.

The downside of these ideas is I get tired of eating the same thing over and over again. If you go the freezer rout, you can at least mix and match without having to worry about your food going bad. But that also depends on your having space in the freezer.

Other alternatives:

-eating something that doesn't require much preparing, like bananas, apples or baby carrots with peanut butter or another nut butter. Of course, that doesn't really make a full meal ...

I know I'm going to have to deal with this a lot during school, so I'd like several coping tactics in my back pocket. What are you guys' suggestions?

Comments

[killing_rose]

Microwave! This is always my go-to. I don't mean "find microwaveable meals" either. I mean things like eggs. Or polenta. Or have a steamer basket for vegetables. Keep precooked chicken in the freezer and microwave it for dinner. Keep cans of beans and add them to something.

[panda]

.... I googled for microwave steamers and I found this. Why does money not grow on trees?

I always mess up microwaving eggs, but I should give polenta a try. And pre-cooked chicken in the freezer is a good idea.

[killing_rose]

I'm heavily contemplating buying a microwave cookbook that the women's prison up here puts out. Since the only thing they're allowed to cook in is a microwave, I'm told they have a wide variety of recipes.

Eggs are actually fairly easy once you get it down. Though scrambled is still easiest. And remembering liquid and/or oil is very, very important. (Though green beans mixed with scrambled eggs on top and Parmesan or red pepper or other flavoring or nutritional yeast was my go-to simply because they all cooked at the same time and thus removed my issues with having to remember to do more than one quick fork stir at about 1 and a quarter and then pull out about 2 and a quarter.)

[smw]

Seconding microwaves as godsends.

My possibly-flawed understanding is that frozen veggies are quite close, nutritionally speaking, to fresh, so for those days where you really can't prep, a few bags in the freezer could be a way to get your daily quota.

I also tend to cook up a batch of a "base" – quinoa, rice, and suchlike – to which I'll add different things on successive days; beans and salsa and sour cream one day, say, and veggies the next.

Meal-planning can also have big benefits. Even just knowing what's in your fridge and pantry and having some ideas about how you can combine them can keep you from pulling the "look around until you find the easiest thing" trick.

[killing_rose]

Seconding making a batch of base--and rice cookers are so damned helpful for that--and adding things. And meal planning. Though I can be terrible at the latter.

[royalfireworks]

When I'm being irresponsible... takeout.

Otherwise, though, I second what people have said above. When I do cook, I make a lot, store leftover portions in tupperware, and eat them for several nights in a row. (I guess this wouldn't work as well for people who tend to get bored with eating the same thing all the time.) Also, like frozen veggies, frozen fruits still have tons of nutrients, so I usually try to keep blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries in the freezer. They're good as between-meal snacks or desserts.

In general I try to always keep a lot of my nonperishable staples around. I almost always have frozen chicken breast or chicken/turkey sausage in the freezer; also bread, so that it lasts longer. I always have canned tomatoes and pasta in the cupboard, and usually canned soup, some kind of crackers, and--for when it's all I can manage--a box of Easy Mac.

When I'm up to some very basic cooking, I'll usually do something like marinate chicken breast in my favorite spice(s), cook it on the stovetop (takes less than ten minutes), and eat it with rice (sometimes cooked in chicken or other broth). My other simple recipe is to cook a pot of pasta; make the "sauce" out of canned diced tomatoes, garlic, and Italian seasoning (and diced onions and/or sliced red peppers when I'm up to that kind of prep work); and just throw it all together in a pan on the stove. Often I'll add chicken sausage to that, but it's good by itself, too. And my most elementary dish, that I make when I want to eat something slightly better than a frozen dinner or macaroni or whatever, is something I ate a lot as a kid: spaghetti with parmesan and melted butter. It's comfort food, and at least it's SOMETHING.

[delight]

I mentioned the subject line of this post to distractionary, the food-preparer in our house, and his response was: "It's hard."

Not that he's actually read the post yet, but I am trying to get him to! He used to be active on DW!