A couple of things:
If NaNo is messing with my productivity and sleep schedule now, imagine what it’ll do in November. No, life, I need to get work done. I can’t spend all day on the NaNo forums. I would like to have money to fund my Night of Writing Dangerously shenanigans and write-in food and drink fund.
I also need to figure out what to cook for the first week of NaNo. A couple of years ago I was smart enough to cook enough food for a week and heat up individual portions as needed. Yes, this meant that I ate a lot of the same thing for nearly a week, but that was worth being able to sit down and write without worrying about food to me. Maybe I’ll get lucky and I can stock up on cheap non-crappy frozen dinners again before the first for those really desperate times. (I already got two of them in anticipation of November first, along with a few packs of ramen. Don’t worry, I eat real food most of the time. The ramen I ate the evening of NaNo site launch is an exception, not the rule.)
So I need some quick meals that I can cook before the first, preferably things I can cook all at once, freeze, and then pop in the oven or microwave before eating. Quick and inexpensive to fix are always better. I’m cooking for just myself, so just about any recipe will give me enough for leftovers. Ideas?
6 replies on “A couple of NaNo notes, particularly from the food front”
Soup is my family’s favorite weeklong food. Make a big pot of bean or lentil soup (we’re vegetarian, I’m not sure how well meat based soup keeps) and pop it in the fridge. Just heat up a bowl at a time and you’re good to go…
Soup! I picked up one of those bags of 15 bean soup at the store for a couple of bucks that makes a zillion meals. Okay, it claims 16 servings, and even though I eat more than one serving at a time, the pound bag still fed me for about a week’s worth of dinners last time I made it, and that was without making the full recipe on the back! Which reminds me, I’ve been keeping loose veggie ends for a vegetable stock. Time to see how that’s coming.
Chili is a good one too. I’m sure there’ll be a big pot of it in our fridge come November.
My wife just reminded me I need to get a new coffee maker prior to November. The current one (having done two NaNotours already) is on its last legs.
Oh man, the coffeepot thing sounds like my mom. I don’t drink it, but one year when I went to see my folks for Christmas her coffeepot broke. She drinks multiple pots of coffee a day. (Okay, my dad helps, but trust me, she’s the one doing most of the drinking.) The coffeepot breaking down late in the evening was a very good reason to run out immediately for a new one.
Yep, that’s my mom for you. And chili… mmmm. I think I have most of the important stuff for that now.
The first poster mentioned soup. This is the one that I make all the time:
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/12/pasta-fagioli-64-pts.html
I usually double the recipe and then have a huge container of soup that will last me a week. It’s filling and quite delicious. She mentions blending up the beans, but I ignore that step. I’ve never tried freezing it, but practically all of her recipes are freezer-friendly, so that should be fine.
Ooh, that does look delicious. According to the post the beans are blended to appease a picky kid, and as you discovered the recipe works just fine with unblended beans. I’d do the same. I’m bookmarking this!