I can make a number of things, depending if I have time to thaw chicken or not. Otherwise it’ll be potato curry. With chicken it becomes…chicken curry (with potatoes and onions). Or I could bake some bread? Or we have cold cuts, so sandwiches. Or pasta, we have pasta sauce and noodles somewhere!
Dinner of THE GODS! (Peanut butter & Ritz crackers)
Risotto plus some random protein, not sure which but I have options.
Risotto is easy to make and doesn’t look like much, but it’s hard to say no to pure carbs, butter, and cheese.
Risotto isn’t complex per se, but 20-30 minute of stiring/babysitting isn’t exactly easy.
Ice soup.
Bruh, I cant make shit.
I guess just cook rice (using a rice cooker obviously, idk how they cook it before rice cookers, I never tried the old methods) and fry some eggs… 🤷♂️
I suck at “being an adult”
Fry the rice and egg up together with some soy sauce, add some garlic in whatever form, bonus points if you have any white pepper, suddenly elevated.
Or even just some ketchup, make omurice, can’t go wrong.
Ketchup wtf
that ruins the egg lol
Nah just the eggs are fine, sprinkle some salt and its good
Hey, it’s a thing, blame the Japanese!
You fry the rice in ketchup, serve it in an omelette. Optionally top with more ketchup.
Can sub the ketchup for demi-glace if that is more palettable, but that’s way more effort than I’m willing to put in for lazy time breakfast food.
Frozen pizza a’la Aldi
Fish fragrant eggplant
Mapo tofu
Dumpling soup
Chicken veggie stir fry
Fondant potatoes (fried in duck fat mmmm)
Beef bourguingon (or whatever it’s called, the wine meat stew)
Black bean soup
Ropa vieja (with chicken)
I could go on but that’s what comes to mind quickly.
I’ll be there in an hour.
How is frying with duck fat compared to other fats?
For roast potatoes, it’s amazing. Fondant potatoes, I’d imagine it is similarly better than butter or oil. However, it would be wasted on a regular stir fry, for instance.
White rice with 2 poached eggs and some chili oil.
Well, I’m making a mushroom pasta right now… chopped some garlic, leek, shiitake, white button, portobello. Gonna sauté the mushrooms a bit with butter, sauté the garlic and leek with olive oil separately because the mushroom releases too much water, then make a béchamel (butter, flour, milk, and I also use heavy cream), mix them when they are ready, add salt, black pepper and perhaps paprika and voilà.
I felt like there was something missing so I picked some chives from my garden.
The pasta I’m making is an Italian Paganini “trafilata al bronzo”, might not be a big deal for Europeans, but is way better than anything local I have in my third world country.
Spaghetti aglio e olio.
This is my go-to “can’t be arsed to cook properly” dish. But I add peperoncino as well. Like a nice fiery rawit chilli.
Basta pasta
Channa Masala, spiced lentils, felafel, pork belly ramen, chicken yakisoba, pork dumplings, sirloin tip fajitas, Dahl, butternut squash bisque, chicken soup, meatloaf.
Quiche! Flour, butter/crisco, eggs, cheese. If you have those you can make quiche.
Then you can customize it so easily. If you have multiple cheeses you can mix them however you want. And then you can toss in anything from leafy greens to bacon. Healthy or rich it’s so versatile.
I will give my guest a three course meal!
- Starter: Mackerel sandwich
- Main: Half a frozen pizza
- Desert: Lidl’s fake Ben and Jerry fish food ice cream
One of like eight types of pasta with one of like eight types of sauce. Tuna salad, creamed tuna on toast. One of about twelve different types of soup. Beans, rice, stir fry, hot dogs, burritos, turkey with stuffing, pasties, butternut squash bread, pancakes or waffles with honey and homemade raspberry jam, about ten different types of scones, about 17 different types of bread, almond cake with poppyseed and lemon, brownies, hummus, chips with salsa, veggies with green goddess dip, brie on crackers with quince paste, a bunch of different types of eggs, baked Asian pears stuffed with dates, sweet potatoes baked with apples, cinnamon roasted baked potatoes, feta stuffed tomatoes, a bunch of different types of sandwiches, pickled beets, garlic bread (mozzarella, marinara, or both optional), plain or vegetable pizza, vegetable salad with like six different dressings, pasta salad, sweet potato salad, roasted sweet potatoes, and stuffed peppers.
That’s the stuff I remember I have the ingredients for without actually getting up and checking stuff, I’m certain I could make more if I went and checked.
Side story: I’ve always kept a pantry which I’d refill during my weekly grocery shopping, and I’d always put extras in the freezer when I make stuff.
Years ago, I got really depressed and decided that, this one week, I’d eat out of the freezer instead of getting new stuff (the freezer was for like backup meals when I didn’t feel like cooking, the pantry was for staples when I did feel like cooking). The following week, I was like, “The food thing went well and I’m still depressed, I’m not gonna shop this week either!”
As I went through stuff, I found partially-forgotten and partially-used items that had been sitting around for a while. And at some point, I decided I was going to eat through u stores instead of buying any new stuff. The challenge began.
In the beginning, it was easy: I had lots of ingredients and could make lots of dishes, and there was a bunch of premade stuff in the freezer, along with a whole stash of various frozen vegetables.
But as time went on, I had to start getting creative, the way our ancestors did. I ran out of flour and made a fairly decent pizza with an oatmeal crust. I made pasta and seasoned it with salad dressing. I started rather liberally substituting in different spices.
After about two months of increasingly odd meals, I hit desperation times. I ran out of vegetables and meats, in almost all their forms. I still had a stash of pasta and rice, some bouillon cubes, and an odd array of various half-used things I had bought either on a whim or to make a single recipe.
That last month was hard. It was all carbs, and I was starting to become malnourished, but I soldiered on, just eating my way through everything.
I still remember that final day, when I opened the freezer and it was empty, the fridge contained a half-dozen bottles with the drugs of condiments in them, and the contents of the pantry consisted of one unopened jar of garlic powder and some salt.
I threw away the condiments, thoroughly cleaned the fridge, and went to the grocery store.
Reader, I had not left my apartment except to get the mail for over three months. The grocery store was bright, and a riot of color and sounds! Having not had fruits or veggies for over a month, the produce section was so seductive! Oranges! Pineapples! Bananas! Apples! I wanted them all, and there was nothing to stop me!
I went up and down every aisle, restocking my pantry of everything from butter and spices, soup bases to beans. I spent something like $600, and it was one of the best shopping experiences of my life.
And then I got home and realized I’d bought the normal account of apples I would’ve if I’d had a sudden urge for apples. And that would’ve been okay, if I hadn’t also bought the same “urge-satisfying” amount of bananas, and oranges and strawberries and …
It was a huge effort to get through all the fruit before it went bad, but I did that as well, and I loved it.
Anyway, OP, to answer a question you didn’t ask: based on previous experience and the current contents of my house, I’m pretty sure I have enough food for about four months, even if I don’t buy anything new. But, yeah, the recipes will get increasingly weird as time progresses, and the last carb-heavy month will be somewhat grim.
