Oh, sweet potatoes are excellent and easy to make! I’d always have them with brown sugar as a kid, myself, as far as seasoning goes.
I like to microwave half a sweet potato, add a little brown sugar and cinnamon, and have it for breakfast with a couple fried eggs.
I've gotten inordinately fond of cheese plates lately. It's exactly the same as not being able to cope with more cooking than slicing cheese, except the kind of thing they sell in classy restaurants. Ingredients: cheese optionally fruit optionally crackers We've got a bunch of cheese still from our last trip to Wisconsin, so it's, like, smoked gouda and stuff. But any block cheese works. Slice cheese (more than one kind if you are feeling fancy, sliced instead of block cheese if things are Too Much), slice or assemble fruit (I like slicing apples, but grapes are also good and just need rinsing rather than cutting, pear would be delicious, pomegranate seeds are available both from the fruit and in little containers that require no more prep than peeling off the lid), add crackers. Assemble everything on a plate and go eat your meal in peace. Multiple types of cheese/fruit/crackers make for Maximum Fancy, but enough of anything is still a solid meal with multiple food groups. The major benefit for me is that even though it requires no cooking and little prep it's still, like, a Recognized Fancy Food and not a Recognized Depression Food, and so it feels more like self-care even if it's pre-sliced cheddar.
Cheese, fruit, crackers, and Little Cubes of Meat is just sucha viscerally satisfying yet simplistic meal.
question; do baked potatoes keep decently in the fridge? i dont think ive ever had leftover ones before but i need to vary what i'm eating cause i was getting tired of eating and unhungry a lot in the last few weeks (going home to my parents cooking immediately fixed this so i imagine it was lack of variety that was killing my apetite) and i think having like, a week's worth of baked potato ready in one sitting since i have an oven but no microwave, and being able to just have one meal per day ready as potato and whatever i want to put in potato sounds like a good starting plan
I don't know about *baked* potatoes as such, beause I don't bake much of anything; but what I do with potatoes is boil a bunch of them (unpeeled) and put them in the refrigerator. They're really easy to peel when you're ready -- the skin comes right off. Easy to slice, too -- I had one for dinner tonight, sliced thin, fried in a little butter, with minced onions (soak in water for a few minutes). Mooshed with shredded cheese and sour cream passes for baked quite nicely. I also have some "southwestern style" veggie dip that makes vaguely mexican potatoes for a change. They easily keep for a week (I know I've had some after much longer than that), and I don't know why baked potaoes would be different. Historical note: I taught for a year in Shanghai (1987-88), prepping students who had permission to travel abroad to take the GRE. Once they asked me what my favorite food was and when I said "potatoes" they thought that was the funniest thing they ever heard because they all knew that nobody ate potatoes unless they were too poor to buy rice, and Americans were rich so why would they eat potatoes?
they do! they wont be as crispy, but microwave will heat up all right. if its already cooked you can also pop it in the oven for Much Less Time just to wake the tato
lack of crisp is fine! i am as happy with moosh potato skin as i am with crispy. will invest in potate when i get back to my place if anyone else has reccs for tasty low spoons foods (low spoons as either no heat required or one stove pan required, or something that i get like 5 meals out of) that i could vary my diet with, keeping in mind i'm not v into rice, that'd be gr8! (i should probly also look through this thread properly instead of being lazy and skipping to the end :P )
Couscous? You can make it with a water kettle (take couscous, pour hot water over, wait until steeped/absorbed most moisture, season as desired) or a microwave if you wanna use like orange juice or milk to make it. You can make enough of it at once to get over several days and it keeps decently in the fridge in my experience. once it's cooked, you can also use it to make salads with by just chopping veg into it and lobbing some seasoning in so you can potentially infuse A Green into your diet as well
I discovered a couple of months ago that most noodles take about as long to cook in boiling water as frozen veggies, and since I almost always have some variety of frozen veg on hand, one of my go-to low spoons food has been to throw a handful of noodles and a handful of veg into boiling water, cook for seven minutes, pour into a colander, and use the same pot with some combination of fat and spices to make a super simple sauce to toss my food in so it's not Blandness City. I'll normally cook the fat and seasonings about two minutes together before dumping the food proper back in. Favorite flavor combos so far: olive oil+garlic+the shakey parmesan, butter+rosemary+lemon juice, sesame oil+soy sauce+Sriracha. You can also crack an egg in or add a bean that goes with the flavors you picked for protein.
If tuna is your thing, tuna mixes can be good for multiple meals with no stove cooking. I wouldn’t trust it more than a couple days in the fridge, but if you make a lot at once and don’t mind eating a lot of the same thing until it’s gone, it can be great as leftovers. If you’re up for mincing vegetables, you can easily double the volume of a can of tuna for melts or regular sandwiches. Finely chopped plant matter blends in really well with the help of a little mayo. Depending on what I’m making and how I’m feeling, I might mince onion, celery, pickles, and even apple. I like to listen to podcasts or music while mincing so I can zone out and not fret over time. I’m not speedy in the kitchen, but I do enjoy spending quality time with big vegetable knives if I don’t feel rushed. Tuna dip for crackers can also be very filling to munch, and feel a bit fancy. I like this recipe because it doesn’t require any ingredients that need to be acquired fresh and used quickly: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/98579/barbies-tuna-salad/
whats an easy bean thing? i used about half a can to make nachos the other day but im tryning to figure out what to do with the rest of them....these ones are black beans but i also have unopened pinto beans, unfortunately i dont love black bean soup so i'm stumped
If you like them cold you can add some finely chopped red onion, some corn perhaps a tomato or some bell pepper and you have a bean salad :) some dressing is probably good too if you like that.
also i frequently have low spoons but i even more frequently just don't have TIME so this thread is a fucking lifesaver and the only reason im eating anything nutritious while im living on campus
take both and dump them into a pot with a load of spices, some chopped onion and garlic and maybe a chopped meat of your choice and st it to simmer for a bit to make chili?
Pinto beans I just refry, preferably in something like bacon grease, and I mix in like cheese. And by mix in I mean just dump some shredded stuff into the pan and then mash that shit lazily. Then I warm a tortilla on the stove. BAM. done. Alternatively the beans can be taken with me.
Something ive done a few times: when u want greek pasta salad but no olives or chopping At least one supermarket in my city (Metro) has little pre mixed containers in the salad area that are chopped tomatoes and cucumber plus a little bit of red onion with feta and oregano on top Grab a packet of dressing if you want, i like the greek feta one Make pasta, drain, put in a big bowl/container with the salad, add the dressing...you have pasta salad with zero chopping If u have the money for feta and spoons to chop/break it up, grab some feta and throw however much of that in there, caveat this already has feta in it and in the dressing so u might find its too much salt. Doesnt keep super super well if you use the same dressing i use but it should be fine if u use like, a regular greek oil+vinegar dressing instead of the creamy one
(stumbles back in) and another thing Granola/muesli has been mentioned at some point, but special shout out to the granola that comes in like chunks so you can just grab one and monch, if you dont feel like eating with a spoon
OMG you guys, I have discovered Veggies for your eggs: it's these little tubs of cooked veggies and spices and stuff and LITERALLY all you gotta do is whisk some eggs, pour the eggs and the Veggies in a warm pan, and scramble your eggs like normal. I just had the rancheros one for breakfast and OH MY GOD IT'S REALLY GOOD. I am so happy this stuff exists. https://www.cleverfoodies.com/ <- I found mine at Aldis but I'm sure there are other stores that have it too, and there's a little buy online option too.
