Can you eat grapes, or do the stems give you trouble? Consider keeping canned fruit around (peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, pineapple, &c) or dried fruit (raisins, dates, craisins, papaya, whatever) as a way to get fruit that does not include non-food parts. Similar options exist with vegetables. Frozen also works—frozen cherries are already pitted for you just like canned ones.
Keep simple stuff around: for instance, buy hummus, spreadable cheese, guacamole, cold cuts, etc., and keep a sliced loaf of bread in the freezer. At will, break off an arbitrary number of slices, toast bread, put stuff on it, nom.
Hardboil eggs—you can do an entire layer of eggs (how many that is depends on pot size) in half an hour, during most of which time you don’t have to be doing anything, and they keep really well. (Put eggs in a single layer in pot. Cover with cold water, plus an inch above the top of the eggs. Bring to a rolling boil, then remove from heat, cover, time 15 minutes, and then drain them and put them in cold water with some ice to bring the temperature down. Store in fridge. To eat, peel (thereby removing all nonedible parts) and take a bite; good with salt, better with salt and also other spices.)
Grapes are fine if I pick them off the stems and discard first. Canned fruit is actually a good idea. Those single-serving Dole fruit cups also come to mind as something I can toss in a bag with a spoon, no preparation necessary.
And actually, the hardboiled eggs all-at-once thing seems like a good idea. I think it’d be easier to prepare in advance if it’s a one-time investment of an hour total prep/cook time every week rather than 15 minutes the night before every day. Even building a half dozen sandwhiches Sunday evening seems like less of an investment than making one an evening. Any other ideas for batch food-making?
I give this exact advice often enough that I should just put it on a website.
Bean soup/stew
Buy a bag of dried beans, put them in a pot with as much water as the instructions on the bag suggest, bring to a boil, then simmer until the beans are soft. You will probably want to add some salt at some point.
Ways to add some variety to this dish, all of them optional:
Use different kinds of beans
Before putting in the beans and water, sautee some stew/soup-type veggies in the same pot pot (e.g. chopped onion, carrot, celery, chopped tomato). Then add the beans and water.
When the beans are almost done, add some leafy greens (kale, chard, etc.) or chopped scallions/chives/&c to the pot.
Before adding the beans and water, cook a little bit of chopped garlic or other spices in the pot with a little bit of oil.
Before adding the beans and water, fry up some chopped bacon or turkey bacon, chopped sausage, or anchovies (use low heat for anchovies).
After adding the beans, add a little bit of cured meat (e.g. prosciutto, bresaola, etc.).
Add a couple of bay leaves with the beans and water.
For the meats, a little bit goes a long way and you may not need extra salt.
Pasta
Follow the instructions on the box (but remember to salt the water heavily, at least a full teaspoon, probably more) to cook the pasta. When it’s done, drain it in a colander. Optional: You can stir in a little bit of grated Parmagiano or other hard cheese for added flavor and protein/fat; if you don’t want a “cheesy” pasta just stop adding cheese when it doesn’t seem to be absorbed into the pasta anymore.
For sauce, here are some options (add spices to any of them if/when it seems like it might be a good idea):
Use pre-made pasta sauce
Brown some garlic in a little olive oil or butter, add anchovies at a low heat, then once they dissolve in the heat add some chopped tomatoes.
Sautee some subset of (chopped onion, chopped carrot, chopped celery) then add either chopped tomatoes or canned crushed tomatoes or canned tomato puree.
Cook some fresh or frozen veggies with a little oil and maybe some spices, then
mix in with the pasta
Some non-batch items you might try are baked potatoes. All you have to remember is punch a couple of tiny holes in the top so it doesn’t explode. You can make them anywhere you have at least a microwave by putting them in for 7-10 minutes depending on the power of the microwave.
I can vouch for the Pasta recipes with great enthusiasm.
Another food I’d recommend for ease of eating and cheapness, is Shepherdess pie, Shepherd’s pie with the meat replaced with vegetables, which I personally prefer. Linkage!
I suspect that the most useful component of advice may often be mentioning the relevant search term or the name of the relevant field. Cf. Lukeprog’s point about not being able to find good resources about the neuroscience of desire until he found the term “neuroeconomics.”
I should give advice like that more often, e.g. “google ‘batch cooking’.” There are often implementation details available elsewhere.
Soup is easy to make in batches; legume-based soups freeze well and others freeze at least tolerably. Measure out servings into (well-sealed) tupperwares and freeze them; chuck one into your backpack come morning. Pasta salad, potato salad, egg salad, or tuna salad can also be made in large amounts—they won’t freeze as nicely, so you’d want to put them next to your frozen soup or one of those things that you put in lunchboxes to keep stuff cold.
The last time I made lasagna, I made 5 of them—one we baked and ate that night (and as leftovers over the next few days), and the others we wrapped and froze. This requires you to have several Pyrex baking pans (currently 10-15 US$ each), and substantial freezer space (both of which we already had), but the work required for making 5 pans was perhaps 2x making a single pan, and if we are hungry and don’t want to cook we can just take a pan out and bake it, dinner in 30 minutes with no effort. Baked and refrigerated they last several days, enough to eat over several lunches and dinners. Enchiladas also work well for this. Both make a nice alternative to the classic frozen stews, soups, and chilis.
Can you eat grapes, or do the stems give you trouble? Consider keeping canned fruit around (peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, pineapple, &c) or dried fruit (raisins, dates, craisins, papaya, whatever) as a way to get fruit that does not include non-food parts. Similar options exist with vegetables. Frozen also works—frozen cherries are already pitted for you just like canned ones.
Keep simple stuff around: for instance, buy hummus, spreadable cheese, guacamole, cold cuts, etc., and keep a sliced loaf of bread in the freezer. At will, break off an arbitrary number of slices, toast bread, put stuff on it, nom.
Hardboil eggs—you can do an entire layer of eggs (how many that is depends on pot size) in half an hour, during most of which time you don’t have to be doing anything, and they keep really well. (Put eggs in a single layer in pot. Cover with cold water, plus an inch above the top of the eggs. Bring to a rolling boil, then remove from heat, cover, time 15 minutes, and then drain them and put them in cold water with some ice to bring the temperature down. Store in fridge. To eat, peel (thereby removing all nonedible parts) and take a bite; good with salt, better with salt and also other spices.)
Grapes are fine if I pick them off the stems and discard first. Canned fruit is actually a good idea. Those single-serving Dole fruit cups also come to mind as something I can toss in a bag with a spoon, no preparation necessary.
And actually, the hardboiled eggs all-at-once thing seems like a good idea. I think it’d be easier to prepare in advance if it’s a one-time investment of an hour total prep/cook time every week rather than 15 minutes the night before every day. Even building a half dozen sandwhiches Sunday evening seems like less of an investment than making one an evening. Any other ideas for batch food-making?
I give this exact advice often enough that I should just put it on a website.
Bean soup/stew
Buy a bag of dried beans, put them in a pot with as much water as the instructions on the bag suggest, bring to a boil, then simmer until the beans are soft. You will probably want to add some salt at some point.
Ways to add some variety to this dish, all of them optional:
Use different kinds of beans
Before putting in the beans and water, sautee some stew/soup-type veggies in the same pot pot (e.g. chopped onion, carrot, celery, chopped tomato). Then add the beans and water.
When the beans are almost done, add some leafy greens (kale, chard, etc.) or chopped scallions/chives/&c to the pot.
Before adding the beans and water, cook a little bit of chopped garlic or other spices in the pot with a little bit of oil.
Before adding the beans and water, fry up some chopped bacon or turkey bacon, chopped sausage, or anchovies (use low heat for anchovies).
After adding the beans, add a little bit of cured meat (e.g. prosciutto, bresaola, etc.).
Add a couple of bay leaves with the beans and water.
For the meats, a little bit goes a long way and you may not need extra salt.
Pasta
Follow the instructions on the box (but remember to salt the water heavily, at least a full teaspoon, probably more) to cook the pasta. When it’s done, drain it in a colander. Optional: You can stir in a little bit of grated Parmagiano or other hard cheese for added flavor and protein/fat; if you don’t want a “cheesy” pasta just stop adding cheese when it doesn’t seem to be absorbed into the pasta anymore.
For sauce, here are some options (add spices to any of them if/when it seems like it might be a good idea):
Use pre-made pasta sauce
Brown some garlic in a little olive oil or butter, add anchovies at a low heat, then once they dissolve in the heat add some chopped tomatoes.
Sautee some subset of (chopped onion, chopped carrot, chopped celery) then add either chopped tomatoes or canned crushed tomatoes or canned tomato puree.
Cook some fresh or frozen veggies with a little oil and maybe some spices, then mix in with the pasta
Also, I found the results-to-effort ratio on this mac-and-cheese recipe to be quite satisfactory.
Some non-batch items you might try are baked potatoes. All you have to remember is punch a couple of tiny holes in the top so it doesn’t explode. You can make them anywhere you have at least a microwave by putting them in for 7-10 minutes depending on the power of the microwave.
I can vouch for the Pasta recipes with great enthusiasm.
Another food I’d recommend for ease of eating and cheapness, is Shepherdess pie, Shepherd’s pie with the meat replaced with vegetables, which I personally prefer. Linkage!
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/5397/shepherdess-pie.aspx
I did a google search for ‘batch cooking’, and this result may be of interest to you.
http://www.netmums.com/food/Batch_cooking_and_freezing.721/
I suspect that the most useful component of advice may often be mentioning the relevant search term or the name of the relevant field. Cf. Lukeprog’s point about not being able to find good resources about the neuroscience of desire until he found the term “neuroeconomics.”
I should give advice like that more often, e.g. “google ‘batch cooking’.” There are often implementation details available elsewhere.
Soup is easy to make in batches; legume-based soups freeze well and others freeze at least tolerably. Measure out servings into (well-sealed) tupperwares and freeze them; chuck one into your backpack come morning. Pasta salad, potato salad, egg salad, or tuna salad can also be made in large amounts—they won’t freeze as nicely, so you’d want to put them next to your frozen soup or one of those things that you put in lunchboxes to keep stuff cold.
The last time I made lasagna, I made 5 of them—one we baked and ate that night (and as leftovers over the next few days), and the others we wrapped and froze. This requires you to have several Pyrex baking pans (currently 10-15 US$ each), and substantial freezer space (both of which we already had), but the work required for making 5 pans was perhaps 2x making a single pan, and if we are hungry and don’t want to cook we can just take a pan out and bake it, dinner in 30 minutes with no effort. Baked and refrigerated they last several days, enough to eat over several lunches and dinners. Enchiladas also work well for this. Both make a nice alternative to the classic frozen stews, soups, and chilis.