Tag / spoonie life

by Stacy

Rolling Food Prep Part 4

Pros and Cons of Other Strategies

In this series, I’ve explored “rolling food prep” as a strategy for pacing: preparing extras of one or two ingredients each time you cook, so that you prepare about half of each meal fresh and assemble the rest from previously prepared ingredients. Part 1 introduced the basic concept. Part 2 showed my typical weekly template for meal planning. Part 3 looked at how that template turned into a week’s menus.

In this final post we’ll consider some other strategies—ones that have real strengths but that did not work for me. Of course, they do work well for many—we all have different abilities, resources of time and money, and interest in food and cooking. I’m certainly not preaching against these strategies! But if you’re new to life with an energy-limiting condition, this post may save you some trial and error.

The Strategies

Batch cooking—making one huge meal on Saturdays, say, and eating the leftovers for the rest of the week. Batch cooking does make most of the week easy, but cooking day can be intense. If you have limited or highly variable energy, this may not work for you. On the other hand, if you are working, batch cooking can guarantee you a healthy meal even when you come home from work exhausted.

For me, cooking day was overwhelming, and by the fourth day of leftovers, I dreaded the food. If I didn’t have the energy to cook on the designated day, then I didn’t have meals prepared for the whole week—especially a problem if I had several low-energy days in a row. Lots of ingredients spoiled when I couldn’t get to them on time.

Once-a-week food prep—pre-chopping or cooking lots of foods to combine throughout the week. This method has many of the strengths of batch cooking while making it easier to vary your meals. Still, I ran into the same problems: food-prep day was often intense enough to provoke crashes; if I couldn’t prep I had nothing to eat; and I wasted food.

30-minute meals from cookbooks. Most of the brain-work, from making the grocery list to integrating the steps for multiple dishes, is done. The ingredients are usually few and flavor-packed. The meals are likely to be tasty and (reasonably) nutritionally balanced.

I enjoyed this option most—even more than rolling food prep, just because the recipes were reliably good. Since I’m cooking for one, I could cook 3-4 times a week and have leftovers to freeze or mix around for variety or to keep in reserve for no-energy days.

30-minute meals, though, use time efficiently—not energy. Every one of those 30 minutes is jam-packed with activity, and that doesn’t include the time to get ingredients out, wash produce, and put things away. Factoring in my slow-moving mind and body, I needed at least 60 minutes to cook a 30-minute meal. It was exhausting, exacerbated my POTS, and pushed me out of my “energy envelope.”

Convenience foods like take-out, frozen pizza, or TV dinners, supplemented with salads or quickly prepared veggies. For zero-spoon days, this is certainly the easiest option—and far better than going without food! Even the healthiest convenience foods, though, are not nutritionally balanced. They often contain ingredients that don’t work with special diets, and they are expensive. I was priced out of this option. I do turn to these foods in a pinch, but not as a standard part of my diet.

5-ingredient “meals.” Simplicity is the best feature of these meals. They often rely on store-bought sauces or mixes for flavor, though, which pose the same problems as convenience foods. And no matter what they call themselves, they aren’t usually full meals, complete with protein, carbs, and three vegetables—when I tried them, I usually found myself preparing other dishes to round things out, which defeated the purpose.

Small-batch cooking—only chopping enough vegetables, etc., for one serving at a time. This lets a solo cook do smaller amounts of work per day, which can help with pacing. It can be a relief only to chop one carrot, or half an onion—I liked that, when cooking my vegetable-heavy meals. The inefficiency of getting out the same bag of carrots EVERY DAY to prepare one carrot, though, drove me up the wall and cost me more energy overall. This method also creates no leftovers to have on hand for no-energy days.

Meal Kit Services. These services deliver all the pre-chopped and measured ingredients for several meals to your door. All you have to do is open the packaging and follow the cooking directions. Nutritious, “foodie-friendly” options are available for many special diets.

I have not tried these kits, but friends have found that just opening the packaging (and then recycling it when done) challenged their energy; the meals also still took them at least 30 minutes of active time. In addition, these services are not budget friendly for those with limited means.

Rolling Food Prep to the Rescue

Rolling food prep keeps many of the strengths of the above methods and solves many of the problems:

  • You can stay within your energy envelope, doing small amounts of work often rather than huge amounts at once.
  • You always have a range of prepared ingredients on hand, even on no-energy days.
  • You get plenty of variety.
  • Frequent food prep minimizes waste.
  • All ingredients are known to you and can be safe for your diet.
  • Meals are budget-friendly.

This has been the most sustainable method I have found so far—the best combination of gentle on the body, affordable, and satisfying to eat, while still making provision for no-energy days.

Resources

For more ideas, see:

  • Naturally Ella on component cooking
  • Pam Anderson, How to Cook Without a Book, especially the chapter called “A Little Mise”
  • Ronna Welsh, The Nimble Cook, especially the introduction
by Stacy

Rolling Food Prep Part 3

Case Study: A Week’s Menus

In this 4-part series, I’m exploring “rolling food prep” as a strategy for pacing: preparing extras of one or two ingredients each time you cook for use in future meals, so that you prepare about half of each meal fresh and assemble the rest from previously prepared ingredients. Part 1 introduces the basic concept. Part 2 shows my typical weekly template for meal planning, which focuses on one type of food a day: beans, perishable produce, meat, “sturdy” produce, grains, and condiments.

In this post we’ll look at how this routine played out in last week’s actual menus in my one-spoon kitchen. Even if the foods aren’t suitable for your diet (or tastes), I hope this “real-world” example is helpful in showing the general balance of fresh effort to re-assembly, and how that balance can help you create tasty, nutritious meals with real variety.

I’ve underlined ingredients that I prepared extras of that day, and italicized the foods I had already made (sometimes weeks before). I’ve also noted how much active time each meal took—not the start-to-finish time, but the time I was actually on my feet doing something—and estimated the time needed if everything were prepared from scratch instead.

Thursday
* Cannellini beans with kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, and lots of finely chopped fresh parsley; tossed with oil and red wine vinegar
* Roasted, chopped cauliflower and carrots with balsamic reduction sauce
* Pita toasts with basil oil
Active time: 15 minutes (35-40 if all ingredients are prepared fresh)

Friday
* Baked sweet potatoes topped with slow-cooked jammy onions, red peppers, and cherry tomatoes and shredded smoked mozzarella
* Sautéed baby spinach with crumbled bacon
Active time: 15-20 minutes (25-30 if everything is prepared fresh)

Saturday
*Cannellini and summer squash soup (cooked in bean broth)
* Arugula salad with sliced pear, toasted pecans, and lemon-orange dressing
* Pita toasts with basil oil
Active time: 25 minutes (30 if everything prepared fresh)

Sunday
Leftovers

Monday
* Whole-wheat pasta tossed with arugula-poblano pesto and feta cheese
* Tomato-onion soup
(Since I had the food processor out for the pesto, I also shredded carrots for Tuesday)
Active time: 20 minutes (40 if everything prepared fresh)

Tuesday
*Shredded carrot salad with lemon-orange dressing and fennel seed
*Poached chicken breast and rice with sautéed onion and New Mexico red chile sauce
Active time: 15 minutes (45+ if everything prepared fresh)

Wednesday
* Sautéed red cabbage, onion, and apple, with cider vinegar and caraway
* Cannellini beans with sage oil
* Baked sweet potato
Active time: 20 minutes (25-30 if everything prepared fresh)

These were not complex meals (if by some chance they sound impressive, then trust me, they weren’t), but they each had a protein, starch, and three vegetables,* beautiful colors, balanced flavors, and varied textures. If I had tried to prepare every ingredient from scratch each day, I would have had to settle for much less.

Rolling food prep can save anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes of active effort each day, usually averaging half the time it would take to prepare the same meal fresh. It also puts a lot of ready-to-go components at your disposal for no-energy days.

There are alternative strategies for low-energy cooking, of course, from batch cooking to meal services to once-a-week prepping. In the last post of this series I’ll talk about some of them and why rolling food prep has worked best for me.

_______________________
* Note: Red chile is a vegetable here in New Mexico rather than a condiment. It is the food of the gods, and we eat generous portions!

by Stacy

Rolling Food Prep Part 2

A Weekly Template

In the last post, I talked about “rolling food prep” as a strategy for pacing: preparing extras of one or two ingredients each time you cook for use in future meals. The aim is to prepare about half of each meal fresh, and to assemble the rest from previously prepared ingredients.

Keeping track of what needs prepared and what’s already done can be tricky, though. To help with that, I follow a weekly plan or template and focus on preparing one nutritional category a day (e.g., protein, grains, vegetables). While I certainly make other things most days as well, this category is the one I make extra of.

The plan isn’t rigid. I vary it based on energy and what I already have on hand. Having a framework, though, helps keep meal planning relatively simple while making sure all my groceries get used before they spoil.

Here’s my typical template. (My menu planning week starts on Thursdays, since the trash goes out on Wednesday, and I have a cleaned-out refrigerator to fill.)

  • Thursday (Grocery Shopping Day): Beans I generally cook dry legumes from scratch. Shopping days turn into weary days, so first thing in the morning, 2-3 cups of soaked beans go in the slow cooker. At dinner time if all else fails I can just dress them simply with salt and a flavored oil and serve them with vegetables prepped earlier in the week. The remaining beans are frozen on a cookie sheet and then go into a resealable bag, where I can draw out handfuls as needed to round out a meal. I may reserve the broth for soups.
  • Friday: Perishable Produce I wash greens and chop or slice things that will only keep a few days. I probably won’t get to everything on Friday, but the produce is more likely to be used before it spoils if it is ready to go.
  • Saturday: Meat (or more produce, or condiments) When I buy meat (I don’t always) I’ll cook two or three pounds at once. Leftovers are divided into individual or double portions to freeze.
  • Sunday: Day of rest Leftovers.
  • Monday: Sturdy Produce E.g., chopped cabbage, roasted beets, shredded carrots—again, I probably won’t get to everything on the same day. Because I’m less worried about these foods spoiling, the next three days get re-ordered a lot.
  • Tuesday: Grains Rice, barley, polenta, quick-breads, and their ilk. I usually freeze rice like I do the beans, but other whole grains go in the freezer in small containers.
  • Wednesday: Condiments, sauces, etc. E.g., tomato sauce, pickled onions, a basic vinaigrette, or a ginger-scallion sauce—things that keep well or can be frozen. On Wednesday nights I soak beans for Thursday.

Despite the best-laid plans, I usually end up skipping at least one day due to illness. But almost always, the refrigerator and freezer have enough things pre-prepared to make an easy, balanced meal, even on days when I can’t cook anything new.

Of course, this is just one way to pace food prep throughout the week, and it may not suit your tastes and nutritional needs. The template is easily adapted, though. I do find that sticking to a framework of some sort keeps the fridge and freezer well-stocked with ready-to-go ingredients with minimal mental effort.

In the next post I’ll show how this template turns into actual menus for a week.