#awildellethappears

[gloriousmonsters]

awildellethappears replied to your post: …aaand Elizabeth Crowley wins by a landslide! :) ...

That sounds awesome! :D

aww, thank you!

[kareenvorbarra]

zaataronpita replied to your post “blerg”

me too.

:( *offers hugs* I hope you feel better soon!

awildellethappears replied to your post “blerg”

*hug*

Thank you :)

[pluvialcity]

Make all of your food for the week at once!

Hey friends!

I've been meaning to gather all of this information in one place for a while, so this post is going to be a guide to making a week's worth of meals in a single day. Maybe you want to do this because you're really busy, or because you prefer a single sustained effort to a bunch of smaller cooking times over the week, or just because you're like me and you get lazy sometime around Wednesday night and can't be bothered with doing real cooking.

I'm going to give you two approaches here: the modular  approach and the single-serve approach. Modular means that you will have a bunch of basic ingredients prepped and/or partially cooked, and you can combine them to make a healthy, nutritious meal in 10-15 minutes. Single-serve means that you can literally take that meal out of the fridge or freezer and eat it as is, with maybe a little bit of stirring or reheating.

Read on behind the cut! If my blog's theme doesn't work for you, add /mobile to the end of the link and it will be plain black text on a white background.

I'm afraid I don't know about availability in other countries, but in the United States tupperware (glass or plastic containers with snap-on lids) is your best friend. It can go straight from the freezer to the microwave. It's mostly leakproof. It's pretty cheap (you can often get a big variety pack at stores like Walgreens or Wal-Mart for $8-10, and with the recipes I'm suggesting you actually will use all the different sizes). And it means that you don't have to assemble meals from the things you have in your fridge or portion stuff out-- on hard days, a meal can literally be a one-step process.

MODULAR: You will need: -Oil (olive or a neutral cooking oil) -Whatever spices you find pleasing (I recommend at a minimum garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, cumin, basil, paprika, and bouillon cubes/powder/paste/whatever) -Salad dressing or the ingredients to make salad dressing -Soy sauce -1-2 lb/1 kg brown rice -1 lb dried pasta -1-2 lb/1 kg chickpeas (canned or dried), lentils, or other beans that you like, or the same amount of whatever meat is cheap and tasty (chicken is very versatile) -3-4 of your favorite fresh or frozen vegetables (you can steam and freeze them yourself if you're on a budget or whatever-- I would recommend corn, carrots, broccoli, peas, or asparagus) -tomato paste OPTIONAL BUT NICE TO HAVE AROUND: -eggs -Some dairy product that you like: sour cream, creme fraiche, unflavored yogurt, mayonnaise -Bread, sandwich wraps, or tortillas -Cheese, if you like it -Salsa: can be added to many dishes to add flavor without being too unhealthy -Salad and dressing

HOW TO ASSEMBLE: 1. Cook and freeze your protein.

     If you have dried beans:   a. Soak them overnight in a generous amount of water   b. rinse them, replace the water, and cook on medium heat on the stove until they reach the desired level of squishiness 1-2 hours.   c. Drain the chickpeas thoroughly, and then spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for a couple hours. Once this is done put them in plastic freezer bags (the cookie  sheet process keeps them from forming a single frozen mass of chickpea that you have to chip pieces off of)

     If you have meat:  OK, confession time, I am a vegetarian. Cook whatever meat you buy as  you normally would, cut or shred it into bite-size pieces, and freeze as  above. 

2. Cook your rice. If you have a rice cooker, use it! If you have a good rice-cooking method, go for it! I personally prefer to bake my rice in the oven using this recipe (I double it and make it in a 9x13) because it cooks evenly and it's pretty foolproof.

Once the rice is cooked, get a spoon or ice cream scoop and your trusty cookie sheet, and scoop out individual portions of rice (however much you think you'll eat) onto the sheet, which should be greased or covered in parchment paper. Once the rice is frozen, you can throw all of the scoops into a bag and pull one out whenever you want to cook. To reheat, put the rice in a microwave-safe bowl with a teaspoon of water and cook for 45 seconds or so. If you don't have a microwave, you can reheat on the stove with a little bit of oil and water at medium heat.

3. Prep your vegetables. If you have fresh veggies, wash and chop them. Things that require a lot of cooking time, like potatoes or thickly-sliced carrots, should be cooked in advance and stored in the fridge or freezer. Green peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and the like should be washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces. Chopped onions, raw or sauteed, keep well in the fridge for at least a week, or you can freeze and portion them like the rice and protein above. 

4. Assemble! You can make a whole lot of different things with these ingredients. STIR FRY: Sautee veggies, then push them to the sides of a pan and scramble an egg. Add reheated rice, protein, and soy sauce and mix everything together. SOUP: Sautee aromatic veggies (like carrots, onions, celery, green peppers/capsicum) until they're nicely browned, then add a cup or two of water, garlic powder, tomato paste, your protein, and some bouillon, and simmer for 10-15 minutes to let the flavors meld. Throw in a little bit of your dairy product at the end for extra creaminess CHICKEN SALAD: thaw some chicken in the fridge, then mix it with your dairy product and some raw chopped veggies. HUEVOS RANCHEROS: Cook some eggs however you like them. Put a tortilla or two on a plate and add protein and salsa, then put the eggs on top and munch away! TACOS: Heat up your protein with some onions and other tasty vegetables, liberally season with chili powder and cumin, add some cheese, and roll it up in a tortilla. BREAKFAST SCRAMBLE: Sautee vegetables, add protein, scramble eggs, top with cheese SALADS! You can have pretty much any combination of these foods over a bed of greens with some dressing. Chicken+corn+salsa= salad! Chickpeas+raw broccoli+cheese+hard-boiled eggs=salad! Any vegetables you have leftover+dressing=salad!

  SINGLE-SERVE

I'm just going to give you a bunch of recipes down here. These are all things that will last at least a week in the fridge or pretty much indefinitely in the freezer. Even if you don't think the modular approach above would work for you, I would recommend freezing beans and rice as described above so that you always have at least a little something to eat around the house.

-Salad in a Mason Jar (you layer it so that everything stays nice and fresh) -Frozen Burritos  -Waffles or pancakes: make them, freeze them, eat them! -Any pasta dish: portion out onto cookie sheets as with rice and beans above, or put in small Tupperware containers -Sauces: Pesto and tomato sauce are both quick and easy. Freeze them in small containers and can be put in pasta, over some protein like chicken or tofu, or spread on a sandwich. -Meatballs or lentil meatballs: you can eat these on their own, make them into a meatball sandwich, or eat them with pasta -Spanakopita: Kind of a pain to make, but super delicious! Cook it, let it cool, cut it into single servings and freeze. You can reheat in the microwave. -Soup: Any of your favorite soups can be put in small containers and reheated when you're in the mood for it. -Calzones  -Burgers or veggie burgers: Cook them, freeze them, and then reheat and put them on bread for a quick meal.

OTHER RESOURCES: Here are some links to blogs and posts that focus on make-ahead meals, some of which are probably much more thorough than I am. Happy eating! 1 week of meals with 13 ingredients Ideas for packing school lunches  50 Freezer meals in a day  Once a Month Meals: Part of the site is a paid scheme thingy, but most of the recipes are freely available. 1-week meal plan with 11 ingredients 

[sighros]

awildellethappears replied to your post “[[MOR]So people are back up at uni now and on facebook there are all…”

That sounds familiar. I’m not sure what to say, so here’s a lot of *hugs*. ♥

Thank you! -hugs back- I feel stupidly down about this and your message means a lot. I wish I could just throw myself into academia and not mind about this, but yeah haha I'm not academic enough.

[frodofeels]

awildellethappears replied to your post: “my activity kind of just flatlined. oops.”:

EREBOR!

someone text Thorin!

[starspray]

awildellethappears replied to your post: So what my dash is telling me is I should watch...

Yes, your dash is telling you right. :D

WELL it's On Demand so WHY NOT

*hits play*

[anghraine]

A, Y, Z?

A: Your current OTP

I have quite a few, lol—there’s the always-current Darcy/Elizabeth, Andreth/Aegnor, etc. I recently developed an interest in post-Exile Aredhel/Celegorm and Finrod/Maedhros, though. I’m also a bit over-invested in some of my Númenor OCs in the headcanon post I’m writing (Farandur of Andúnië and Anárien of Eldalondë). 

Y: A fandom you’re in but have no ships from

I reallllly prefer Harry Potter with no ships but the most peripheral possible. There are even ships I like where… I’d like to have more, but most of the times I wouldn’t want them in the fics I’m reading/wish existed for me to read. I’m really heavy on platonic relationships there.

Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go.

I really really dislike the sort of false equivalence used in fandom—where the flaws of different characters of wildly different orders of magnitude are conflated under “well, yes, all the characters have terrifically bad judgment” or w/e. You can discuss parallels, even clearly meaningful and alarming parallels, without suggesting that the crimes are of equal weight.

(See: Luke/Leia and Vader, Korra and Noatak/Tarrlok, Harry and Snape, Galadriel and Fëanor, etcccccc)

[frodofeels]

awildellethappears replied to your post: awildellethappears replie...

*flails at and hugs you* Okay, no feeling guilty that I didn’t know your favourite of the Four Seasons. XD

oh.

yeah, you should definitely feel guilty about that. shhh what did you think it was and which one is your favourite?