Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cooking and eating

Breakfast: My best friend. My worst enemy.

Vorteks — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:31:35 -0800

What low-GI, high-protein, portable food can I cook on Sunday night and then reheat for breakfast Mon-Fri? To improve my health and diet, I need to be better about eating a good breakfast regularly. Lots of diet/exercise books and blogs recommend things like steel-cut oats, scrambled eggs, etc. The problem is... I hate getting up early, and will basically not do anything that adds any time to my morning routine, even 5 minutes. Even finding the time to eat a bowl of cheerios is difficult because I invariably wait until the last second that I could possibly get up and still get to work on time, then leap out of bed, get ready as fast as I can, and run out the door.

So, to combat this, what I thought would be nice is to create something ahead of time (the night before, or ideally Sunday night for the whole week), then refrigerate and brown-bag it. That way I could get up, grab my brown bag from the fridge as I run out the door, and then reheat (or whatever) the food at work and eat at my desk. I feel that if I could do this, I would be able to stick to a good breakfast routine.

So, finally getting to the point, what can I make ahead of time to eat for breakfast each day? I'm looking for recipes with step-by-step instructions. The ideal recipe will have the following traits:

Can be made at least 1 day, and ideally up to 5 days in advance
Can be prepared in roughly an hour or less
Involves no additional preparation on the day that it's eaten (other than microwaving or other simple things that can be done in an office)
Has a low glycemic index (GI)
Has at least 20% calories from protein (roughly 5g of protein per 100 calories)
Doesn't taste awful
Contains no artificial sweeteners

Does anyone have a good recipe that meets these criteria? I'm hoping to get at least 3-4 so I can make them in a weekly rotation. I have no food allergies, and I enjoy a wide variety of flavors. Other breakfast habit tips are also appreciated. Thanks in advance.

All I want for Christmas is...two butt cheeks

bilabial — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:01:56 -0800

Ravenously hungry in the middle of the night, lazy, and bored with my known options. Also: eating plenty in the daylight. Bonus round: I'm poor. I've been adding some physical activity to my life. 10 - 20 minutes of bike riding, 2-4 days a week. I got the brilliant idea that building some upper body strength would improve my confidence, so I went to a rock climbing gym. Which I love. I'll be going back (the confidence? I brought some of it home from the gym! It doesn't even smell bad!).

But. I'm already to small for the regular adult harness. I eat nearly all day long - nuts, fruit, cheese ravioli, ice cream when it's BOGO at Publix. I try to drink juice instead of water (again, I stock up at sales) and I just started making alcoholic drinks with I syrup, limes, and seltzer.

Oatmeal with whole milk for breakfast. Eggs. Plenty of bacon (on sale a lot! I have 2 packs in the freezer!), fruit, and fresh veggies in my diet.

I carry candy bars everywhere when if remember to look for them cheap - bags of Baby Ruth bars were on sale last week.

I live alone, so buying bread is not cost effective, especially as even when toasted, previously frozen bread is...ick.
Protein shakes are expensive, the stuff made with powder requires lots of willpower (to be less polite, that shit is nasty) and I really think eating is fun. I don't want my unconceived children to ever see me choking down something I clearly don't enjoy.
Help me improve my lifestyle, not just find a quick fix. Exercise depletes my calories quickly. Before I added the climbing 2 days ago I was down 10 pounds below my comfort level. If I can't stem this tide, I'll have to quit climbing. (also, I got a package deal with a harness that's too big. If I keep going with this I need to sell it and buy one that fits, but I'm not investing until Im pretty sure I can sustain it.)

Metafilter, fatten me up. Delicious beans and rice recipes that feature
lard? Yes please. Websites for reaaly good grocery coupons on junk food I can eat at home? (I like doritoes, and ice cream, but sadly I often prefer more natural choices. Butter is natural though...) I'd like things I can prepare ahead, that might freeze well (or not), some things that require little prep - adding calories to a hot dog? I'm game.

My bloodwork is good, you are not my doctor, and I am not asking for medical advice.i

Looking for some healthy recipe resources

Afroblanco — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:15:58 -0800

Looking for cookbooks, blogs, websites, and forums that specialize in simple, healthy recipes. I'm a single guy who doesn't have a whole lot of time to cook or wash dishes. But I'm tired of eating out all the time, and would like to change my eating habits.

I'm not looking for a "diet." I want to make a permanent change in the way I eat.

I like healthy/vegetarian food, but am not myself a vegetarian. So no dietary restrictions really, except that the food must be healthy, nutritious, low-fat and low-calorie.

I don't mind putting some effort into my meals, but ideally these recipes wouldn't require a lot of time-consuming preparation or cleanup.

Assume that I don't know anything at all about cooking, because, well, I kinda don't.

How to master ________ cooking on a tight budget?

Picklegnome — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:52:52 -0800

I need to eat cheaply. Can I do so while extending my cooking ability in a specific direction? What cuisines, categories, or focuses can my home cooking pinpoint while living on a budget? Just in case this isn't clear: are there types of foods, foods from specific regions, etc., that are generally low-cost while having a fair amount of breadth? Or is this a dumb question - do all cuisines have consistent scales that more or less overlap of low to high cost food?

Share your slow carb recipes

sid — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:50:34 -0800

Give us your slow carb recipes! We are attempting a slow carb diet, which for us means cutting out or severely reducing all flour, rice, potatoes, and bread. Our carb sources would be pulses, legumes, and sweet potatoes. It's going pretty well so far but I think we are going to soon grow tired of hummus! Please share any delicious recipes that would fit the stated parameters.

food and cooking podcasts

Infernarl — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:51:09 -0800

please recommend food and cooking podcasts or internet radio Specifically I am looking for podcasts where I (restaurant experiened food obsessed guy) can learn something. I am not so interested in politics (should foie gras be banned?) or issues (does eating organic actually do anything?). And I'm also not so interested in things that are typically material for food sections of magazines ("a winter stew that will really warm you up!<3").

If I was making my dream show some topics might include: cocoa powder double blind taste test, are your french copper pans really made in france?, minimalist bread experiments part 2, debunking cooking myths, focus on popular restaurant techniques and trends, simplest pasta recipe, sourcing/highlighting ingredients, discussions of "quality". Think Jeffery Steingarten plus a dash of Tony Bourdain; old world wisdom translated like Mario Batali, all combined with the experimentalism and professionalism of the eGullet forums. foodie podcasts without the pretension.

What are those crazy noodles?

AlliKat75 — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:20:21 -0800

The noodles in "Mr. Mom"...Hollywood trickery? Or, a real food? For years, I have wondered if the noodles that Michael Keaton cooks up in little less than two seconds are a real thing. Do such noodles exist? What are they? What do they taste like? And, what would you cook them with? (apologies for all the very poor sentence structure I have going on here)

What's to eat in Albania?

dubadubowbow — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:19:59 -0800

What kind of food will I be eating when I go to Albania, both what's available for me to cook myself and what others will be cooking for me?

Help me prepare to eat a feast!

ontic — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:08:26 -0800

Is there a way to prepare for feasting (eating large meals) without feeling nauseated? Lately I've been invited to a couple's house for elaborate, casually elegant meals that come in several courses. They're amazing cooks and almost everything is delicious. However, by the time we get to course three or four, I'm so full that I can actually feel nauseated. It's much worse if I even try to eat any h'orderves. This is not unusual for me. I've dined at great French restaurants where, by the end of the full meal, I feel so full that it hasn't always stayed down.

Of course, everyone else at these restaurants and gatherings -- often people half my size -- seems happy and pleasantly full after eating everything on their plates. I've tried just eating more slowly, eating more quickly (I'm apparently a very slow eater), eating only portions of what's offered, eating more earlier in the day, eating less earlier in the day, and so on. I'm not a small guy. This is very mysterious to me. It doesn't happen with more traditional appetizer/entrée/desert/wine menus from other good restaurants. I feel full, but not awful.

I found a few threads about competitive eating advice, and am not sure whether the advice here will be the same or not. I have absolutely no desire to eat anything as fast as those people do (I feel vaguely nauseated just watching those things). I just want to have a large meal meal of wonderful food once a month or so without feeling like I need to upchuck. Is this just a physiological fact that I can't eat big meals? Can I somehow prepare?

Cooking and shopping for one... what are your secrets?

twiggy — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 14:28:19 -0800

Cooking and shopping for one: What are some good resources? Google is helping some, but not giving me exactly what I want. Google so far seems fine for finding recipes for one, but I'm really trying to compile information on the whole lifestyle.

I live alone and I refuse to eat sodium and junk-packed frozen foods every day, so I cook for myself. The challenges I face are:
- Establishing good shopping habits
- Knowing about how long different kinds of produce are OK to keep
- Where do I keep them? ex: Is a bell pepper OK to keep in the fridge? For how long?
- What are some good "base necessities" I may not have thought of keeping around? Sure I have Olive Oil, a few herbs and spices, BBQ sauce, etc - what else?

My end goal is to:
- Establish a schedule for shopping so that I can eat a reasonably fresh meal 7 or more times a week (dinners all days, maybe both lunch/dinner weekends, etc). Can I get away with once a week or do key ingredients just not last that long?
- I really don't like freezing things because I don't know what freezes well, what won't taste as good, etc. Is this irrational?
- What are some really great staples to always keep around beyond olive oil, butter, salt, tarragon, basil, oregano, etc?
- What are the little nuances of produce or other ingredients that I am missing. Ex: For some reason my bananas go bad REALLY fast where I live now, I don't recall this being the case normally. Why? Too humid? Dry?
- I might even want to go so far as to say "Every Sunday, pick up 2 bell peppers, 3 potatoes, etc etc" to roughly last the week for some general but slightly varying array of dishes.

I'm comfortable picking random ingredients leftover in my fridge and making something up, so recipes are not my top concern but are still welcome.

Basically, I find that I love cooking and am fine with doing it alone, but I probably waste a little too much food sometimes and I find it challenging to establish a rigid shopping schedule, so sometimes I cut corners.

If the motivation strikes, I might even compile the information neatly and toss up a website that organizes it, as I'm sure I'm not the only person stuck in this conundrum.

Help me help my kitchen help me.

soma lkzx — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 09:17:16 -0800

Indespensible kitchen supplies? Culinary magic aids? Killer cutting board? Cooking my girlfriend dinner every night gets me a certain bit of leverage in getting nice culinary gifts, but I'm at a loss as to what i should be hinting towards right now.

I just got a nice 10" Shun chef's knife, so I was thinking a quality cutting board. Would a straight-up bamboo block be my best bet?

Rotary grater? Mandolin? Ice cream maker? Million cup food processor? Magnetic knife block (!!!!!!)? What makes your life easier or more fun in the kitchen?

PS We live in an apartment, so smaller is better

help me get pukka

synecdoche — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 23:57:16 -0800

I like to cook, but I'd like to know more of the theory of how and why to do things. I'm not a bad cook or anything. I can cook for myself and do well at it-- I enjoy the food I make, and I enjoy making it. I'd like to be better though. I'm not as interested in recipes so much as books that detail why you do certain things with certain foods. I don't like things that are techy like Alton Brown, but more along the lines of "We do thiis because it adds this to the texture/flavour/whatever." What I'd like to be able to do, ultimately, is make up my own recipes like my current TV favourite Michael Smith does on Chef at Home.

I have The Joy of Cooking, and am planning on picking up "How to Cook Everything" tomorrow, based on reading many of the other threads on here. But are there any other suggestions?

I guess my favourite chefs are Jaimie Oliver and Michael Smith-- I am a big proponent of simple but tasty cooking.

I've been reading the other threads on here and have found a goldmine, but I have a lot of cook books already and don't want recipes (though something akin to a cooking class, that maybe details a technique and then provides a recipe that highlights it would be good).

Fatten us up and slim us down

LittleMissCranky — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:57:18 -0800

Piggyback filter: I need help with two things. First, getting healthy, tasty food on the table for two people in under half hour. Second, finding a personal trainer. More about the first topic: my husband and I are really pressed for time, but would like to eat at home much more than we do. We don't have much time for grocery shopping, so we need tips on consolidating grocery trips into one or two trips a week. We are ridiculously spoiled right now, since we eat out literally every night. We have a hard time planning for meals in advance, since we tend to like exactly opposite things and tend to "not feel like" eating things that we have planned. Things that freeze exceptionally well would be appreciated. Also, if you know of any services similar to this in the Houston area (or that delivers to the Houston area), that would be great. We recognize that we're going to have to get over some of our pickiness and spoiled-ness, so suggestions on how to do that beyond "stop being so picky and spoiled" would also be welcome.

Second part: We also want to start with a personal trainer, but don't really know how to find a good one. We would like to do sessions together, if feasible, but don't really know how that would work.

Reference Cookbooks

me3dia — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 20:25:51 -0800

I'm looking for recommendations for a reference cookbook to supplement my current bible, The Joy of Cooking. Your thoughts? [A list of what I've got already will greet you inside.] - Sundays at Moosewood (vegetarian food)
- Better Homes & Gardens "New Cook Book," circa 1965
- Good Housekeeping Cookbook, circa 1962
- "I'm Just Here for the Food," by Alton Brown
- "The Chef's Secret Cookbook" by Louis Szathmary

I'm looking for good overall reference books, not specialties -- in other words, what book do you turn to over and over again.