Observation

[commodorified]

There is nothing much wrong - and quite a lot right - with the occasional meal of Cup-of-Soup, or other insta-noodle concoctions, especially late at night when one is Poorly.

If you add 1/4 C frozen peas or similar to the mix and give the results 1 minute in the microwave the nutritional situation improves further, with nearly no extra effort. Some people also swear by the Egg Drop approach, and while I've never been able to get that to work for me in a cup, I will not deny its basic soundness.

Following this up with a large quartered apple covered with a half cup of blueberries and cooked on high for 3 minutes puts you well into the highly nutritious with a side of luxury class of insta-meal, as far as I'm concerned.

Somewhere buried in all the stuff under this tag - originally made for some friends with their first apartments and no real experience feeding themselves on a daily basis - is something resembling a philosophy of food, though I remain uncertain as to what it might be.

It strikes me as mildly significant that a lot of the meals I get very excited about and spend a whole day making are tasty and fancy but not the sort of thing you'd want to try to live on, wheras with the 5 minutes or less ones, I'm much more focussed on getting a lot of fruits and veggies in unfussed condition in there while making the results comforting and appealing. But then, that tends to be when I'm noticing the need of them the most, and is probably for the best.

It also strikes me that once you know how to make some basic dishes, in this case chicken soup, if you keep a fairly well-stocked[1] kitchen you can pretty much design your soup based with a fair degree of exactness on how many minutes you want to spend on it.

[1] Mind you, I was raised by people who lived through two World Wars, the Depression, several bouts of Locally Poor Economic Conditions, and a number of natural disasters of the No Electricity For A Week kind. My definition of "well-stocked kitchen" is many people's definition of Worryingly Close To Hoarding, i.e. I think that at any given time I could keep us in nutritionally balanced meals for about three months without warning and without buying anything, if I had to.

Comments

[xinef]

Oops, didn't notice that I wasn't logged in.

I love the packets of noodly soups, and often add frozen veg (usually peas) or if I'm cooking on the stove, an egg. However, be warned, virtually all of them are REALLY REALLY loaded with salt.

[commodorified]

Well, this is why none of them are regular parts of the diet, though if I am honest I probably add enough salt to my bowl when I make soup from scratch that it makes little difference or none.

[redbird]

That's what I was going to say, not even from a nutritional viewpoint but just that as packaged, they always tasted too salty for me. But I suspect adding peas or such would help with that, too.

[ranunculus]

I agree that diluting the salt by adding bulk is good, even though it doesn't actually -reduce- the salt...
My nit-pick with those packets is that they are loaded with the Monosodium Glutimate form of salt. Eating a lot of that is a good way to make your body allergic to it, especially if there is any predisposition to allergy.

I love to suggest that people look at labels and choose foods with the fewest ingredients.

[commodorified]

In Canada it is becoming rarer in prepared food each year, actually.

I plead guilty to actually owning a shaker of msg, like my mother and grandmother before me, though at current use-rates I expect that the one I bought 5 years ago will last out my cooking career.

[ranunculus]

I can understand why people use it - it does give a specific taste.
Most bottled sauces here have some MSG content, but as you say, more and more companies are phasing it out.
Took me a long time to realize that I'm moderately allergic to it. Enough so that the little packets that come with Rammen Noodles are something I avoid at all costs. It has improved my cooking no end!

[commodorified]

Yeah; it's also a tenderizer. I keep it for meat I am about to broil and for the rescue of the odd dish which ten minutes before the Hordes appear suddenly turns out to taste of boiled sock. As nobody in my family is allergic and we mostly eat quite carefully, I have no shame of this. :) It's loading everything with it and so getting by on mediocre ingredients and indifferent preparation that's disastrous, IMO. (Mind, if you're dead broke or in crisis and mediocre is what you can get... As MFK Fisher says of the stuff in 'How To Cook A Wolf', it does give a fleeting appeal to what must, because you can get no better, be choked down somehow if people are to stay healthy.)

[ranunculus]

Laugh: some meal that turns out to taste like boiled socks.
That SO describes a meal I made last week that had perfectly fine ingredients!

I have a fairly comprehensive herb selection for seasoning, and then I look at my use patterns and realize that I use the same 8 things all the time (it would be 4 except that I now make my own curry mix, it's easy and way nicer than the store bought ones - most of the time).

[commodorified]

Having grown up with dangerously *low* BP, and in a family of gleefully corner-cutting cooks and heavy smokers to boot, I am a terrible salt fiend. Trying to reform, now, but still. I make a point of 'undersalting' nearly everything and adding some if I want it so that my friends and family don't suffer.

[redbird]

That makes a lot of sense.

I am somewhat similar with ginger and black pepper, though there's no health issue there as far as I know, just that other people will find my cooking too ginger and/or peppery if I'm not careful.