Food Security Carnival Discussion Post.

[commodorified]

Solicit or offer ideas, cheer each other on, ask for or offer data or resources, team up and do a group-authored post or a mini-carnival cluster of posts, find a beta, be a beta ...

I would like to say: I am not at all worried about avoiding duplication, and suggest that nobody else be either.

If eight people do posts on How To Cook Eggs, they will all be different, they will all be right and useful, and each of them will be somebody's absolute most useful and favourite post of the whole carnival.

Carry on!

Comments

[dorothean]

Solicitation of ideas!

I would be very interested in reading people's ideas on how to cook for just one person. I live by myself and have trouble sometimes. I get most of my vegetables when I eat out (e.g. at the Whole Foods hot bar) which is more expensive than I'd like. But it's hard to buy vegetables when it's just me eating them, because they go bad before I've gone through the lot. I guess I need to cook big batches of things I can freeze, but that takes more planning than I'm up to, sometimes!

[cpolk]

I live alone and cook alone. i've done a post or two about this, and I was planning on writing from an "eat alone" viewpoint.

I cook things from scratch and rarely buy processed foods because of a diet restriction, but that's my personal thing because of celiac. as for managing fresh produce, i always buy fresh produce and cook with it. Do you think that will help?

[geeksdoitbetter]

if you had a focus on the energy input needing for cooking fresh, or tips for planning out the processing from the cooking from the eating, that would be wonderful

[redbird]

A discussion of what frozen vegetables are similar to fresh, and for which purposes, might be useful. One person probably doesn't want a whole cauliflower, maybe not even half of one: but she can grab a half-cup from a package of frozen cauliflower in the freezer and steam it or put into a stir-fry. (Cauliflower comes to mind because that's one my girlfriend keeps in her freezer.)

I'm thinking of things where it's more or less interchangeable, not something like dried mushrooms, which have to be treated differently from fresh. I realize that this is somewhat subjective: people disagree about frozen bell peppers, for example.

[kake]

Ooh, yes. Frozen spinach is one of my main standbys, and I also love frozen edamame. I'd be very interested in hearing which other veg are also good frozen.

[amazon_syren]

Buying small-to-medium-sized long-keeping veggies in small quantities works well. That way, you can chop up one potato and one carrot/beet and one shallot and be well on your way to a one-evening stew.

Preserved veggies (olives, dried tomatoes, frozen spinach in cubes, tomato sauce, various types of pickles) can also help with this, though you have to be okay with the preserving flavours (e.g.: tinned artichoke hearts work better than jarred "Italian Seasoning" artichoke hearts, in terms of not being super-spiced, and can be mashed up and added to alfredo/tomato sauce for a pasta dinner or two).


Things To Do With Pre-Roasted Chickens is perhaps also a good plan. (Eat the legs first - dinner, then lunch. Use the breast meat on the second evening to make a stir-fry/soup/stew and on the second day to make sandwiches. Make stock with the bones. That sort of thing).

[daedala]

I'm writing on something else, but when I lived alone, I found it helped a lot to stop thinking in terms of "balanced meals" and think in terms of "balanced week." Making side dishes for one was something I hated doing, but having a "side dish" for the whole dinner was fine. So asparagus for dinner one night, chicken for dinner the next, and so on. This might be a risky strategy for someone with an eating disorder, however.

[dorothean]

That helps a lot. I've definitely had a gigantic spinach salad for dinner before because there was only me to eat up all the spinach. I like the idea of turning that into a strategy.

[ironed_orchid]

I'm planning to write on this topic.