Dinner for when you just can’t even

Let’s say it s the end of the day. You’re tired. Maybe you don’t feel well. Maybe it was just a really heavy day, for whatever reason. Any plans you might have made for tonight’s dinner sound like way too much work for the energy you currently have. Let’s also assume you don’t have any meal preps already ready (such as home-canned soups, leftovers in the fridge, or a pre made meal you’ve frozen). What is your go-to, easy meal that will help rebuild your energy? Ideally, less than 10 minutes’ hands-on time, and quick to cook is also a bonus.

Mine are:
Baked potato topped with cheese and maybe some taco sauce

Cosy rice salad (from Roger Ebert’s rice cooker cookbook): toss an egg or two on top of the rice in the last few minutes it’s cooking, put some spinach or baby greens in the bottom of the bowl, add the rice and egg, and drizzle the whole mess with a bit of sesame oil and tamari. Wait for a couple minutes, then stir. The spinach will have been wilted down a bit by the heat of the rice and it’s all ready to eat.

What are yours, Permies?

I like sandwiches.

All kinds of sandwiches.

Last night we had bacon sandwiches.

I like to have deli ham on hand for quick sandwiches.

I like lots of lettuce and tomato slices of both the bacon and the ham sandwiches.

Soup or stew is also a fairly quick meal.

I like potato soup.

Then we sometimes have soup and sandwiches.

Grill cheese goes really well with a bowl of soup.

An even quicker and easier meal would-be crackers, cheese, deli meats, and fruit slices.

Meal 1 - Scrambled Eggs. with whatever leftover piece of cheese, chopped up lunch meat you have on hand. add green onion or mushrooms for easy vegetable. mix all into the beaten eggs before cooking.

Meal 2 - chop up any vegetables (and I mean ANY Vegetable) into rough chunks(even easier if you pick vegetables that don't need to be peeled.) sprinkle with oil, butter, or schmaltz; salt and pepper. Roast everything on a sheetpan in the oven; 415 F for 45 min, stirring once halfway through cooktime.  
Not as fast, but the prep is fast and easy, no mental fatigue of thinking through recipes, instructions, timing & steps, etc.

Meal 3 - Grilled cheese or quesadilla with ANY type of leftover meat inside(pork chop, meatloaf, chicken thigh, steak, pot roast, etc.)

Personally I just practice intermittent fasting. No need to make a meal if i come home too late. I just skip it. No need to stress, no need to worry. Easy. Done

Isn't that what chocolate chip cookies and milk are for???
Ice cream???
Chocolate cake topped with ice cream???

Are there no other confirmed chocoholics out there???
Am I the last one???

Scary mid day thoughts indeed!

jordan barton wrote:Personally I just practice intermittent fasting. No need to make a meal if i come home too late. I just skip it. No need to stress, no need to worry. Easy. Done

Alas, not generally an option for me. I've got Type 1 diabetes and skipping protein in the evening is generally a very good recipe for a hypoglycemic episode in the wee hours of the morning. Once upon a time, I totally have done that.

I find some sort of substantial meal is necessary to recharge me. That means a protein hit of some sort with some carbs to go along.

At our home, it's eggs and toast. Or much better, fried potatoes with onion and spices, and fried eggs. Some sort of raw veg is usually chopped up on the side -- peppers or tomatoes.

Of course there is the backpacker's delight of my earlier days: open a can of Heinz deep-browned beans, add hot sauce and pepper, and eat cold with crackers. Barbarous! But at the top of a long mountain trail, it works.

A slight step up from a can of soup... but not by much, beginning with a brick of dry ramen noodles.
The souper-lazy version: cook noodles per instructions, add a can of soup (condensed or ready-to-serve), the canned soup at room temperature cools the boiling noodles, eat immediately! (the saucepan can be your bowl, if you want to cut down on the dishwashing too)
My souped-up version (no canned soup): chop half an onion, one carrot, one rib of celery, cook in boiling water (amount per ramen instructions) when tender but firm, add ramen noodles and spice packet (for time per instructions), serve and eat (will be very hot! wait a bit for it to cool)
Variations: add two to four tablespoons of peanut butter, and sriracha hot sauce, soy sauce? for thicker, heartier soup. Add other vegetables you might have; peas, corn, broccoli, chard, kale, spinach... some might cook from beginning, others might add with noodles to not get overcooked.

Nachos: Corn chips, and cheese, heat until melted. Variations, add whatever "toppings" you like/have on hand: Salsa, beans, jalapenos, sour cream, avocado/gaucamole, olives, corn, chili/taco meat/chicken... Enough to cover a dinnerplate including all those toppings is a meal.
Crunchwrap: Flour tortilla, cheese in the center, chips, then "fillings" salsa/beans/meat/jalapenos/etc... layer #2 of chips, then more cheese, and fold the edges over (six folds, okay if the cheese peeks out in the center, it gets crispy and delicious) toast in a hot pan on both sides beginning with the folded side down.

Eggs/omelletes: Probably the easiest to prepare, also easy to add whatever is handy to an omelette.

And for the record, I'm with Thomas, a pint of ice cream, cookies and milk, pie, etc...

My current fav is  runny yolks eggs and fried  greens with soy sauce when I'm at home.
At work I heat up a can of beans, spoon in some sour cream and apply hot sauce.

I'm with Anne,
I love sandwiches, I'd happily eat them every day. Alas, my husband who is Mexican does not share this love, I've even tried feeding him really really awesome sandwiches which he says are good, then asked when dinner is going to be ready. Luckily, for him, the main meal of the day is eaten around 2-3 pm and that conflicts with my work schedule most of the time, so M-F I'm off the hook for preparing the main meal of the day.  

I know you said no leftovers, but we often have left over rice from the main meal, so at dinner, I can turn that into an egg-fried rice in a hurry with very little effort!

If I am too tired after a long day in the field, even cooking an egg is not in my line of thoughts.  My go to, will be bread, cheese, chutney and an apple or grapes or pear, whatever is in season.  But then again, I live in the country of the 1600 different cheeses!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses

Frankly, it depends. If I'm actually hungry, I'll rummage through the fridge, first, to see if there's anything that needs to be eaten up. No cold leftovers means the pantry is next - is there anything that has been in there a while? Anything that got missed, in the last rotation? Those two are first. Then, nuts, cheese, a can of something from the pantry that catches my attention. If all else fails, and I still can't find anything appealing, but I'm still hungry, I'll just suck down a protein drink, or fry a couple eggs.

If I'm not actually hungry, I'm good with fasting for a meal or two. More than that, and my genetic predisposition to hypoglycemia outpaces my normal keto lifestyle, and I'll eat whatever it in front of me - at least a portion - or I'll end up being a very sick woman.

Shawn - nice to see another southern Oregon person here. My go-to when I'm exhausted is eggs. We have hens so we always have them. I'm with you skipping meals as a diabetic is a big no-no.

Thankfully, I always have things frozen and canned so this isn't typically an issue for me.

Peanut butter and banana on whole wheat toast. Not just for kids... doesn't screw with my tendency to low blood sugar (like Carla mentioned - sort of the opposite of diabetes - doesn't tend to kill, but has to be respected as brains don't work well when they run out of sugar).

I do try to keep tortillas in the house - along with cheese and salsa. If my sugar's low, I'll eat just about anything that is "safe" and get 6-8 ounces of water into me, and then try to cook. We try to keep cooked sausages in the freezer, so I'll throw frozen veg into a pot of bone broth then add Ramen noodles as suggested above, then throw a couple of chopped up sausages and they heat up as the noodles cool. I only use enough broth that the noodles pretty much absorb it all. I *prefer* to have enough energy to grab fresh parsley, walking onion, and whatever else is in the front garden and chop it into the broth, but that breaks the OP's rule.

Most people don't recognize how much work and time it takes to feed people well! I *really* try to plan in advance, but when things get busy, that slides through the cracks. Home dried parsley that can be crushed into whatever you make, can add a shot of nutrition with minimal effort. We often put it on omelet and into soup/stew.

The antidote to mealtime stress is Benjamin Kemper's Pkhali, what he defines as "a smearable salad."
Once I memorized this (super easy) recipe, cooking changed for me. I make it anytime "I just can't even" imagine cooking which is often in the hot summer. Ingredients are always available in my garden or storage and I keep walnuts in the freezer.
The article is wonderful and here is the abreviated version:
PKHALI

[Cook] 2 cups cooked vegetables, cooled and squeezed of excess moisture. These should be grated, chopped coarse, or mushed up with your hands, depending on the type of vegetable and how you like it cooked.
To make the dressing, grind 1⁄2 cup (50 grams) walnuts (be sure they’re fresh and of good quality) to the consistency of coarse sand using a meat grinder (what Georgians use), mortar and pestle, or food processor, and transfer the nuts to a medium bowl. Stir in 1 tsp. salt, 11⁄2 Tbsp. …[homemade vinegar], 2 tsp. ground coriander, 1 minced garlic clove, crushed red pepper flakes (to taste), 1⁄4 cup chopped cilantro, and 2 Tbsp. finely chopped scallion or white onion. Incorporate 1–2 Tbsp. water to form a thick, sludgy sauce.
Add the vegetables to the dressing and mix everything well with your hands, adding water as needed to form a thick, moldable paste. Taste for seasoning:
The pkhali should be zippy with plenty of vinegar, salt, and garlic. Roll the mixture into single-serving balls or patties, or mound it onto a large serving plate. …Pkhali should be served at a cool room temperature and tastes best the day it’s made.

I'm loving all these options! Some are making me rethink what our required staples on hand should be, others don't really appeal to me but probably will help someone else, and some are striking exactly the right "I never thought of that--how cool!" chord. Keep 'em going. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has this problem and then gets stuck in a rut!

Chopped onion, hamburger and cheese on toast. An egg on top if I'm feeling ambitious.

Or tacos. Cheese toast-wich. Cheese on bread. Quesadilla. I'm seeing a trend here...

For me, meals are eaten on the move.  That means anything that can be eaten out of a cup...  and sandwiches.  The cup thing is key ....poached eggs on rice .....pasta .....stew .....scrambled eggs .....

Thinking more about this, mostly I don't leave things that long. I start most dinners in the morning, or at least parts of them. I don't have much energy late in the day, especially now that we are eating later (7:00 as opposed to 5:30) because of my kids work schedule.

I know that if I were less organized we would eat way worse. In many ways, I'm grateful for my organizational obsession.

I cook outside, so the just can't even threshold comes often for me, especially if the weather is unpleasant.

If I've got enough in me to boil water, I'll make pasta or rice in the thermos, which is totally hands off. Ive always got a couple jars of dried kale, mustard or radish greens around, so I throw a couple handfuls of that in, too.

I usually make lentil pasta. We keep a jar of muffuletta spread in the cooler all the time, and a spoonful of that is great on pasta. Some avocado and lettuce makes it even better. Any vinaigrette and chopped vegetables added to pasta is quick and easy, though.

For rice, I've got all kinds of no effort toppings: tamari, seaweed flakes, sesame seeds, chili flakes, etc. Same thing as the pasta - chopped vegetables if I can handle the effort. Cucumber left to pickle a bit in rice vinegar and five spice while the rice cooks is a tasty add in. I often have a jar of cooked chickpeas on hand to add to rice. There's always canned if I don't have any cooked.

Chickpeas can also be mashed up with some dill, celery seed, green relish, etc. for a spread reminiscent of tuna salad. That goes on rye crackers in my house. If I've got salad greens already prepped, I can dump a bunch of chickpeas into those and add dressing. I pretty much always have a jar of ginger miso dressing in the cooler.

Rye crackers are also handy for spreading peanut or sunflower seed butter on. Then I can top with banana, apple, raisins, dates. If I've got celery, that might get used instead of the rye crackers.

If I'm not even into spreading something on a cracker, I'll have some combination of a bowl of puffed amaranth, a handful of dried fruit and/or nuts, a carrot, bell pepper, an apple, plain rye crackers, olives, etc.

Keto dieter here, also with blood sugar issue genetics, possibly pre-diabetes.    Quick meal for me is either bacon and eggs,  cooked on my induction cooktop is very fast.    Or something like canned tuna w/ mayo, if I have salad greens around.    If I've got snacky things around sometimes I just put together a plate of odds and ends;  like almonds, pecans, cheese cubes, and a cut up cold hot dog.  

Amy Gardener wrote:The antidote to mealtime stress is Benjamin Kemper's Pkhali, what he defines as "a smearable salad."
Once I memorized this (super easy) recipe, cooking changed for me. I make it anytime "I just can't even" imagine cooking which is often in the hot summer. Ingredients are always available in my garden or storage and I keep walnuts in the freezer.
The article is wonderful and here is the abreviated version:
PKHALI

[Cook] 2 cups cooked vegetables, cooled and squeezed of excess moisture. These should be grated, chopped coarse, or mushed up with your hands, depending on the type of vegetable and how you like it cooked.
To make the dressing, grind 1⁄2 cup (50 grams) walnuts (be sure they’re fresh and of good quality) to the consistency of coarse sand using a meat grinder (what Georgians use), mortar and pestle, or food processor, and transfer the nuts to a medium bowl. Stir in 1 tsp. salt, 11⁄2 Tbsp. …[homemade vinegar], 2 tsp. ground coriander, 1 minced garlic clove, crushed red pepper flakes (to taste), 1⁄4 cup chopped cilantro, and 2 Tbsp. finely chopped scallion or white onion. Incorporate 1–2 Tbsp. water to form a thick, sludgy sauce.
Add the vegetables to the dressing and mix everything well with your hands, adding water as needed to form a thick, moldable paste. Taste for seasoning:
The pkhali should be zippy with plenty of vinegar, salt, and garlic. Roll the mixture into single-serving balls or patties, or mound it onto a large serving plate. …Pkhali should be served at a cool room temperature and tastes best the day it’s made.

Now, I’ve got to try this!

Large curd cottage cheese with a little of any kind of chopped fruit, fresh or dried. If I need a little more texture or substance I add nuts or pepitas.  I try to be keto so it's mostly cottage cheese.


I just feel better when I manage to stick to the diet. I do absolutely have to have some protein and fat to feel satiated.

I usually have cheeses and precooked sausage on hand and if it's late enough I sometimes skip the last meal of the day.

My wife is eating keto, and the best way I can help is by roasting chicken leg quarters.
She has an Appalachian love of chicken anyway, and having this flavorful meat on hand makes things easy.
She will make a soup from from some of the meat, along with cabbage and onion, which were cooked under the chicken.
Technically this is leftovers, but we cook big and plan for leftovers, so...

I am trying a propane smoker for the next batch, les for the flavor and more to keep the heat out of the house.

Somehow, I forgot about the pickled summer salad I've been keeping in the fridge! It's 4 sliced cucumbers, 1 or 2 small bell peppers(I'm using mostly orange, yellow, or red ones, for color), and a red onion. The pickling liquid is vinegar(I make my own tarragon vinegar, and use that), a bit of sweetener(I use stevia, to keep it keto friendly, but honey would be yummy!), salt, pepper, a clove or two of garlic, minced, and a few tablespoons of red pepper flakes. It all fits into a 2qt jar, and keeps up to a month, in the fridge. We can easily base meals around it, because it makes a nice side, with almost any protein, including cheeses.

Frittata! I oil the surface of my cast iron skillet. I  dump in whatever leftover vegetables I have. 3 cups is good. If I have leftover meat, 1 cup goes in. I add 10 eggs, stirring them up in the skillet. It spends 45 minutes in the oven at 400* F. Top with cheese, turn off the oven. Leave frittata in it for 10 more minutes. This melts the cheese, and the edges of the frittata separates some from the edge of the skillet.

Hands on time? 5 minutes.

I use a tabletop oven, on the porch during the summer.

Picked some green beans, sautéed with butter, peppers, mushrooms, pine nuts and pumpkin seeds.
Quick and delicious.
Only 1 pan needed!

When I was young and it was just me, I'd eat things like a giant bowl of frozen veggies or oatmeal or cereal or bread and fruit. I have even been known to eat a jar of olives or pickles for dinner.

My husband and kids aren't filled without some protein so easy fast things are quesadillas with canned refried beans, tuna sandwiches or grilled cheese, and eggs with toast.

For easy veggies and fruit that everyone in my family loves, smoothies for the win!

Waffles are also one of my easy tired-day meals. It takes a long time to cook enough for seven people but I mix up the batter in five minutes and then I have an excuse to sit next to the counter reading a book for an hour while I take the waffles out of the waffle iron every five minutes and throw them into the oven to keep warm. "What? You want me to do such and such for you? Sorry! I'm busy making waffles for dinner!" (And I flip another page in my book.)

Sometimes when we are both exhausted we just make a goat milk shake, with whatever berries or fruit I have on hand.  Great with blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, strawberries, peaches or a banana.   I try to make meals so that I can get two or more meals out of whatever I cook, often adding more ingredients to change it up a bit.  Then there are those days we are too tired to eat much anyway and opt for popcorn as a late snack in lieu of a heavy meal.  I always use butter melted with olive oil, sea salt, powdered turmeric and nutritional yeast to jazz it up.  Delicious and filling.  

Left overs or a slice of bread with peanut butter, glass of cold water….. I’m good

My go to quick meal is Shakushaka, its basically veggies with tomato sauce and eggs poached on top. Spices and herbs add flavour and you can eat it with rice if you have more time, bread, or just by it self. I could eat it anytime it's actually so good.

"My go to quick meal is Shakushaka"  --Katherine Burelle
Goodness!  That is usually a meal I do in the fall when I have too many peppers and tomatoes to count and they are taking over my counter!  I always think of it as a couple of hours of cutting veggies...I am sure there's a simpler way.
   I tend to freeze ahead single serving meals of whatever for my spouse to take to work, and those do the trick when no brains are left.  Alas, bread and eggs, my go-to of younger days is less effective now as my spouse is intolerant of gluten and allergic to eggs!
       

for just me:
yogurt (maybe with fresh fruit, maybe not)
oatmeal with some spicy salt (Old Bay?) and a fried egg on top
banana shake (banana, yogurt, flaxseed)
avocado shake (avocado, milk, bit of sweetener)
apple with peanut butter

If it's not just me but also my beloved family who are too picky for what i eat:
-omraisu (flat thin omelet with spiced leftover rice/scallions inside and ketchup on top)
-chopped salad with dandelion greens (they're in the garden year round), red onion, tomato and canned sardines, quick mustard vinaigrette
-easy sleazy noodles (boil whole wheat pasta, when nearly done throw in chopped kale or whatever dark green veg in the garden, drain and make an umami-bomb sauce in the pan: mustard, miso, sesame oil, nutritional yeast, molasses, soy sauce, garlic and onion powder, then mix it all together and fight over who gets to lick the pan. If you're really classy, eat it out of the pan.)

Basically a variation of the popular sandwich option, we do quesadillas- drop a tortilla on a skillet and melt some cheese on it, then fold it over or top with another tortilla and flip to heat the other side through- works for both corn and flour tortillas, but a stack of corn tortillas will keep in the fridge forever and takes up very little space, so it's a staple at our house. If you're fancy, add some hot sauce or chipotle sauce, or throw in whatever fillings you can find in the fridge- great way to use up the last little bits of previous meals. My son does a pizza version with mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. I like to add a schmear of tomato paste or sauce to that version- if there's an open jar in the fridge.

Another quick meal is to whip an egg and go to make an omelet, but when it's still a bit gooey lay a flour tortilla over it rather than fold it over. Then lift it out and generously butter the pan and flip the egg-tortilla so it's tortilla side down and fry/toast the tortilla. then roll the whole thing up and devour. Serve with a handful of whatever leafy green is closest to becoming compost.

I also like to keep a head of cabbage in the back of the fridge so there's always some veg on-hand- shredded cabbage sautéed in salted butter topped with a fried egg is immensely satisfying.

Erika Bailey wrote:"My go to quick meal is Shakushaka"  --Katherine Burelle
Goodness!  That is usually a meal I do in the fall when I have too many peppers and tomatoes to count and they are taking over my counter!  I always think of it as a couple of hours of cutting veggies...I am sure there's a simpler way.
   I tend to freeze ahead single serving meals of whatever for my spouse to take to work, and those do the trick when no brains are left.  Alas, bread and eggs, my go-to of younger days is less effective now as my spouse is intolerant of gluten and allergic to eggs!
       

Hahaha yes certainly not a couple of hours, I wouldn't recommend it if that were the case. It takes maybe 30 minutes prep included. Has your husband tried turkey or duck eggs? I know a few people with chicken egg allergies who are fine with duck and turkey eggs.

They are selling pre-made pizza dough at Whole Foods now.  Stretch that stuff out in a large cast iron skillet, add some pizza sauce, pre-shredded mozzarella (good quality stuff also at Whole Foods), and your favorite toppings.  Walla!  Dinner done in a half hour and who doesn't love pizza?

I learned this cast iron skillet method from this recipe.  Cheers!

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bbq-mushroom-pizza

Egg drop soup.

Set the electric kettle to boil. While waiting for water, snip a green onion into a pint and a half (asparagus) jar. Add a scoop of bouillon, a scoop of collagen powder, and crack an egg. Whisk with a chopstick, and continue whisking as you pour boiling water over.

Revives me enough that I can think again and get real food.

Isn't that what chocolate chip cookies and milk are for???
Ice cream???
Chocolate cake topped with ice cream??? ...That's my vote as well

If it's early enough, a toasted tortilla/flatbread with a little tin of chickpeas or kidney beans, and some sliced cheese, with homemade taco seasoning.

If I have a little more energy - some ramen or soba noodles boiled in stock, with sliced veg and any meat I have lying around. Seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil.

If I'm completely wrecked - peanut butter toast.

If it's late (I have to eat early due to a predisposition to reflux), my go to is yoghurt and fruit, with a sprinkling of oats.

Yoghurt and homemade apple/mint jelly. 1/2 minute to prep and even easy to eat 😁 that will hold me over until breakfast 👍