A combination of a delayed flight, unexpected traffic, and a stop at the grocery store to buy the bare essentials meant that I got home around 9pm last night. Let's just say that the dinner I had originally planned to make was definitely not going to happen. What do you do on nights like this?
On these unexpectedly late nights I turn to my personal freezer section. I usually have something stashed away in there that can be quickly re-heated and eaten for dinner - that last cup of soup that I froze before it went bad, a bag of Chinese dumplings, some tortellini that can be made into a fast soup with a can of broth.
Basically, anything that requires zero thought to make and then put into my mouth is a candidate for a 9pm desperation dinner. Even a giant bowl of popcorn or a can of warmed beans on toast will do the trick when we're hungry enough!
Do you have a plan for nights like this? Or do you wing it from whatever you can scrounge from you freezer or cupboards?
Related: Quick Weeknight Meals: 10 One-Dish Dinners
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Two words...Del Taco.
I always keep a box of pierogis in the freezer for those situations where I just don't want to bother putting something together.
Orzo cooked in home-made chicken or veggie stock (from the freezer) with plenty of CHEESE mixed in....It's not THE quickest thing but sometimes when I get super hungry my tummy gets a little sensitive...this is easy, delicious and filling. I have class until 9 tonight so this will be my go-to for sure!
The Indian version of ramen! Or some sort of grain with a handful of veggies tossed in--quinoa, rice, couscous, etc.
Amy's burrito or samosa... or vegetable gyoza.
Scrambled or fried eggs with toast - usually have eggs in the fridge and bread in the freezer.
one of the draw backs of living in San Diego, is that no matter what time of day there is always a Robertos open 24 hours a day. Which is perfect for a quick Machaca burrito with potatoes. While it is true we do have Del Tacos, and Taco Bells here; I never understand how the compete with the more local Robertos places. Authentic Mexican, or Commercial Mexican?
Shakshuka--two eggs poached in canned tomatoes. I saute an onion, add some spice, and the poach the eggs. Done in 15 minutes.
Frozen ravioli, topped with poached eggs and grated parmesan. I also mix in any veggies I have, including frozen mixed veg or edamame.
Omelettes! I'm a grad student with night classes and this is what I do if I didn't manage to prep dinner before class.
I always have eggs, cheese, and frozen veggies on hand. It can be just as fast as nuking a microwavable meal. Throw in the veggies and let them cook while you beat the eggs, then toss in the eggs and they'll set in just a minute or two. Sprinkle the cheese, fold, and voila! Insta-dinner.
Fresh Raviolis from Trader Joes + either pesto or marinara.. so yummy and it only takes 10 minutes tops! (Way better than any microwave meal or ramen!)
Friend egg sandwiches, or if it's really bad, cheese melted on a couple of tortillas, then rolled up. You can almost always count on there to be eggs, cheese, and assorted transport devices for those items in my fridge.
Avocado on Toast. Oatmeal. Cereal. Or a frozen Amy's Pizza.
Wow, you guys are fancy! A bowl of cereal will do me just fine.
www.grubhub.com
Frozen chicken patties are a godsend in these occasions.
Black beans, ready to be thawed and made into a burrito, quesadillas, eaten over rice or gobbled on their own.
Rice and/or noodles with egg and whatever quick cooking ingredients I have on hand (lettuce, bean sprouts, spinach, shrimp, etc), simmered in chicken broth and flavored with miso / curry / soy sauce, topped with green onions and fried shallots if I have those on hand. Everything cooks in 15 mins and it's sooooo yummy! Actually I just eat that whenever not just when in a hurry ><
Cheerios!
Some frozen food from Costco always does the trick. Generally have left overs for the entire week to munch on though, so those frozen foods are just when I want to be lazy/in the mood for, or totally out of food.
peanut butter and jelly with some baby carrots on the side.
Scrambled eggs and black beans in a tortilla with hot sauce.
Instant dashi + miso paste + frozen peas and edamame + thin rice noodles + egg. More ingredients, but throw everything but the egg in a pot, bring to a simmer, and crack in the egg once the noodles are done (rice noodles cook in like 2-3 min.), and simmer till cooked. Takes 10 min. tops.
Takeout from a kabob shop
This is pretty much me every night since I hardly ever get home before 8:45, but on the nights when I REALLY can't wait, veggie burgers are my best friend. Slap a veggie patty between two pieces of toast...instant meal that I don't feel super guilty about eating.
Grilled cheese, quesadillas, eggs in some form, or spaghetti with hot peppers and shaved cheese of some sort. I always have those ingredients on hand
Cereal, eggs or a PB&banana on toast is fine for me.
Boxed Plan cous cous, micro wave steamed veggies and a couple of spoonfulls of jared pesto. Delish quick and doen in 5 min or less.
I sautee some frozen shrimp and throw it into anything; ramen, tacos, mixed with frozen veggies, whatever is lying around the fridge.
Trader Joes frozen chicken and cheese tamales! 3 1/2 minutes until burn-my-mouth hot and delicious!
boxed mac & cheese 4 lyfe.
Cheese toast. Or eggs.
I always stash a box of Velvetta shells and cheese just for this problem.
spaghetti. frozen amy's pizza. fried egg and toast with salad on the side. can o soup with toast and salad.
this happens much more often than I would like.
Omelet.
I use feta cheese in indecent amounts, so I always have it around, and have a window box of herbs. Assuming that there's nothing else in the fridge but eggs, in a worse-case scenario, you've got fresh herb and feta omelet on the table in less than 5 minutes (and that's including the time it takes to chop herbs).
oh lord. don't you people ever order pizza?
For me it's either cereal or I usually have instant cans of tomato or vegetable soup that I'll pop in the mircowave and eat with ritz crackers.
Cereal or eggs. Sometimes just a big spoon of peanut butter out of the jar. :)
If I want to cook under such circumstances, my go-to dishes are:
1. Pasta, whatever meat's in the fridge, olive oil, cheese.
2. Nachos or a burrito, with or without beans.
Peanut butter and cheddar cheese on stoned wheat crackers; poached eggs and toast; or soup. If I'm lucky and there's a sweet potato in the pantry, I might just zap that and eat it with lots of butter!
pasta and canned sauce
miso soup and/or popcorn.
Fried eggs and toast are my usual dinner when starved and not wanting to cook. Sometimes I just eat popcorn if it's just me.
I'm a big fan of ramen with some fresh onions and an egg so I can pretend it's somewhat nutritious.
Scrambled eggs with pb&j on toasted english muffins. Or just a bowl of cereal. Or leftovers. Anything more than that is sometimes just too much.
I make quick mac and cheese or a broccoli cheese baked potato.
For the mac and cheese I cook up some pasta, and while that's cooking, I nuke some milk & half and half, a touch of corn starch, and 2 oz or so of good cheddar and stir stir stir til it resembles a sauce (it is always lumpy), but enough cheese and its delicious enough to pour over pasta and pretend its real mac and cheese in only 8 minutes.
soba noodles in soba broth with an egg and some spinach.
Either a protein shake or a clif bar is my go to meal....sometimes even pb & j is too much after a 12 hours shift...and sometimes I actually drink the protein shake in the mandatory hot shower....
depending on how the fridge looks:
TJ's tacquitos
Tuna salad - no bread, just tuna and condiments basically
Scrambled Eggs.
I generally cook for one or two people max thus I have tons of leftovers languishing in the freezer at all times. I've been studying the last two weeks so there have been many defrosted squash soups and some of a huge batch of homemade pierogies from December consumed.
If I'm out of leftovers (which would be astonishing), my go-to quick dinner is black bean and cheese quesadilla. I almost always have beans, cheese, and tortillas in the fridge/pantry, and it takes about 5 minutes.
omelette... packed pasta with canned sauce... pizza or just "delivery" ;-)
pasta and whatever veggies are on hand (fresh or frozen). boil them all together in salted water, top with butter or olive oil, salt and pepper, and parm or goat cheese.
Baked sweet potato! Cooks in minutes in the microwave, topped with hot sauce, shredded cheese, and sour cream / nonfat greek yogurt. Healthy comfort food!
PB noodles - couldn't be easier and it's vegan:
http://theactorsdiet.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/lynn-goodbye-san-diego/
I usually fall back on corn tortillas and cheese for quick quesadillas. Sometimes i'll have carrots and tortillas with hummus, or a frozen Dr. Praeger's veggie burger. And I always have salad, slaw or broccoli (for steaming) hand.
Usually have pita in the freezer and hummus and spinache in the fridge. SANDWICH!
(I'll add 1/2 an avocado, too if there's one handy).
or... poached egg on toast with cassis dijon and spinache and/or avocado.
Winter: Home-made SW style black bean dip on a tortilla topped with cheese and baked like a pizza. Canned tomato soup made with milk. Cereal. Can of beans in tomato sauce with shredded cheese mixed in.
Summer: Cereal, dips with flat bread and baby carrots. Cereal.
Eggs. Cereal. Sandwich. Edamame and baby carrots.
Pasta, eggs, sandwich, rice and canned beans, soup, salad, oatmeal, or if I'm lucky I've made some pizza dough earlier and it is in the fridge. Not so lucky and cranky, then it is time for take out or pizza delivery.
@ ohwoah: I wish I could order pizza after 9pm :-( But no, after 9 my choices all involve a drive thru and are basically McDonalds, White Castle, and Jack in the Box.
Realistically, I won't go past a 5 mile radius when I'm starving.
I get home every night between 9:30 and 10pm thanks to late college classes and work schedules. I'm usually dead tired after my 12 hour days, but I often whip up something homemade because it's nice to end a long day with something good. My favorite go-to: a quick vegetable hash with a fried egg on top.
When I was in residency and working crazy hours, I'd always keep a bag of homemade frozen potstickers in the freezer. A friend and I would get together every few months and spend a few hours playing potsticker factory. No defrost necessary, from freezer to hot comforting dinner in less than 10 min (including making a dipping sauce)! Make a variety of potstickers - chicken, pork, chive, vegetable, etc- and you will be amazed how many days in a row you can eat them!
I keep a jar of chopped onions (yes, I chop them with my immersion blender) in the refrigerator, so a large spoonful of those with an equal amount of red and green peppers are sauteed and before losing their crispness I add a couple of beaten eggs. I always have homemade English muffins in the freezer, so one comes out, gets toasted and coated liberally with sweet orange marmalade. If I choose I will also make home-fried potatoes. Put those in the oven to keep warm, and cook the eggs & veggies in the same pan. Dinner, but only if I am eating alone, and an easy cleanup. The hubs won't touch eggs. Sigh.
Eggs... but if it is a particuliary low pantry evening... then rice + beans + (what ever sauce I have) = nom noms
24 hours McDonalds drivethrough.
I usually make food for the week on Sundays just to avoid this situation. So usually I have some sort of leftover.
However, when I'm in a serious bind and have no ready to eat food- then I go to instant noodles to hold me over until I can get to cooking or if it's really bad, stale crackers.
i keep frozen vegetables in my fridge,
so in situations like this its gonna be plain rice,dal and stirfried vegetables
Most often pasta and pesto. Or some leftover veggi-sauce-like-whatever. But since we skipped the microwave.. most likely pesto with the pasta.
PB&J on whatever i have-rarely it's bread- A tortilla is the usual suspect. My roommate (who is Jewish) has recently stocked up on Matzos, so currently that's my PB&J vehicle of choice when in a bind.
ramen, fully cooked in the pot with the seasoning packet mixed in and then i drop an egg in there and boil it again so it loosely poaches. sriracha and done! ten mins, not even.
I keep a can of my favorite chili for nights like this. Pasta, baked potato, or tortilla chips + chili = dinner. Top it with whatever cheese, cilantro, sour cream, jalapeños, etc. I happen to have in the fridge.
If I want to cook something fast, I'll eat a nice simple salad with a goat cheese omlette or scrambled egg with avocado.
If I don't want to cook, it's a small bowl of healthful cereal or whole grain english muffin with natural peanut butter and honey.
Pita pizza (pesto, tomatoes, cheese, etc.) on a pizza stone takes about 20 minutes from prep start to end of baking and tastes like it came from a restaurant!
well, I'm eating dinner now after getting out of class....started cooking at 10pm.
cooked spaghetti, drained and back in the pot. Added a beaten egg, some garlic, hoisin, siracha and soy sauce.
10:16pm=Happy belly.
Lots of fruits and lots of junk! (weird I know)
You can make a homemade mac a cheese in the same time it takes water to boil and pasta to cook. Basic bechamel with some Parmesan cheese mixed in and a healthy dose of black pepper, salt to taste. Mix in the coked pasta and you're done -
@CCKelly, matzos is some of my favorite food, ever. pbj, tuna melts, even just butter and a bit of salt...delish.
Cheese toast. Mmmm.
My easiest Actual Dinner* takes less than 15 minutes, including bringing water to a boil. That's less time than it takes to wait for the pizza guy, ohwoah!
I get in the door, crank a burner to high, fill a pot with water, then take off my coat, sort the mail, wash my hands, whack up a head of broccoli into florets, and shred some Parmesan. When the water boils, I put in whatever pasta we have on hand; sometimes it's just penne, sometimes we have a bag of frozen ravioli. Calculate the time in your head so you can throw the broc in 5-7 minutes before you drain the pasta. (If you have angelhair, you can shave five minutes off the total prep time but you have to throw the broccoli in first to get it cooked through.)
I toss it in the hot pot with Parmesan, pepper, maybe some minced garlic, a squeeze of lemon, and some pasta water. Adding nutmeg and lemon zest only take a few seconds longer.
This is a good dinner anytime, and a great dinner when we're pressed for time and hungry. It's made with things we always keep in the house, so that's is one less thing to think about on a busy night.
*as opposed to cheese toast, or nuts and milk, or an egg on toast, which are all great, too!
I tend to cook ahead so that we can enjoy leftovers during the week. Hubs and I have different schedules and don't have dinner together at least four nights out of the week, so leftovers really help. When caught short, I'll toss together some kind of leftover cooked grains from the fridge with some veg, zap in the microwave to warm the grain and cook the veg, then top with a protein such as egg, cheese, or sardines. Zap again as needed. Makes a quick, tasty and nutritious one-dish meal.
The hubs isn't much of a cook, so if I'm not around, he'll fend for himself with yogurt, fruit and homemade granola, peanut butter, cereal, hummus with bread and veg, sardines, or his hidden stash of Amy's black bean burritos.
A cheese melt works great, for either of us.
My ready to go meals for late night dinners: frozen dumplings, cereal, cup of yogurt with fruit, or a poached egg with crackers. By the way, the best frozen dumplings I have tried in new york is from a restaurant called East Dumplings near Columbia U. They sell frozen dumplings in addition to having a restaurant. It has great taste, variety, and very easy to fry up. I try not to eat too many as they are probably quite high in calories though.
Breakfast sandwich or Campbell's soup.
Store bought pesto over SoyBoy tofu ravioli with crushed red pepper, maybe an onion if im feelin' fancy.
Eggs and avocado toast.
Throw some quinoa in the rice cooker with cumin seeds. Top, with thinly sliced oven roasted carrots, with olive oil and sea salt. Cook till the edges are just a little brown. Simple and yum!
Those microwave Indian curry with chickpea things.