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Don’t meal prep. Make yourself one nice thing
Last Sunday night, my grocery order arrived without my usual breakfast sandwiches.
This ordinarily would not constitute a crisis. Except my little freezer stash of homemade breakfast burritos had also dwindled to nothing, and I knew exactly what Monday morning would look like without some intervention: Wake up. Realize there was nothing easy to eat. Debate whether I had enough time to stop somewhere. Get annoyed that breakfast had somehow become a decision I needed to make before coffee.
On busy weeks, I hate busy mornings.
Breakfast is consequently my most brainless meal. Give me something I can put in a 350-degree oven for a few minutes while I shower and become a person, and I am delighted. Weekends are different. On a Saturday, I will happily get up at 6 a.m. with coffee to babysit yeasted cinnamon rolls or start whisking hollandaise. The fuss is part of the pleasure.
Wednesday morning? Absolutely not.
So, standing in my kitchen Sunday night, I decided to give myself one nice thing.
I had two sourdough heels, two eggs and some cream, which meant I had the beginnings of either a sweet or savory strata. Savory sounded more like Monday, so I did what I think of as reverse-shopping: opened the refrigerator and started looking for ingredients that wanted to know each other. Half a can of diced tomatoes. Half a white onion. Four strips of bacon. A little shredded cheddar left from chili night. A jar of roasted red peppers.
Scrappy, yes. But coherent.
I whisked the eggs and cream with garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, plus a little drizzle of soy sauce. Trust me. Then I added the tomatoes directly to the custard because I wanted the bread to soak up their sweet-savory juices rather than simply sit alongside them. In went the torn sourdough, which I thoroughly dunked in the custard, followed by crisped bacon, a small drizzle of bacon fat — sue me — cheddar, roasted peppers and minced onion. You could soften the onion first if you prefer, but I liked the little bit of bite it retained after baking.
The whole thing went into a greased 8-inch baking dish and into the refrigerator overnight.
Before bed, I also chopped one slightly wilting scallion and tucked it into a little bowl for morning.
This is perhaps the detail that best explains what I mean by “one nice thing.”
The next morning, I drizzled a little olive oil over the strata, put it into a 350-degree oven and went to shower. About 25 minutes later, I gave it another few minutes to brown, scattered my already-chopped scallions over the top and sat down to a breakfast that felt vaguely café-quality on a Monday morning.
It felt café-quality on Tuesday, too.
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I’ve written before about my general resistance to rigid weekly meal prep. I’m much happier with an occasional Big Seasonal Prep Day — fill the freezer with soups, sauces, breakfast burritos and other useful things — and then let the ensuing weeks fall where they will.
But this fall, “one nice thing” has become something of a guiding star. It is a season in which a lot of energy is flowing out: two family weddings back-to-back, seven family birthdays between August and November, the usual work, a cookbook project, a documentary. When that much is going out, it feels especially good to do something small that preserves a little energy for me.
Importantly, “nice” is doing a lot of work here.
This isn’t about optimizing every meal, spending three hours prepping identical containers or constructing the sort of Sunday routine that makes you feel behind when you inevitably skip it.
It starts with a different question: What would make me disproportionately happy to discover already done tomorrow?
Maybe the answer is waking up and realizing you don’t have to hit the drive-thru for breakfast. Maybe it’s knowing you won’t have to pull out another knife for three days. Maybe it’s just opening the refrigerator and finding something cold and lovely to drink.
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Here are a few of my current “one nice things,” roughly in ascending order of effort:
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Put tea bags in a jug of cool water and refrigerate overnight. Cold-brewed green tea the next day feels disproportionately fancy for something that took approximately 45 seconds.
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Make one dip or dressing. For me, this is often cottage cheese ranch or a punchy vinaigrette — mostly because Future Me is considerably more enthusiastic about eating vegetables when there is something good to drag them through.
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Make one big batch of Very Simple Soup. I’ll be sharing some of my favorites over the coming weeks, but a pot of soup in the fridge can quietly carry several lunches without asking much of you.
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Put on a podcast or an episode of whatever you’re watching and chop the vegetables. I set up my cutting board at the bar in front of the television, clean and chop everything, then stash it in labeled deli tubs. Yes, in my personal estimation, making an entire batch of soup is easier than a dedicated vegetable-chopping session. Your mileage may vary.
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Make something that gets better while you ignore it. Chili. Curry. Baked pasta. A strata like this one. Something that can sit in the refrigerator for a day or two and somehow become more itself.
The point isn’t to prepare yourself perfectly for the week.
It’s just to put one small pleasure into motion.
Ingredients
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2 to 2 1/2 generous cups torn sourdough bread
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2 eggs
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1/4 cup heavy cream
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1/2 can diced tomatoes, with their juices
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3 teaspoons garlic powder
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3 teaspoons onion powder
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3 teaspoons dried thyme
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3 teaspoons dried oregano
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3 teaspoons red pepper flakes, or to taste
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A small drizzle of soy sauce
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Salt and black pepper, to taste
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4 strips bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
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A little reserved bacon fat, optional
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1/4 cup shredded cheddar
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1/2 small white onion, finely minced
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1/4 cup chopped roasted red pepper
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Olive oil, for the baking dish and finishing
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1 scallion, thinly sliced, for serving
Directions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, oregano, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, salt and black pepper. Stir in the diced tomatoes and their juices.
- Add the torn bread and toss well, pressing and turning the pieces so they thoroughly absorb the custard.
- Fold in the bacon, a small drizzle of reserved bacon fat if using, cheddar, onion and roasted red pepper.
- Transfer to a greased 8-inch baking dish. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- The next morning, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle the top of the strata lightly with olive oil and bake for about 25 minutes, or until hot throughout and beginning to brown. Give it another 2 to 5 minutes if you’d like a little more color.
- Top with sliced scallions and eat immediately — or directly from the refrigerator tomorrow. I can confirm both are quite nice.
The post Don’t meal prep. Make yourself one nice thing appeared first on Salon.com.
