Dodging Appetite Fatigue, Part 2
Houston, we have a problem. I mean that literally. We lost power last night, as has happened in many places throughout the state of Texas. Many of you will think this is insane, and as someone who grew up in a snowy climate, I agree. It is what it is. My family is safe, warm, and have the ability to cook on fire pit, catering stoves, and a tiny propane grill. We also have about 2 dozen blankets, so we are solid and y’all don't need be worried for us. If you pray, pray for the people who aren’t in the good condition my family is. Otherwise, juju for Texas, please. Anyway, I wasn’t done with this post before we lost power, so i’m giving it to you now because we might not have power until gods know when. I’ll edit to finish the post as soon as we do. Apologies for the incomplete article as well as the lack of editing. The 15-45 minute expected rolling blackouts have turned into something with no certainty on when services will be restored, so it’s particularly unfortunate that I was down to the wire on this before electricity went kaput.
My power came back on Thursday and I obviously have about as much trust in its continued existence as everyone else in Texas, so if you happen to be reading this post and find a section at the end that’s incomplete, it’s because I’m saving constantly so I don’t cry if I lose power again in the middle of writing. It’s really hard to rewrite the same thing because the words you have in your head always vary from moment to moment and can’t always be recovered when there’s a tech failure.
Rather than detract from this post by talking further about the Texas situation, I’ll make a separate post about it after this one is done. I really might not properly edit this post, though, even though I will finish it. That also just is what it is.
I chose not to edit. I hope y’all understand.
Back to the proverbial ranch where keyboards can be used instead of phones
Alright! All the preliminary information has been done last week, so now we get to look at what was done with these potatoes and other sundries! If you’ve already forgotten what happened in Christine’s video, go on ahead and give it another look so you know what we’ll be talking about.
Quick Reminder
Please make it a point to do as much food prep as possible when you’ve got a few minutes. Soaking beans, putting together bread doughs, chopping vegetables, and so forth are all tasks that take just a bit of time up front that will save you time over the course of the week. Especially the chopping part. As an aside, I really want to get one of those kevlar gloves so my mandolin is less scary each time I use it. There’s been one in my Amazon cart for at least a year, and yet…
Other reminder is to not forget your crock pot when you’re doing stuff like cooking beans. So long as you aren’t doing kidneys in there, it saves you time just like a pressure cooker does.
I picked this menu board because it reminded me that I really like sandwiches that use crepes as the bread. I also regret that I wrote for an hour and picked this picture during that time, and then I lost all of that writing plus the pictures due to what is turning into a week of technological horrors for me. Getty didn’t show me the name of the photographer when I grabbed it again, so I apologize for not giving proper attribution for this pic and possibly a few more. This is probably less bad than all the emails I lost this week, many of which were important, but I’m not a huge fan of failing to give attribution.
The Meal Plan
Christine says she’s going to make hash browns, and also will be making plain beans for beans and rice as well as taco beans for tacos! There will also be potato and chorizo tacos, which are one of Ross’ favorite breakfast tacos. I love tacos. Just love them; they’re pretty much the perfect food.
We’ll also be seeing the mashed potato version of potato pancakes, which is excellent. And she’s making burrito bowls! I never remember to make bowls of foods I like, so this is a great reminder. We’ve also got chili-topped baked potatoes and potato-cheese soup. The last two meals will be funeral potatoes.
She tells us that the breakfasts this week will include scrambled eggs with the hash browns, and that’s very good. If y’all need alternative ideas, maybe breakfast tacos or perhaps migas? As a quick aside, if you have crackers, you can make matzo brei, which is similar to migas without being anything like migas. You do not need matzo to make this; just use whatever crackers you’ve already got or that are cheapest. This recipe is totally different from how I make it, and y’all should read the comments so you can get other tips and recipes.
I can’t believe I said to read the comments.
The link for matzo brei gives sweet and savory suggestions. I tried a bite of a sweet one I once made for a friend and wasn’t a fan (he loved it, though), but I love pretty much all of the savory versions. I make my own spice blend for this (that I also use for tuna salad and other such) that uses a couple dozen spices. Ross recently asked me what the recipe was so he could make a jar, and I’m gonna have to take notes next time because there is no recipe. I just know what the spice blend should look like when I’m pouring spices. When ever I get around to doing that (soon, as my jar is empty!), I’ll put it up for y’all.
Mashed Potato-y Goodness
No matter what you’re using your mash for, if you do have sour cream like Christine does, your potatoes will taste better with a bit of it in there. I also love yogurt and milk kefir if you do either of those, cream cheese, half-and-half, and cream. If you have regular milk (whether fresh, dried and reconstituted, or evaporated), that’s also great in potatoes. I’m pushing the dairy with potatoes hard because it rounds the meal out and also makes it more delicious.
Cream isn’t particularly affordable most of the time, but I have noticed that cream prices have dropped by about 50% since the pandemic started. I used to buy a quart of cream for $4 or so at my local market, but now it’s $1.81 as its new regular price. Walmart has their quart of heavy whipping cream for $2.34, according to the website. I think they used to charge somewhere around $3-4 for a cup of cream, so it’s a larger discount at this store. This is the only food I can think of that costs less now than it did last year. In every single store, except Kroger, that I’ve checked in person and online, cream is a lot closer in cost to half-and-half now, making it an exceptional, fat-adding value if it’s in budget. I’d employ cream in your recipes as a spice similarly to how Christine uses sour cream as a condiment for the pancakes, but you do what you want with all your cream.
I considered showing y’all a picture of my leftover colcannon (this link is for a more traditional version than I’ve showed you previously), but since I already did that with that odd chili last week, I’m instead sharing the song that’s stuck in my head now.
Breakfasts!
We’ve got the hash browns and scrambled eggs for breakfasts 1-4, which probably everyone can do without getting tired of it. If you’ve got a bit of cheese you can use as a spice (including a chopped up slice of American), these will add a bliss layer to your hash browns.
On the topic of frying in butter or margarine, yes this will make them taste better. It will also add that important dairy component if you can’t add some cheese or similar to the potatoes.
BUT: if you have the ability to incorporate dairy into this meal otherwise, oil will give you a better fry. This is because butter has a good amount of water in it, so you get some steaming before the frying begins.
I switched to oil only for frying Child Tester’s eggs a few months ago, and they really do offer a better fry than with butter does. I am honestly not convinced that this is a great thing for me personally, because unlike her I am not a morning person, which means I’m half awake frying eggs instead of heating up leftovers for her breakfasts. Anyway, if you have another form of dairy to incorporate, use oil if possible for the frying part. If not, stick to the margarine.
Same lack of attribution issue here, extra apologies. These potato pancakes demonstrate how easily you can include some veggie scraps for increased flavor and nutrition! If yo'u’ve got those, toss ‘em in!
Ahhhhhh potato pancakes! These are generally a seasonal food for me, because it is a lot more work to do the grating of potatoes. But, I think this will end because I’ll start doing them with mash from now on. Great reminder that low-work potato pancakes are a thing!
Here again, if you have the “cheese as a spice” option, you’re getting a lot of extra flavor. Ditto if you’ve got spices to add or the aforementioned veggie scraps.
Because there are already eggs in the mix, there’s no real reason to continue on with the scrambled for breakfasts 5-7. These are also great with applesauce, sour cream, mustard, all manner of condiments. Go nuts!
In both of these breakfast plans, you see that Christine has offered options that legitimately do take a few days to start getting tired of, and that she’s maximized the potential nutritive value of each dish. She also reminds us that you can do more home-style hash browns, frying cubes instead of grated potatoes. That seems like a tiny, tiny change to make, but it’s in those tiny details that we dodge appetite fatigue when on an extremely limited diet. What she’s got going on here works perfectly on the appetite fatigue front, and especially since they’re easy to make small changes to that switch up the overarching feel of the same-same. If you’re doing potato pancakes, you also can do them with grated potato for textural variation.
Another option for breakfasts that I understand not happening because it’s happening for lunches is breakfast tacos. I think in most places that have a breakfast in a tortilla option, that’s going to be burritos. But in Texas, tacos. The tacos are better, in my experience. If you’ve got some bacon, sausage, or chorizo, toss it in your taco alongside the eggs! Fried onions are nice, and so are beans. Potatoes are a super popular option. I like them best with bacon, potato, egg, and cheese.
Thank you, Christine! No attribution on this one, to my increasing shame.
Thank You
Why am I thanking Christine right now? Because after the Knorr beans business, I did make them that way. Well, sort of. I made them the same as I always do, except I added a couple tablespoons of Knorr bouillon from my jar.
Thank you! The addition of Knorr was fabulous, and I was told to keep on with that by Ross and CT.
While on the subject of Knorr: if you’ve got some bouillon (brand is irrelevant, and I usually prefer the generic brand of Wyler’s for what’s coming), this has a ton of potential for some real low cost “ramen. Or fideo. It’s mostly lazy fideo for me, but I always call it ramen even though it isn’t. Basically, though, I toss a tablespoon or two of La Moderna pasta (the stuff that costs about a quarter in the Hispanic aisle) in a coffee mug, add some bouillon, sometimes some fresh or dehydrated veggies and/or meat, and boiling water. Then I let it sit covered for 3 minutes, per your standard Cup of Noodles type methods. At its fanciest, it costs me about a quarter to make the entire mug if I’ve added the meat and produce. Costs 8-10 cents if I don’t.
So just keep that in mind if you need a fast and cheap lunch. The video below will show you how to do it properly. Pay attention to the import of toasting the fideo; it’s the reason I call my lazy soups ramen instead of fideo: no toasting happens when I’ve got a coffee mug involved. Proper fideo is also insanely inexpensive to make, but it comes with a comfort food hug. The coffee mug version offers no hugs.
Lunches!
All that “thank you for the Knorr” business becomes more relevant in this segment, when we’re looking at a lot of beans and potatoes. In tacos!
As much as I don’t want to say this, the Season-All is an illegal item in the video. If you guys have to choose one spice other than salt, pepper, and blend packets, some version of seasoned salt is the optimal starting point. I prefer Season-All over all the others I’ve tried since I grew up with it, but most families have a specific brand they like. It’s the optimal starting point in your spice acquisition, no matter the brand, because it offers you a number of spices that work really well for a wide range of recipes at a cost far lower than you would pay if you had to buy each spice in there.
Ross uses seasoned salt more than anything else other than cumin, and I tend to use it when I’m not feeling like dealing with a bunch of jars of spices. Sometimes also when I am, as I know Season-All is in that matzo brei blend I make. So I’m glad this bit of cheating happened, bc the ways in which seasoned salts react differently with different ingredients makes it a powerful tool for dodging appetite fatigue. That’s what we’re all about.
A Small Gripe
I wouldn’t have this complaint if flour hadn’t appeared in the potato pancakes (instead of potato starch, which is what you’d likely need if you didn’t have flour), but because it did, I don’t understand why potato bread didn’t happen. It could have offered more diversity in the way those potatoes manifested in the meals, including the option for toast with dinner’s potato cheese soup. Also most of the meals could increase caloric content with bread. That said, bread baking requires more work than some people have or want to devote to the kitchen, so if that’s you then don’t sweat the small stuff (AKA bread).
Actually, I may’ve brought this up anyway, because you can totally make potato bread without flour. Irish farls are a type of skillet bread. Originally, these were made with oats, similar to oat bannock/cakes made in other nations. Over time, potatoes of course got in the mix, and the basic manner of doing these is to mix up an equal volume (roughly) of mashed potatoes, oat flour (grind up your rolled oats in the blender), butter, and egg. And then of course that oat flour later adapted to wheat. I’d throw some salt in there, personally, if you’re going this route. But keep in mind that peoples all over the world have made some form of bread without glutenous flours and other foods, and that includes those in potato-dependent societies.
This is a lovely little video from Townsends for potato bread, which was commonly eaten in the States during the 1797 wheat shortage. It also uses flour with the potatoes, but you can certainly swap out the wheat flour with something else and go on along with your GF baking life.
Back to Lunch
Lunches for days 1 and 2 were beans and rice, which is an excellent meal. Filling, nutritious, gives you what you need. Days 3-5 are bean and potato tacos. Also excellent, also filling and gives you what you need. The last two days are the chili topped baked potatoes, and my opinion on this is the same as the other two meals. What I think is good to note here, whether you’ve got cheese to spice it up with or not, is that these are heart comfort foods. Comfort foods are called that for a reason: they’re comforting. It’s not really that they’re hearty, as not all comfort foods are, but rather than they give you a little soul hug while they’re letting you know that your belly is satisfied with something nourishing. Since I am now editing this post to finish it after the storm, comfort is on my mind because so many millions went without any for so many days. Indulge in comfort food, and especially when you’re creating meals intended to help you avoid the extra suffering involved in appetite fatigue.
I really appreciate that Christine takes the time to say how long her Instant Pot needs to do whatever it is she’s doing. I am a reluctant user or electricity-based pressure cookers, so I don’t always know the times for things I want to check out in there and also don’t always know where my manual is to look it up.
What a pretty dinner spread! Stephanie McCabe/Getty
Dinners!
First up is of course in my favorite category, more tacos! Potato and chorizo tacos are all the yes, as I mentioned earlier. They’re also pretty easy to make and can be seasoned in a variety of ways, so if you lack the wherewithal to deal with more complex taco making practices, this is your guy right here. These tacos are for dinners 1-2. If you still have beans and want to stretch them further, do it. Also if you don’t have sour cream for your tacos and wish you did, yogurt is also fine to use. Her use of the air fryer almost makes me want one. ALMOST.
Next up, for dinners 3-5 are the potato and cheese soup! It is my personal belief that wherever possible, soups and stews are the ideal for meals. In fact, I have a produce bin-cleaning chicken and rice stew on the stove right now! What is lovely about this type of meal is that not only do you maximize the things you might have less of (meat, produce) and it also holds all the nutrition from them. Nothing is lost because it stays in the broth! So on account of that, highly recommend incorporating stews and soups everywhere possible, and especially when you’re experiencing or at risk of appetite fatigue.
Rice isn’t in here yet, but will be around the time Ross leaves work today. Child Tester asked me for chicken soup, and she also asked me to use a can so I didn’t have to dig around in the freezer for a package of chicken. I really appreciated that, like a lot. That’s what I did. This is probably around 5-6 quarts of soup in here and I used only the one can. Also a can of broth becau… actually, I don’t know why. We’re on a boil notice and I obviously am going to boil this, so I don’t know why I didn’t use tap water. I had 2 carrots that grew roots, ditto a parsnip, a bunch of dodgy mushrooms, a turnip that grew greens during the storm (those went in there, too), some kraut slaw because no fresh cabbage on hand, olive oil, salt, pepper, about 2 tablespoons of kimchi I found in the back of the fridge that I minced to use as spice, leftover corn from a clam meal from Long John Silver’s right before the storm, and 4 dodgy tomatoes. My sole goal from this soup other than to give CT what she wanted was to use up produce that would’ve already been cooked this week were it not for the storm making me not want to open the fridge. I may of course be forgetting something that’s in here, but this is largely bits and bobs of whatever, a can of chicken, some broth (or water, or beer, or or or), and some rice a half hour before I want to eat. The only spices I used other than the kimchi were salt and pepper. I might add a bay leaf after I save this part of the post.
I did add 2 bay leaves. I also forgot that I had put a bunch of roughly chopped garlic cloves in there, but just remembered. Probably 15 or so.
In case you wondered, (sometimes watery) soups, stews, and other pottages are the historical norm for a lot of eating. People now tend to primitivize this, which you see a lot of evidence of when you watch historicized TV. It’s always these gross looking pottages that are beige or grey, with signs of lots of grains and probably little, if anything, else. Did some people eat this way? Definitely. But largely, you see this particular style of cooking happen with a mind toward maximizing the resources available. Grain is but a part of that.
It also doesn’t help that in historical literature, you see soups and stews billed as the only thing poor people should eat. This is actually not being recommended due to class specifically, but rather due to the very real need to lose none of the nutrition in the foods you have. Draining things and so forth does cause you to lose part of your food in the water that goes down the sink. I’d love to see the delicious things that were possible and actually done on very little featured more regularly in TV. Not gonna happen, but it’s okay to want things.
These don’t have to be gross, and they don’t have to taste the same every day. Even if you don’t have spices. What you put in them is the spice, so if you have an inch of onion left, toss it in! Bit of carrot? Same! Whatever the “it” you have odds and ends of are perfect for this application, ensuring everyone gets to benefit from the flavor and the nutritive profile of each ingredient. These variations make it very much not taste like you’re eating the same thing every day, even if in essence you are. I think if my family would go for it, I probably wouldn’t ever cook much beyond soups and stews. Even still, they are a dominant and regular feature on my menu. Mostly because they’re economical, yum, and comforting. Just what you need at the end of a long day!
I was really happy to see Christine ensure soup was part of this. MOAR SOUP!!!!
Full disclosure: I have to actually be hungry to eat these. Real hunger, not “I didn’t eat today” hunger. There are a ton of versions of this, and they’re all super sound options that everyone I know except me likes. If we’re being fair, I’m not a fan of cream-based sauces for textural reasons, so I tend to only eat tomato based casseroles.
That said, these are an unendingly fantastic choice for people who like them, are at risk of or experiencing appetite fatigue, and are always cheap to make. If you have milk and some flour, make your own cream of soup to save some money on the cans. If you don’t? Buy the cans. What is spectacular about this specific casserole is that it truly is flexible. Any kind of potato you have can be used, even if it seems different than what you should be using. Cubed, mashed, shredded, whatever. It doesn’t really matter, because all you’re trying to do is enter some deliciousness into your belly. You can also customize based on other items you’ve got, and should do so if the opportunity is there and it suits you. These are dinners 6-7.
Oh, also: if you have some wilty lettuce or any other green, toss it in here, too. Or anything, really. You can cook lettuce, if you didn’t know. I often do just that when I want greens but only have the rabbit’s lettuce. He doesn’t mind sharing, as he’s a pretty chill and good natured bun.
Wrapping up
I really appreciate having such a perfect video to do loose analysis on, and again I thank Christine for the invaluable resources she produces for people. If this is the only video of hers you’ve ever seen, I hope you’ll “like and subscribe” her channel so you can see the other interesting ways in which she teaches people how to do much with little.
What I really want to stress beyond that, though, is that I generally find that the principle key to dodging appetite fatigue is understanding your resources. I would take a critical look at all the food in your house and see what kinds of unconventional uses you can come up with for each of them. This can involve stepping away from recipes and experimenting, but it doesn’t have to. There are a lot of websites these days that allow you to enter what you have into their site and get a bunch of recipes to fit your list. Apps too.
Lastly, if you are in this situation and you need some advice, shoot me an email. I’d love to help.
