M. Suzanne Terry

Yep. I feel that. I miss you, sunny, happy mug of yore.

This is the third time I’ve started this post. The laptop I’m using has that annoying button between the G, H, and B. I’m sure there’s some noble reason it’s there, like some accessibility purpose, but it is the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. Twice I have typed out this post. Twice, a subtle breeze from my finger has blown over said button as I was typing in its vicinity, which was clearly its cue to erase everything immediately. And WordPress helpfully saves the very last draft…which was nothing. *sigh* So now I’m typing in Word, where I can save properly on my own terms, and we’ll see how it goes. Third time’s the charm? Who really knows if you’ll ever read this.

This experience perfectly sums up my life right now. It’s nice that I’m able to type to you on an actual keyboard in the comfort of my home office. I’ll be musing over that fondly, and then suddenly…blank page like I didn’t do anything at all and have to either quit or start all over.

[Sometimes I quit. It’s okay. You can quit some things sometimes.]

I figure I’m feeling this way because *gestures broadly* but also because I’ve been making some positive changes, and some of the habits I already had established don’t know what to do with that. For example, I’m usually pretty up for cooking any given night. But lately, on a lot of nights, it’s cereal and probably also ice cream while bingeing Revenge (I’m on the Justin-Hartley-shirtless-punching-a-speedbag episode. 10/10, highly recommend, and you’re welcome), and I may eat the cereal dry out of the box because bowls are too much work and they refuse to clean themselves (rude).

So here are some food hacks that I’ve found helpful in keeping me from eating four boxes of cereal a week (problematic because you know I do not buy the sensible, healthy kind) and maybe you will find them helpful, too.

1. Big batch meals. Specifically, I’m really into pasta skillets these days. My favorite is a cheeseburger skillet that I base loosely on this Budget Bytes recipe (you can sub black beans if you don’t have/eat meat, but add garlic and a little chili powder if you do. You know what? Add garlic and chili powder anyway. Garlic and chili powder and whatever other spices you use on your homemade hamburgers are delicious.) You can turn anything into a one-pot skillet meal. Tacos. Pizza. Egg rolls. Options abound. And it makes a lot that you can tuck away in your fridge (or freezer) in serving-size, microwaveable containers for nights when you would rather snack on a handful of gravel than cook something for real.
2. Soups. Normally, I don’t feel the urge for soup unless temps are at least down to the 60s outside. But this is 2020. Up is down. Dr. Pepper is scarce in Texas. I eat soup in summer. My current favorite is the red lentil soup from Marsha Mehran’s Pomegranate Soup. Lots of onions, red lentils, garlic, turmeric, cumin, nigella seeds (I didn’t have any but subbed by going a little heavy on the cumin and adding some freshly ground black pepper, and that was fine), broth. Let it simmer for a half hour while you crisp up even more onions (like…crisp, crisp. Crunchy crisp) to use as a garnish. Simple and also amazing. And it makes a ton. I suppose that makes soup another example of a big batch meal and thus better suited for the first category, but this is not the time to point that out, reader. We’ve gone too far to go back now. It’s done. The point is written. Let’s move on.
3. Enchiladas. My very favorite way to make enchiladas is to pretend I have a family to feed and order a big pan of them to pick up curbside at Milpa, which I can then graze on for days. As an added bonus, I grab a couple of their specialty frozen margaritas – one for me, one for my imaginary partner who graciously insists I drink them both. But if I’m at home and not wanting to leave but also not wanting to prep and then roll a pan of enchiladas, I use a hack I learned from my friend Michelle (*waves*). Frozen taquitos, enchilada sauce, and cheese. My favorite combo is currently the chicken taquitos, tomatillo salsa, and an abrasively sharp white cheddar. Layer it in a pan and bake it. That’s it. If I’m feeling some extra don’t-wannas, I just throw a few frozen taquitos on a plate and cover them in sauce and cheese and microwave it. Takes two minutes. Little soggy if you get too liberal with the sauce, but a margarita made with frozen limeade (or your juice of choice) and a healthy pour of tequila and triple sec will make you not care about that at all.

There are other ideas, but I feel like I’ve given you sufficient insight into my current state. Feel free to drop more food hacks in the comments. Or recommend your favorite cereal combos (because you mix them up, right? DO IT.). Or a cocktail you think I should try (note: if “muddle” or some similar high-maintenance nonsense is in the instructions, I’m gonna go ahead and look forward to trying that for the first time at your house in the future. Thanks in advance for the invitation.).

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