Overcatering

[simont]

I cooked a big stew yesterday evening, which will probably feed me for most of the week.

I never actually decided to do my cooking like that; it sort of grew over a period of years. When I started cooking for myself a few years ago I acquired a couple of lark_ascending's easy stew recipes I remembered from when we were going out, which were originally intended to serve two; but every time I shopped for ingredients I always came back with slightly more than I needed (‘just in case’), and once the stews started getting big enough to feed me for three days instead of two I thought that was actually quite useful (cooking for myself is annoying, so having to do it less often is pleasant) and started intentionally trying to buy for three days, and then overestimated again… At some point the stews began to overflow the saucepan, and my response was to go and buy a bigger saucepan.

This week I went somewhat out of control in the Sainsburys vegetable section. (I find it easy to overbuy vegetables because there's no guilt pressure working against it – after all, veg are good for you, right? So more veg must be better than less.) When I came to cook the stew I discovered it wouldn't all fit in the saucepan – and this was an enormous 4-litre casserole pan from the top end of the John Lewis range and if you can buy a larger one anywhere short of institutional-catering suppliers I don't know about it. Fortunately it all fitted in the pan once the veg had reduced a bit, but it was touch and go.

Well, they say the first step in kicking a bad habit is to admit you have a problem. So I hereby confess that I am a compulsive overcaterer and cannot be trusted to buy vegetables in manageably small quantities.

I think that perhaps it's time I abandoned the practice of judging veg quantities in the supermarket by instinct, and started setting myself a weight guideline and sticking to it. This is getting beyond a joke.

Comments

[pm215]

Do you freeze portions, or do you just eat the same thing four days on the trot?

[simont]

Usually the latter, although I'll occasionally freeze a portion to use as an emergency food if some future catering plan falls through. It's a little bit tedious, but it's not nearly as tedious as having to bloody well cook every day.

I would probably freeze more if my freezer were appreciably larger than a shoebox. Although possibly even then I'd find the process of defrosting to be more annoying and tedious than eating the same thing four days running...

[mair_in_grenderich]

Or, y'know, don't cook all the vegetables at once? Tip some of them into a bowl in the fridge to cook... uh, next week?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

Do you find a week's supply of stew too much? AFAICT it's a fairly nice way of going on. Admittedly you need to stop creeping up.

[sparrowsion]

IRTA as "Over-cat-ering". Possibly because I currently have a cat looking at me with a "Why have you got something that isn't me on your lap?" expression.

Yesterday's lunchtime shop not only included the novel experience of finding the litter, but a large vegetable shop (anything other than mushrooms and a red pepper, and possibly some potatoes, is outside my normal remit). Including taking guesses at things I don't eat (apples, so at least I have a good idea about quantity if not variety). And none of my usual fresh pasta, pizza etc. Which meant that instead of stuffing the fridge at work when I got back, I had one block of cheese to deal with….

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I have a pressure cooker that I don't think I've ever used as a pressure cooker, just as a Really Big saucepan. It's what I cook casseroles and stews and soup in, as well as if I'm cooking pasta for more than 3 or so people.

[new-brunette.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's not a wise solution to suggest something other than "don't buy so much", but you can get catering-sized cooking equipment from Bob Hopper, on the corner of Milton Rd and Arbury Rd.

[dave holland (from livejournal.com)]

You could try getting your veg delivered in a box scheme rather than buying them at the supermarket.

[teleute.livejournal.com]

My trick (which usually over estimates by about 50%, but I take this into account) is to look at a portion of veg I know feeds two (or one, or whatever). E.g. I know the size of a head of brocoli that feeds two, I know one carrot is a good portion of carrot for one etc. Then I estimate from that to work out how many portions of veg I have in hand.

Then, usually, I add them all together on the 'more-veg-must-be-good' principle that you mentioned above. But I'm sure if I could follow through this would work ;-)

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Good grief, that's better than even I manage :) Well done sir!