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Old 09-02-2015, 08:04 PM
 
Location: Our own little Loonyverse
238 posts, read 226,330 times
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Everyone is on different schedules and adults in my home at this time, we eat when we are hungry and what we want, not necessarily meals, a lot more snacking, depending on moods. When others are around we offer to fix for them as well, but traditional meals just don't happen often.

When my grandson spends weekends here, or comes over during the week we try to keep his routine the same as my daughter does at home so he's not all out of whack (with the *fun* foods his mom doesn't often serve so it's still special - with her approval, of course).
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Old 09-02-2015, 11:22 PM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,305,619 times
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When I'm on my own, I don't necessarily follow a schedule. When we're doing family meals, I prefer the structure of set mealtimes.
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Old 09-03-2015, 02:04 AM
 
Location: Texas Hill Country
23,485 posts, read 13,722,369 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hedgehog_Mom View Post
.........If you want a stew or something that is improved with a long cooking time, why not get a crock pot and put the food in before you go to work? That way when you get home, your house will be full of the aroma of dinner and you'll be happy knowing you don't have to cook after a long day of work. Plus, there will be leftovers and you could probably have a couple days of lunches for work from the leftovers. You'll get to an age where eating canned spaghetti doesn't agree with your digestive system, probably.
About crock pots: generally, because I don't want to leave cooking elements in an active cycle when I'm not in the house for concerns about fire.

As far as left overs go, those will only occur when I'm using beef.....and so much of my diet is fish/seafood based. I was taught by Mom that fish has a MAX of 24 hours once it is put into use before it must be tossed because of food poisoning concerns. She was horrified when she found out I was making "fish rolls" (calzone with a canned fish) to eat during the week.

When I do make a beef stew, I will have left overs in a pitcher in the fridge for 2 or 3 days. Right now, however, the only "beef" I am cooking with is brisket since I have found it to be economical and tasty; the prep and start up costs gets one attention, however.

As things go, I have only been eating canned spaghetti since about 2011. I really didn't know about the stuff before then (yes, my boss too was shocked when he heard that). It's a standby, perhaps even an "emergency ration", item, I carry two cans in the bottom of my pack. It's also an item that is not used that often since when I have "spaghetti" at home, I'm using the stuff in "bags" and am going rather grand with the sauce such as cooking with wine, spices, Feta............and some kind of fish. Tomato and meat balls in the can, but on the stove top, it is wine and fish.

Quote:
Originally Posted by froglipz View Post
Breakfast around 10:30 - 11:00am , no lunch, dinner around 6:30-7:00pm But we are retired so not tied to a "work" determined schedule. Highly recommend the freedom of retirement and lack of actual schedules.
I attribute a great deal of my background stress to not having a schedule at all, so I am trying constantly to trying to establish one. Having suffered from the decades of day people not understanding what it is to be a night worker, the best I can do is to get a temporary schedule for 2-3 weeks which is then disrupted by the needs of the day people. One might say, "Oh, but it is only one day," but when the past quarter century of your life is racked with such events, every such event as I try to achieve a schedule is seen as a major intrusion. The "best" option there is to not dwell on it, not think about it, compensate as best as possible even though there is the realization that I am not obtaining a solution. An alternate option is to live dynamically, where the basic functions of eating and sleeping are achieved, but everything else tends to take a very back seat........and I'm trying to dig myself out of a decade or more of clutter that built up because of that (much of it boxed right now in the garage).

I believe a schedule is necessary. So often, I tend to go on batteries (like a diesel submarine), where I will go for hours without eating, perhaps pushing things off because I have an activity coming up, pulling from my internal energy reserves of one kind (actual) or another (mind over matter). The problem with that is....it's feast or famine.

Today I was thinking about maybe adding breakfast back to my life, such as when I get up before work, on those nights when I sleep in the evening before work, so at least on some nights I am in some degree of synch. On the short range, I probably could cook up some pancakes and store them in the fridge or such to be heated up. I better add right here that I'm weird in that the most I will have with my pancakes is butter; I don't use syrup. On the long range, I need to get a cookbook for breakfasts, preferably a European one because I am 80% more likely to have fish for breakfast than beef. Pancakes more than eggs, rolled oats more than cereal. For various reasons, I am more likely to cook than to use frozen boxed prepared foods.

As far as "lunch" goes, well, salad in a baggie is not a bad thing!

Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 09-03-2015 at 02:33 AM..
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Old 09-03-2015, 02:50 AM
 
Location: San Antonio, TX
11,495 posts, read 26,747,509 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah View Post
About crock pots: generally, because I don't want to leave cooking elements in an active cycle when I'm not in the house for concerns about fire.

As far as left overs go, those will only occur when I'm using beef.....and so much of my diet is fish/seafood based. I was taught by Mom that fish has a MAX of 24 hours once it is put into use before it must be tossed because of food poisoning concerns. She was horrified when she found out I was making "fish rolls" (calzone with a canned fish) to eat during the week.

When I do make a beef stew, I will have left overs in a pitcher in the fridge for 2 or 3 days. Right now, however, the only "beef" I am cooking with is brisket since I have found it to be economical and tasty; the prep and start up costs gets one attention, however.

As things go, I have only been eating canned spaghetti since about 2011. I really didn't know about the stuff before then (yes, my boss too was shocked when he heard that). It's a standby, perhaps even an "emergency ration", item, I carry two cans in the bottom of my pack. It's also an item that is not used that often since when I have "spaghetti" at home, I'm using the stuff in "bags" and am going rather grand with the sauce such as cooking with wine, spices, Feta............and some kind of fish. Tomato and meat balls in the can, but on the stove top, it is wine and fish.



I attribute a great deal of my background stress to not having a schedule at all, so I am trying constantly to trying to establish one. Having suffered from the decades of day people not understanding what it is to be a night worker, the best I can do is to get a temporary schedule for 2-3 weeks which is then disrupted by the needs of the day people. One might say, "Oh, but it is only one day," but when the past quarter century of your life is racked with such events, every such event as I try to achieve a schedule is seen as a major intrusion. The "best" option there is to not dwell on it, not think about it, compensate as best as possible even though there is the realization that I am not obtaining a solution. An alternate option is to live dynamically, where the basic functions of eating and sleeping are achieved, but everything else tends to take a very back seat........and I'm trying to dig myself out of a decade or more of clutter that built up because of that (much of it boxed right now in the garage).

I believe a schedule is necessary. So often, I tend to go on batteries (like a diesel submarine), where I will go for hours without eating, perhaps pushing things off because I have an activity coming up, pulling from my internal energy reserves of one kind (actual) or another (mind over matter). The problem with that is....it's feast or famine.

Today I was thinking about maybe adding breakfast back to my life, such as when I get up before work, on those nights when I sleep in the evening before work, so at least on some nights I am in some degree of synch. On the short range, I probably could cook up some pancakes and store them in the fridge or such to be heated up. I better add right here that I'm weird in that the most I will have with my pancakes is butter; I don't use syrup. On the long range, I need to get a cookbook for breakfasts, preferably a European one because I am 80% more likely to have fish for breakfast than beef. Pancakes more than eggs, rolled oats more than cereal. For various reasons, I am more likely to cook than to use frozen boxed prepared foods.

As far as "lunch" goes, well, salad in a baggie is not a bad thing!
I've been using a crock pot on low while I wasn't home for about 20 years now. Never had any problems. I wouldn't leave it on high, but the low setting is fine. My mom always used a crock pot too, that's probably where I got the habit, and she's never burned her house down using it. Now she's switched to a microwave pressure cooker, but she's only cooking for two people, so she doesn't have to cook much at one time.

Besides the beef stew, you could make a good pot roast or a nice pot of chili. Grab a Jiffy cornbread mix, make cornbread muffins to go with your chili, it's delicious. I've been seeing the shoulder roast go on sale at HEB for $3/lb lately, that and the boneless beef ribs, which are both delicious in the crock pot. You can also cook a bunch of boneless skinless chicken breast, shred it and freeze it in serving-size bags to use in meals or on salads later.

If you make a bunch of pancakes to use later, freeze them in a single layer on parchment paper, then store them all in a bag when they're frozen solid. Or if you don't have space for that, put a double layer of parchment between them and stack to freeze...the double layer will come apart easily when you want to separate them.

Your random schedule changes sound like what happens to my husband. In his case, he likes the overtime
but he doesn't consider what weeks without enough rest will do to him. I make sure he's fed, has clean clothes, and gets woken up at the right times to go to work. Without me as his pit crew, it would probably be a lot more difficult for him to manage all the schedule changes and extra hours.

About lunch, a Greek yogurt and some cottage cheese makes a very filling lunch with plenty of protein, as long as you can eat dairy.

My kids love spaghetti in a can (and Ramen noodles) but as I've gotten closer to 40, I can't eat that kind of stuff without getting sick anymore.
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Old 09-03-2015, 06:11 AM
 
Location: Backwoods of Maine
7,485 posts, read 10,438,886 times
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I also have an unusual schedule, but my wife doesn't. We are both retired.

I am up at 4:30 am, which is dark outside most of the year. I have hundreds of poultry to tend. Wife does not get up until about 6 am; that's the time that I make breakfast - fresh home-grown eggs, bacon or sausage, berries and cream, sometimes pancakes or French toast. It's a big meal.

We usually go our separate ways during the day. I really don't know what she has for a mid-day meal, or what time, unless she's at home. I'm usually outdoors working, or fishing on the lake, and rarely have anything except fruit or some cheese. I'm just not hungry.

Dinner is at around 5 to 6 pm. It doesn't really matter, as we don't eat a big meal. It's mostly a chance to sit at the table and talk about the adventures of the day. Sometimes she'll whip up a small pizza, which I bake in my outdoor oven. I'm asleep by 8:30 to 9 pm, while she stays up till about 11 pm. I don't know if she eats anything else later, but I doubt it.
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