mishafletcher:

hi! the book is written to be as accessible as possible. everything is pretty flexible, i remind you repeatedly that you can use different ingredients so that the recipes work for you, and you need minimal equipment. at the very start of the book, i suggest that you have, at a minimum, dishes and silverware (paper and plastic are fine), a way to heat things, something to heat things in, a bowl, and a knife. you can do most of the recipes with just that.

if you want to get fancy, things that make cooking and eating easier (in my opinion) are a cutting board, measuring cups, large spoons, mugs, a spatula, a grater, a stick blender, and a food processor. not the fancy kinds, to be clear–the kinds that are cheap and easily rinsed clean, because i’m not taking apart a twenty-piece appliance every time i have to eat.

the recipes are pretty varied. the first part of the book is recipes that require no cooking at all–like, you usually don’t even need a microwave. there’s a page each of potential combinations for smoothies and sandwiches, a bunch of salads (most of which don’t rely on greens or pasta), dips that are substantial and (mostly) healthy enough to eat as meals, plus a couple other recipes that don’t fit in any of those categories, but don’t require cooking.

the second part is food that requires some cooking, but not a ton. there’s a section on pasta (focusing on toppings that you can make easily in the time it takes your pasta to cook), rice (which, honestly, i mostly buy in pre-made packets at the supermarket), oats, things on toast, and soups that take like ten minutes total. 

‘that sounds really carb heavy,’ you say, ‘and like a lot of work.’ which could be true, but there’s no reason you have to cook wheat noodles when there’s a wide world of bean noodles, vegetable noodles, rice noodles, precooked noodles, and basically hundreds of other kinds of noodles available. it’s mentioned in the book, but i’ll say it here, too: you should absolutely use the noodles (or the cauliflower rice, or the quinoa, or gluten-free bread) that works for you, personally. 

the third part of the book is cooking things that takes very little hands-on time, but some netflix watching while your food cooks in the other room. more importantly, the third part of the book also has lists of easy ways to use the meat, beans, or potatoes that you’ve just cooked a bunch of. 

the last two parts are short, and are about baking and desserts. it’s not super extensive, in part because baking often is pretty fussy about timing, and in part because i feel like motivating myself to make brownies is somehow much easier than motivating myself to cook supper, and i assume this is true for everyone. brownies are delicious. 

finally, a sample recipe, copied verbatim from the soup section. (worth noting: prior to this, there are discussions of stock and stock alternatives. the short version is that i love me a

bouillon cube.)

Shitty Soup

This soup isn’t actually shitty—it’s actually nice,
and I eat it a lot—but we started calling it shitty soup, and the name’s stuck.

For one person, bring just under two cups of stock to
a boil.

Add about 2 Tbsp of pastina. When the pasta is nearly
done (which is only like, two minutes), crack in an egg and turn the pot to a
simmer. After about two minutes of simmering, add some sort of veggie—shredded
carrots, fresh or frozen spinach, frozen peas—and let it cook for another
minute. Tada! You’ve made soup.

You can change this up, and don’t have to include all
three bits—pasta and a few veggies, or just an egg boiled in stock, is great,
and totally a meal. I give all three components mainly so there’s a note about
timing.

There are a million variations on this—add tomato
paste or sesame oil, add other veggies, cook the egg to different degrees of
doneness, etc. You can add a little cheese at the end, or a handful of (rinsed)
tinned beans, or shreds of previously cooked meat. But at its most basic, broth
+ something else = soup, which is a meal that you can totally manage to make
for yourself in under ten minutes, and then you can smugly tell the internet
that you’re sure that what they’re having is nice and all, but you’re having
homemade soup. And let’s be honest—most nights, this soup is not good enough to
justify that, but who cares.
Sometimes you gotta take what you can get.

(obligatory buy links: amazon, gumroad, barnes and noble)