Ideas for Cold Food

My SO is now working nights, so I’m trying to get some cold foodstuffs together that can be left in the fridge and eaten immediately when he gets back!

I’ve got some cold marinated chicken, pork, and noodles/sliced veggies/eggs, but that’s about the limit of my repertoire.

Can anybody recommend anything?

Cold salads
A variety of meats in aspic (see, e.g. Child et al. on French cooking)
Ratatouille
Gaspacho (and a variety of other chilled soups, e.g. vichyssoise, or Sopa fria de camaron (chilled shrimp soup)
Spanish tortilla
Moussaka
Hummus and/or Cacik (tzatziki)with pita, carrot or celery sticks or breadsticks
Htipiti - Feta and Roasted Red Pepper Dip
quiche
Spinach cheese bread, ham & cheese bread, etc.
Dolmathakia

Champignons à la Grecque (simmered 10 min. in an aromatic broth of water, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, minced shallot, and in a cheesecloth bundle, parsley, celery or cel. Seeds, fennel (fresh or seeds), thyme, peppercorns, and coriander seeds; remove shrooms, then reduce the broth until almost a syrup. Correct the seasoning, strain, and pour atop the mushrooms. This can also be done with other vegetables, although the initial cooking for the veg. will vary)

Pommes de terre à l’huile: scrub then boil taters till tender. Peel and cut. Put in mixing bowl. Add 4 T dry white wine, 2 T stock, and toss very gently. Set aside. Meanwhile, beat 2 T white wine vinegar, or 1 T each vinegar and lemon juice, 1 tsp prepared mustard, ¼ tsp salt, then beat in 6 T olive oil by droplets. Season to taste with S&P; optionally add minced shallots. Pour over the still warm potatoes and toss gently to blend. Garnish with chopped mixed green herbs or parsley, cover and chill.

Thon à la provençal (tuna or swordfish baked with tomatoes, wine and herbs, then served cold.

Any broiled, sautéed or roasted chicken or duck dish
Ham braised in wine
Salmon souffle
Pizza
Pasta in creamy white sauce or cheese sauce
Apple pie, brownies etc.

For me being greeted daily with cold food is grounds for divorce, but that being said sushi can be pretty good (specially if it comes with a hot bowl of misoshiru). Along with a small portion of soba.

But taiwan has so many eateries right on your street nearly 24/7. Id pop over to one of those places and grab a bite BEFORE i got home if Im getting cold this and cold that everyday.

It will be "honey, no worries, i will pick something up on my way home… you want anything? "

[quote=“tommy525”]For me being greeted daily with cold food is grounds for divorce, but that being said sushi can be pretty good (specially if it comes with a hot bowl of misoshiru). Along with a small portion of soba.

But taiwan has so many eateries right on your street nearly 24/7. Id pop over to one of those places and grab a bite BEFORE i got home if Im getting cold this and cold that everyday.

It will be "honey, no worries, i will pick something up on my way home… you want anything? "[/quote]

XD

I ain’t getting up at 5am to cook, and he’s tired when he gets back and doesn’t want to cook either! I’ve made sure there are quite a few things that you can cook within about 10 minutes, but it’s good to have something immediate in the fridge that you can either nibble on, eat as a meal or add as a side accompaniment to whatever main dish you’re having. It’s not just him eating them, on that note, and we also don’t have a microwave so I can’t make riceboxes to just heat up.

There are a couple of 24 hour places, but I can only think of two between here and his work and they’re both biandang serve-yourself style, not so fantastic places. Oh, and a few breakfast places.

I am making an effort to cook dinner at nights so we can eat together for the one or two hours that we have together.

Dragonbones, some of those ideas are FABULOUS! Especially the potatoes one. The cold pasta idea is interesting - wouldn’t it congeal?

EDIT: My fridge now has tamagoyaki, soumen sauce and northern chinese chicken, pork and dougan. Northern Chinese sauces are all surprisingly similar, apparently @.@; So far so good, though!

Does anyone know a local Taiwanese way of flavouring dougan?

That’s just fancy tater salad–which sounds great, BTW. But I was going to say something more like a po’man’s dish for same.

Deviled eggs.

Cold fruit plate or salad.

Tuna/chicken/turkey salad can all be sandwiched by a tired new husband, or used as celery spear spackle–an alternative to peanut butter, which is also a good, classic choice.

Cold cuts? If you can get them, I guess. With cheese and crackers.

BLT? (Drain bacon well) Men LOVE bacon. (I love bacon, too, but secure enough in my feminity.)

Anyway, some markedly less gourmet options that Mrs. Child might not want to be held responsible for, but that might be quick, easy, and fairly average guy friendly.

Make his coming home a ‘special time’…

+

…and wear something sexy… :discodance:

The cold pasta I make has some tuna -simple or with veggies-, mayo, Worchestershire sauce, capers if available, a touch of mustard. Back home they add finely chopped onions, preferably the red ones. Can change the pasta for potatoes.

Or a simple potato salad, with diced apples or eggs and peas. Try this: add diced canned beets.

When I was in college, I got a rice cooker you can program to have the rice ready at certain time. You leave the ingredients in the morning and voila, when you get home you have hot, freshly made rice. Then I opened a can of sardines, some salad, maybe heta up some beans, and that was it. This kind of rice cooker is not that expensive anymore, 2K wil do. I can’t stand mocrowaved food. :stuck_out_tongue:

Depends what kind of sauce you use. If you add a little extra milk to the sauce so it’s thinner it should be okay.

OR just search for recipes for cold pasta salads or cold potato salads and try those sauces. If you don’t care for mayo you can use a Campbell’s Cream of Whatever (mushroom works well) plus milk or water to get a quick, flavorful white sauce. Cook it, using only 60% as much water as it calls for, and you get a sauce instead of a soup. Chill that, add it to cold pasta with a can of tuna or chicken (Costco) and you have an easy dish which can be eaten hot or cold. To jazz it up just saute some onions, garlic and/or mushrooms and dried or fresh herbs then add the can of soup and the partial water while cooking the pasta on the side.

A bowl of cereal with milk.

Korean kimchi. Pretty cheap. Good hot or cold. No prep. Healthy with a kick to it.

Greek salad. Dice tomatoes, red peppers, red onion, garlic, cucumber and olives (optional) and a glove of garlic. Premix olive oil, salt, teaspoon of good mustard, garlic, lemon, pepper and vinegar (sushi vinegar has a nice sweetness if he likes that; also mixing several vinegars is nice) and then toss in the veggies. Mix and add feta cheese and fresh pepper.

Pasta salad (use some kind of shell). Can use the same dressing base as above and even the same basic ingredients. Can also toss in shredded lettuce, carrot, those cactus lead thingees, and bamboo shoots.

Pesto pasta salad (use spaghetti) Use Costco’s pesto. Add tablespoon to tuna or salmon. Mix in a little vinegar and oil, red onion, and garlic. Slice (in long pieces) cucumber, red pepper, cactus, lettuce, and mix with cooked spaghetti. Can add feta or Parmesan and lots of fresh pepper.

Red lentils. Base is olive oil, sushi vinegar, garlic and red onion. Add cooked red lentils (takes less than five minutes). Toss in some mint, add a little lemon juice and fresh pepper, and if desired sprinkle feta on top. Makes a good side dish.

Thank you so much for all your help, some of these ideas are fantastic!!!

I’ll try some of them out in a few days as our current supplies dwindle =D It will be nice to have some Western food in for once… for some reason, I can only really cook Asian stuff.

In general, I think that a lot more things are ok cold (or room temp) than people realize. I’m cooking for one, so I usually make lots of extra and bring it with me for lunch for a few days. I mostly make things like stir-fries or curries with a lot of vegetables, and they’re always fine without reheating. You could just leave something out when you go to bed as well (protected from bugs, of course). It’s not going to go bad in the 5(?) or so hours before he gets to it, especially since it’s much cooler at night now.

A crock-pot (or rice cooker/crock-pot combo) might also be a good investment - nice hot stews/soups for winter :lick:

Get a microwave. It will broaden what you can do.

And one of those little electric oven thingys. Because pizza in the microwave is just not right.

YOu can warm up stuff you cooked up the nite before on the microwave and voila HOT MEALS.

You reminded me of a time I was in a hotel in Germany. I forget what city. And it was the weekend and i was looking forward to having an easy and good lunch. I didnt have a car and was a bit far from anything and in a strange town so i thought just stay in the hotel for meals and go swimming in the pool and thats good nuff for the day, since i was in transit anyway.

Well guess what? There were few visitors that weekend and the hotel only had one restaurant and in their wisdom they decided to have the buffet be their ONLY offering for lunch! I thought well ok, a buffet is not terrible.

Well it was not terrible , it was absolutely HORRIBLE for me. It was all cold cuts and the such and cheeses. I am sure for one who likes that stuff it was probably heaven because they had every cold cut, salami, whatever known to man as well as probably every cheese known to man. To me it was hell. And then i spotted a cauldron of SOUP !! OH lordy i am SAVED ! But alas no, it was still hell because the soup was a (nearly frozen) FISH SOUP !

i had missed breakfast (slept in) and had only that till dinner.

UNFORGETABLE it was. NOt in a good way.

Get either Potherb Mustard (雪裡紅XueLiHong) or Taiwanese Sauerkraut ( 酸菜SuanCai). Chop them fine, roughly 5mm. Chop dougan(豆干) into 10mm squares. Stir fry, add some chopped chili pepper, if like it spicy hot. Add a little soy sauce or salt to taste. You can also add additional items like peas or 香菇XiangGu. It is good either warm or cold.

Edit: You also add some diced meat.

If you can read Chinese sufficiently well, there is a well know blogger that has a series for lunch box she made for her husband. Her nickname is Avocado Sushi. She is a Taiwanese married to a Japanese, and is now living in Tokyo. You may find the drunking chicken particular interesting.

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