Inside the Lazy Kitchen
People sometimes ask how I get to eat so many different meals throughout the week.
It isn’t because I cook every day.
It’s because I spend one afternoon building a refrigerator full of possibilities.
This week’s grocery trip was simple: a whole chicken, spinach, bok choy, cauliflower, winter melon, bell peppers, celery, carrots, and jícama.
The rest was already waiting at home.
Dried shiitake mushrooms are always in my pantry. Egg whites are a refrigerator staple. This week I also had ground pork in the freezer because it happened to be on sale. We’ll talk more about why I think the freezer is an extension of the kitchen in a future article. Protein pasta and brown rice are pantry regulars too.
A few hours later, the refrigerator looked completely different.
The simmered chicken yielded a pile of juicy meat and a pot of rich homemade chicken stock with almost no active work. I shared the full process in my earlier article, so I won’t repeat it here.
The stock, ground pork, celery, and carrots became an easy but hearty soup.
Bok choy had a quick blanching.
Bell peppers and cauliflower were roasted. Some of the roasted peppers stayed just as they were. The rest became a batch of minimalist muhammara.
A batch of marinated beans rounded out the week’s building blocks.
None of these were finished meals.
They were ingredients waiting for their next role.
One thing I didn’t prepare was the onions.
I simply didn’t feel like chopping them.
Whole onions keep for weeks—often months—in a cool, dark place, so there was no rush. If they had already been chopped, they probably would have found their way into the soup, the spinach and eggs, or another meal later that week.
That’s what I like about this system.
Adding another vegetable is easy.
Skipping one is fine, too.
Over the next several days, those same building blocks became:
- Bright pesto chicken pasta
- A comforting pork and vegetable soup
- A Mediterranean-inspired chicken pita with roasted peppers and minimalist muhammara
- An Asian-style shiitake and winter melon chicken soup
- Quick breakfast sandwiches
- Pasta lunches
- Simple rice bowls
Sometimes breakfast was even a bowl of soup. I know that sounds unusual to many Americans, but that’s a story for another article.
The jícama surprised me.
I peeled and cut it during prep day, then forgot about it.
Because it was ready to eat, I kept reaching for it between meals whenever I wanted a snack.
The roasted peppers appeared in a rice bowl one day and inside a pita another.
The spinach and eggs became a breakfast sandwich one morning and pasta another afternoon.
Every meal naturally included vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates.
I wasn’t trying to build a perfectly balanced plate every time. The building blocks were already there, so a balanced meal became the easiest choice.
The same chicken quietly traveled from Italy to the Mediterranean to Asia without changing very much at all.
Only the sauces, vegetables, and sides changed.
Some people enjoy planning their meals several days ahead.
Others, like me, prefer deciding when it’s time to eat.
This system works well for both.
You can plan your meals around these building blocks, or you can mix and match them at the last minute.
When I open the refrigerator, it feels a little like having my own restaurant at home.
Instead of asking,
“What’s for dinner?”
I’m asking,
“What am I in the mood for today?”
You aren’t batch cooking meals.
You’re batch cooking possibilities.