You Gotta Eat: Real-Life Strategies for Feeding Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible

by Margaret Eby

Overview

A trained chef teaches you how to keep yourself fed—and maybe even enjoy it!—in the face of stress, burnout, and exhaustion.
 
Delivery is expensive. Eating a spoonful of peanut butter is depressing. You can’t imagine having the energy to chop an onion. But somehow, you gotta eat. How does anyone feed themselves under these conditions?

Enter You Gotta Eat, a friendly, accessible resource for getting something on your plate when you have too much on your plate. Part cookbook, part pep talk, and part action plan, You Gotta Eat offers tips and tactics—plus ten “do exactly this” recipes—for making effortless food that’s nourishing, tasty, and even a little fun. Choose your current energy level and learn important kitchen hacks such as the following.

• If you can open a package: Turn instant ramen into a feast
• If you can assemble a plate: Make a cheese board fit for a king
• If you can press a button: Whip up perfect eggs in the microwave
• If you can wield a knife: Turn any leftovers into a hearty casserole

Plus dozens more ideas for living deliciously without impossible effort!

Whether you’re burned-out, depressed, overscheduled, a new parent, living away from home for the first time, or some combination of the above, let food editor, classically trained chef, and nacho enthusiast Margaret Eby show you how to make your eating experience easier—and better—in every way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683694427
Publisher:	Quirk Publishing
Publication date:	11/19/2024
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	65,459
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.24(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Margaret Eby is the deputy food editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has written for the New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Bon Appétit, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She is the author of South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature (Norton,2015). Margaret completed a certificate program at the International Culinary Center in 2019.

Read an Excerpt

Bean Salad, the Musical Salad

Canned beans are beautiful. They’re already cooked. They have a ton of protein and fiber. They’re filling. And they’re really inexpensive. You may think salad means “sad privation meal of lettuce,” but actually salad is a loose category that roughly translates to “haphazard assembly of things tied together by dressing,” and by this definition beans are the perfect vehicle. All you need to do is open them, drain them, rinse them if you have the energy but not if you don’t (they might just taste slightly more metallic), dump them in a bowl, combine with dressing and perhaps other stuff, and stir. Behold: lunch.
Precut veggies (including frozen—let the salad sit for a bit after mixing to let the frozen veggies defrost) work just fine here. So do bottled dressings, though if you don’t have those you can always use the time-honored classic of olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper (or, if you’re feeling very fancy, the Nora Ephron classic of a tablespoon of dijon mustard, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar, and 3 tablespoons of olive oil, whisked together with a fork). Try one of these combinations, or get creative! The more comfortable you get in the bean salad space, the more you’ll be able to branch out.

• Chickpeas + cucumbers + cherry or grape tomatoes + tzatziki = Greek-ish salad
• Black beans + thawed frozen corn + half jar of salsa + crunched-up tortilla chips = nacho salad
• Cannellini beans + pesto + parmesan = sort of Italian bean salad
• Kidney beans + celery + sweet onions + pickle relish = what if a hot dog condiment bar was a salad
• Black beans + mashed or chopped-up avocado + lime juice + hot sauce or Tajín = what if guacamole was a salad
• Chickpeas, smushed + celery + mayo + dab of dijon mustard = tuna salad without tuna
• Great northern beans + leafy greens you need to use up + balsamic vinegar + olive oil = classic house salad
• Black-eyed peas + celery + bell peppers + hot sauce + red wine vinegar + pinch of sugar/dab of honey/little bit of maple syrup = Hoppin’ John–inspired salad
• Edamame + carrot + green onion + ginger dressing = teppanyakirestaurant-inspired salad

Editorial Reviews

A Forbes Vetted Best Cookbook of Fall 2024

“You Gotta Eat feels like the kindest permission slip to let go of guilt around not cooking while also providing good strategies for nourishing yourself when life is hard.”—Simply Recipes

“An encouraging, casual cookbook that invites goofing around in the kitchen until tasty dishes can be put on the table.”—Rachel Jagareski, Foreword starred review

“Taking into account varying energy levels, budgets, and skill sets, Eby helps readers put a meal on the table no matter the limitations they feel surround them.”—Forbes Vetted

From the Publisher

An encouraging, casual cookbook that invites goofing around in the kitchen until tasty dishes can be put on the table.”

Foreword (starred review)