To not be able to feed 3 extra adults unexpectedly for lunch?

[ImFree2doasiwant]

I'm single, with 2 small children. I do a weekly meal plan and shop once a week.

If 3 extra adults dropped in for lunch, I'd either be able to feed them but have to go shopping again, or not have enough food in to feed them at all.

Its not like I can't afford to, I just buy the food that we, as a family, will eat. I have a small freezer. I could probably manage dinner better.

Am I that unusual?

I don't tend to have sandwich stuff in. I buy bread once or twice a week from a nice bakery and slice and freeze it as I only tend to use it for toast. I don't really buy ham, or salad things, or spreads, for sandwiches. If pushed I could probably do a few toasties, as I often have a can of tuna or two and some Cheddar in, and a bottle of ancient chilli sauce of some kind. That'd be it though; you'd only get rocket/other leafy stuff if you were lucky, and I don't really keep in chutneys or anything.

I could feed 1 or 2 but I dont have enough cheese or eggs to stretch to 3 and feed me and dh. Would probably get a spag bol or curry from the freezer and pad it out with chickpeas and tinned tomatoes or something. Or frozen pizzas. I sometimes have those in the freezer. Maybe serve with wedges and salad

I could do something basic like egg on toast, egg and chips and beans or a bacon buttie but I couldn’t do a full meal of meat, potatoes and two veg.

Am like you - I manage my fridge and shopping quite carefully through a combination of laziness and a horror of throwing away. Not enough storage to allow for copious amounts of dried pasta and tinned sauces really. So I can pretty much never accommodate a surprise lunch guest.

I wish I could be more spontaneously welcoming sometimes...

It's rude to drop in on people around mealtimes. My mum's brother + his family would always turn up just before lunch because he was just passing. Just an extra 4 mouths to feed.

I batch cook because I WFH. If people turn up hungry they can go fetch a takeaway.

I've done the pasta & pesto meals and people usually turn up their noses at it.

@Rayna37

I'd struggle with dinner without a few hours notice but not a basic lunch. It's rare we wouldn't have eggs and cheese, bread and fish fingers in the freezer, cans of tuna or beans, usually a bit of salad, mushrooms. Couldn't do sandwiches (we don't eat them ourselves) but anything with/on toast, toasties, omelettes, not too much of a problem.

I have to ask what constitutes a sandwich in your house that you can't do sandwiches but would have bread, cheese, eggs, fishfingers and can do a toastie which.. is a sandwich...

Anyway, I could feed someone or several someones, but it wouldn't be particularly exciting and likely not what they'd think was a proper meal.

Im another that lived through poverty as a much younger person, pooling money with my best mate who lived next door but one to buy large sacks of rice and spices to make 'slop dop' curries (no particular curry, just spicy rice with whatever else we had to hand).

We'd often cook for our two households and the old lady who lived in the middle who was like a second mum to us all! There was a lot of trotting up and down the street with ingredients or bowls of curry!

So now there IS always food in the house for more than the next few days ahead, but whether it would all go together to make a fancy meal is another matter entirely!

Sometimes I could, depends if I’d just been food shopping or not.

My BIL used to drop in unannounced on a Sunday 4pm quite regularly with his wife and 3 kids. We always had a roast on a Sunday for us, 2 adults 2 dc, couldn’t stretch that to 4 adults 5 kids! Often went food shopping on a Monday as well so by Sunday there was not much left I could add to it to try and stretch it, but there’s a difference between adding a few extra veg for 1 more person and making a meal for 4 stretch for 9! He’d always arrive when shops had already shut, did my head in, they’d hang around for ages hopeful for food!

Depends when in the week.

I usually do a weekly shop on a Friday evening, so it if was Friday lunchtime I’d struggle

I could probably russle something up but it might not be a conventional lunch

Pre-COVID, we’d always have random friends of the kids in the house and I could usually manage to stretch a meal meant for 4 to an extra person

I do meal plan, but extras usually get shoved in the trolley on the way round so there’s usually something in the freezer.

I could do something. Might not be very exciting. Couscous or pasta with whats in the fridge. I’ve got a good store cupboard/ spices etc. I think so of it comes down to how comfortable you are with cooking too.

3 sandwiches is half a loaf, which if it was a couple of days after doing the shop/ getting Ocado delivery (which always brings bread with no more than 2 days' shelf life...) I wouldn't necessarily be able to do.
Bread's really bulky to freeze too.
I try and keep those part-baked baguettes in the cupboard but they have varying shelf lives too.

So I feel you OP!

It kind of depends when in the week; in the 3 days after we get our shopping then fine and after that they’d have to eat different things. Dinner would be the same as I meal plan for 2 adults and 2 children, not 5 adults

I think not having more food in than you need on the day is usually a sign of poverty.

I think most people who aren't in poverty have a 'store' of food.

I'd consider 'surplus' to be more than is required & can't be used. Whereas a store is stuff you have before you actually need it.

Your comments seem very judgemental, I don't 'waste' food either, but I do have food in the house that I won't use before the next shopping delivery & could make a meal for 3 unexpected adults.

Hmm. We usually have a lot of cheese (various kinds) in the fridge so I reckon I could do a cheese board, bread, pickles etc relatively easily, or tuna sandwiches, or pasta with readymade sauce.

I try to make extras since leftovers are a cost effective and time saving lunch. As long as people don't mind it being bulked out with slightly weird stuff I could definetly manage it. But I've been in the situation of not being able to afford 3 meals a day for myself, so make a point to keep stocked up now we can. I'd also never drop by and expect feeding without casually offering if anything needs picking up first, since you never know someones circumstances it gives them a subtle way to make sure there's enough in.

Depends on the time. I rarely have enough in for a quick meal like omelette or beans on toast. I always have the wherewithal for a vegan curry feast but that’d take an hour.
Is there a backstory op?

Storage is more of an issue than money for us. I'm in a modern 3 bed semi, and kitchen cupboard space is at a premium, and there's nowhere for a second fridge or freezer and once you've got basic cooking/eating equipment stored there's not a tonne of ambient food storage either. The new build 4 bed detached houses we looked at didn't look much better for kitchen space either although you might be able to get a freezer in the garage.

If we're trying to shop once a week (thanks Covid) the fridge is at capacity on shopping day and empty by the end of the week.

I'd probably have a frozen pizza and filled pasta around, and could quickly throw together a basic sauce for pasta from a tin of tomatoes and onions/olives/chorizo or bacon.

Most of my freezer is stuff that needs defrosting in advance (fresh meat) as I struggle with batch cooking.

If someone was of the "pasta is foreign" generation they might have to deal with pittas/waffles and cheese, or maybe crackers if they were lucky...

I routinely cook more than can be eaten in one meal as I like reheated curries & braises, and also enjoy turning leftovers into something else entirely. I always have cans of pulses I can use to stretch things, and plenty of eggs.

Unexpected guests would never be a problem for me although I might moan about the lack of leftovers the next day

As others have said it depends. If it had to be sandwiches, then most of the time no, I don’t keep bread in the freezer, and if I hadn’t just bought a loaf there probably wouldn’t be enough bread. I’ve never lived more than 5 minutes away from a shop though so could easily get some! Most of the time I would be able rustle up something though. Like I’ve only got half a loaf in at the moment but I have got 12 eggs so could do omelettes. There’s a pizza in the freezer, and spring rolls and sausage rolls, and Scotch eggs in the fridge, so I could do a weird party lunch type thing. Always have pasta and tinned tomatoes, and usually have olives and capers, so a pasta puttanesca maybe.

I'd be able to russell up something basic like a ham sandwich or beans on toast or soup (I always seem to have lots of tins of soup for some reason) but not anything fancy or a very substantial meal.

I don't think it's very usual for 3 people to just turn up for lunch without any warning though. It's never happened to me.

I don't "waste" food but I could feed the 5000 if I had to!

I could but I totally understand why others couldn't.

I’m more surprised that you’re rural and don’t keep much in. We live in a tiny village, have been completely snowed in several times and as a result built a pantry, got a second freezer and have loads of long lasting stuff in all the time. We buy fresh stuff every 10 days or so but could easily feed ourselves for a month or more on dry and frozen stuff. I make our bread so have a big stash of flour and yeast.

Visitors aside, if the last year shows anything it’s that being stocked up for at least a fortnight, if you have storage and can afford it, is sensible.

I personally ALWAYS would have enough storecupboard stuff to rustle up something, even if it wasn't super exciting e.g. pasta with tinned salmon, frozen peas and pesto; carbonara using frozen bacon lardons; couscous with red onion and harissa... I can't imagine having so little food in the house you couldn't make something work... but it would not be from fresh food mostly but from storecupboard stuff. You can also freeze nice fresh bread in slices which defrosts super quickly or you can toast, I always have some fishcakes in the freezer too...

I also would use whatever we had rather than just tell a guest 'sorry, we don't have enough food in the house' - I'd use what we had even if it was intended for another day, then go shopping again.

This is not the case if someone regularly dropped in without warning expecting to be fed - then I'd tell them it wasn't possible. The above is more for a one-off unexpected situation.

I'm single and so I shop for one. I don't eat bread but I love crackers and rice cakes. I don't eat butter. I drink skimmed milk etc.

My friend came around (pre lockdown) with her little girl and asked for bread and butter. I offered her a dry ricecake! I too mainly see people out of the house and I'm not going to buy food in 'just in case' as I can't afford to and I don't like waste.

I wouldn't cook anything if three people dropped in unexpectedly, it'd be sandwiches [I usually have a sliced loaf in the freezer].

I'm not particularly organised and would never meal plan, would find it very boring to know what I'd be eating every day for a week. Normally keep a fair amount in the freezer and food cupboard , thought everyone did, I'm wrong !