Borosilicate glass · oven to freezer 17 sets in the range 93,969 ratings across the lines
Cooking for someone else

The handover week

Food cooked for a parent, a new baby, a sick friend or a neighbour. The containers are not meant to come back, and that changes every decision.

12

meals from one session

2 hours

in the kitchen

24

containers in play

Cooking for somebody else has one constraint the other plans do not: the container is a gift, not a loan. Handing over a stack of glass dishes puts a small obligation on the person receiving them, at exactly the moment they have the least capacity to deal with one.

So this plan is built on plastic bought by the fifty, and on labelling that assumes the person eating has no idea what is in the box or what to do with it.

Step by step

The session, in order

  1. 1 Before cooking

    Ask two questions, not ten

    What can they not eat, and do they have a working freezer. That is enough. A longer questionnaire delivered to someone who is exhausted is a burden dressed as consideration.

    If the answer to the freezer question is no, halve the quantity and plan to come back on Thursday. That second visit is often worth more than the food.

  2. 2 Cooking

    Cook soft, mild and reheatable

    Soups, stews, baked pasta, rice dishes, anything with a sauce. Food that survives a microwave with no attention and does not need a knife. This is not the moment for a dish that has to be assembled.

    Season it slightly under where you would season it for yourself. Illness, medication and pregnancy all shift what tastes right, and a bland dish can be fixed at the table while a salty one cannot.

  3. 3 Packing

    Single portions, always

    A large container asks the person to portion it, find a second container and wash the first. Twelve single portions ask them to open one thing and press a button.

    Fill three quarters if it is going in a freezer. Leave the lids slightly loose while cooling, and only seal once cold, so the lids do not vacuum themselves shut.

  4. 4 Labelling

    Write the instruction, not the name

    Not "chicken soup". Write "chicken soup, from the fridge, 2 min, stir once". The name tells them what it is. The instruction tells them they do not have to think.

    Add the date it was made. Somebody else will open that freezer in three weeks and will need to make a decision without you standing there.

  5. 5 Delivery

    Leave it and go

    A bag on a doorstep with a text message is often the kindest version of this. Food delivered without a visit does not require the person to be presentable, to make conversation or to say thank you.

    Nothing in the bag needs to be returned. That is the whole reason it is packed in fifty cent boxes rather than in glass.

Worth knowing. Cooked food handed over cold should go into a fridge within two hours and be eaten within three days, or into a freezer the same day. Write both facts on the bag; nobody remembers them under stress.
What this week takes

The containers this plan is built on

Three sets, and the reason each one is here. If your household is a different size, the kit builder will scale the numbers.

Fifty boxes, none of which anyone has to give back.

Black bases hide a tomato sauce that would stain a clear box.

Round bowls for soup, which is most of what this plan cooks.

Other plans

One person, weekday lunches

The five-lunch Sunday

Five lunches cooked in one go on a Sunday afternoon, eaten Monday through Friday, with nothing frozen and nothing wasted.

5 meals90 min in the kitchen5 dishes
One cook, two weeks of dinners

Cook once, freeze twice

One long cooking session that fills a fortnight. Half goes in the fridge for this week, half goes flat into the freezer for the week after.

10 meals2 hours in the kitchen10 dishes
Anyone counting, for a month

The portion reset

A fortnight of meals built around fixed compartments instead of a scale, for people who want portions to stop being a daily decision.

10 meals75 min in the kitchen5 dishes