Soup and a sandwich. If you’re like me, the phrase probably conjures up either workday lunches at Au Bon Pain in the ‘90s or late night diner sessions with high school friends. But these days, it’s also conjuring up my new favorite summer dinner formula. You might wonder if this is just the natural progression of an empty nest dinner maker, but in the dog days of summer when pressing the puree button on a blender and flipping a grilled cheese is as much cooking as I can handle, it feels just right.
Choose a trusty chilled soup: Pulp Holder For 4 Cups
Chilled Avocado Cucumber (recipe below) or Classic Gazpacho
Swiss Melt with Tomatoes (recipe below) or Hummus and Sprouts in a Warm Pita BLTs Fried Egg Sandwich Grilled Cheese with Apples Tomato Sandwich Smashed Avocado Toast
There are a few rules:
1) In the spirit of diner tradition, and if you’re not super hungry, you should feel free to make it a half sandwich per person.
2) The sandwich you select MUST be easy — for instance, no fish sandwich, which is amazing, but involves fish market shopping and dredging stations and cabbage shredding and sustained heat on a stovetop, i.e. actual cooking. Not the point here! Simple, simple, simple. I’m even hesitant to suggest my favorite smashed pea toasts which would be so unbelievably good with the gazpacho, but it means using the blender twice, and that is one time too many at the end of a long hot day.
3) If you’re making the gazpacho, don’t be too Draconian about avoiding a redundant tomato situation. There are very few sandwiches that aren’t upgraded by a beefy heirloom slice, and this time of year, we should all be eating as many tomatoes as possible.
Chilled Avocado and Cucumber Soup Serves 4 (small bowls) or 2 (large bowls)
2 large cucumbers, peeled and seeded; 1 chopped roughly and 1 finely diced 1 1/2 avocados 1 cup plain whole fat yogurt juice of 1 large lime 1 small jalapeno chili, minced (seeds and pith removed to achieve desired heat level) 5 scallions (white and light green parts only), roughly chopped 1/3 cup cilantro, roughly chopped (plus more for garnish) 1 cup vegetable or chicken broth (or water) Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a blender, combine the 1 roughly chopped cucumber, avocados, yogurt, lime juice, jalapeno, scallions, cilantro, salt and pepper, and broth. Puree until smooth, adding a few tablespoons of water if necessary until it reaches a soupy, but not gloppy consistency. Chill for as long as you can, but it’s fine at room temperature, too! (You might have to thin it out again with water after it chills.) Serve with remaining finely chopped cucumber, cilantro, and more salt and pepper to taste.
Swiss Melt with Tomatoes Makes 2 sandwiches (or 4 halves) If you happen to have sauerkraut and Russian dressing on hand, it’s easy to turn this into a meatless Reuben.
4 slices Rye bread 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp 4 slices Swiss cheese or about 4 ounces Gruyère, grated or very thinly sliced tomato, the best you can find, sliced (4 slices) thinly sliced red onion, to taste (or a few dollops of sauerkraut and Russian dressing)
Heat a cast iron or nonstick skillet over medium heat. Butter one side of each slice of Rye bread. Place two of the bread slices buttered-side down on the skillet, then place cheese on top of each. (I make one sandwich at a time in the same skillet, but you can do this in two skillets or one large skillet if you’d like to make it go faster.) After about 2 minutes, when the cheese has melted a little, place tomatoes on one half and sliced onions (or a dollop of sauerkraut and Russian dressing, see photo) on the other. Keep the perimeter of the cheese exposed a bit. Using a spatula, gently flip one piece on top of the other, “sealing” the melty-cheese edges. Flip once more to make sure color is even on both sides. Remove and let rest a minute before slicing in half. Repeat with second sandwich.
What soup-and-sandwich combos would you recommend?
P.S. Dinner-worthy salads and five-minute curried chicken sandwiches.
A favorite sandwich which is a whole meal at our house :) :) :) is good bread layered with first sliced tomato, then sharp sliced cheese, then thinly sliced onion. Put on tray in toaster oven and keep it on until the onion is slightly scorched and very fragrant and the cheese is entirely melted. People who like side dishes can find pickles in the fridge. When my husband makes this, he picks herbs from the garden and adds them.
I have a twofer trick for gazpacho. In the summer I often throw together a tomato/cucumber salad with a vinaigrette – add some onion or bell pepper or fresh herbs – whatever is on hand. I make the vinaigrette in the bottom of the glass bowl, super quick no measuring. Then, if there are leftovers of this salad, I blitz it with my stick blender and call it gazpacho!!
Toast, topped with fresh ground Peanut Butter, Nutella & sliced Banana- My lunch & comfort food all year long!
That sounds so good. Though I have never actually made the soup myself but rather go for a ready to heat option. But a mushroom soup with a grilled mozzarella and parma sandwich is to die for. Especially if you add some olives and a sprinkle of olive oil and sea salt.
My favorite sandwich in the world is grilled hard salami, cheddar, and tomato on rye bread. This comes from The Ugly Mug in Cape May NJ back in… 1985 or so? It’s not the same now– no hate implied, —just, everything changes, as it must, including my figure, hair, age, and marital status. No recipe, you know what to do– but make it very sharp cheddar, thinly sliced, and summer tomato, of course, and don’t be stingy with the hard salami– and, the heftier and chewier the rye, the better. And the soup to go with it? Hmm, how do we define soup? If it comes in an iced glass stein, and has hops and bubbles, can we still call it soup?
LOL! If you sip it, it must be soup. That will be my new rule to go with my salami, tomato and cheese sammie.
This inspired me to make a soup dinner tonight! No sandwich but homemade garlic butter breadsticks (the recipe made 16 but we are just a family of four, one of whom is very small and only has five teeth) with broccoli cheddar soup for dipping and a garden salad.
This is sounding very Olive Garden: endless soup, salad, and breadsticks!
yummm. how did you make the homemade garlic butter breadsticks?
The swiss melt sounds delicious. We make vegetarian reubens often with roasted broccoli subbed in for the meat. Anyone else here not a fan of cold soups? Honestly just sounds like a vegetable smoothie to me. I love the ingredients in the recipe here, but I feel like I’d just be drinking thinned guacamole?!
Same, Sara. Just not a cold soup gal!
Same, Sara! Gazpacho feels like eating salsa with a spoon:)
Try the Spanish version of gazpacho that it made with olive oil and is blended till smooth. It is the gateway soup.
Look for recipes from Spain or expats who lived there. They sell this in Spain and I would eat it every meal, if possible.
In Miami (and everywhere) it’s hot, but we somehow don’t mind a hot soup. My husband’s childhood fav (and now my daughter’s) is tomato soup and a scrambled egg sandwich. He scrambles the egg into the shape of the bread and when the pan is just cooled enough, he’ll place a slice of cheese directly on the pan and wait until it’s just melted and then he scoops it up and gently scoops it up and places it over the scrambled eggs. He is The Egg Man. :)
When we don’t know what to do for dinner, this is always a winner!
My mom mostly cooked 80’s/90’s American standards for dinner but she used to make the Joy of Cooking vichyssoice in summers – so good. Not quite as easy as the soups in this post, but she’d make a big batch and keep it in the fridge.
Oof I have such a weak spot for vichyssoise – my fave cold soup. I might need to make this soon.
If you live in Madrid, like I do, where it is 100 gzillion degrees with heat, this soup and half sandwich is about the only thing you can eat for dinner unless you want to have every meal at midnight when it finally cools down. So – I thank you! Making the soup tonight
I made this soup tonight & used basil instead of parsley because that’s all I had on hand. Very light, bright, and flavorful! Thanks, Jenny!
This soup sounds so good! Can’t wait to try it. My gazpacho cheat I’d to dump a pint of fresh salsa from the store into the blender and add a cucumber. Whiz and done! Is really great with hot garlic Parmesan toast, if you have an air fryer or toaster oven…
But my favorite for the last few summers is Korean icy, spicy, cold buckwheat noodle soup. It’s amazing! You have to think a couple days ahead but it is so worth it. The broth from the pickles below is what makes it, and is the traditional base.
https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/quick-dongchimi
Amazing post! Just what I needed today! It’s 7:30, the kids have not had dinner, grilled cheese it is!
I must note that I read this blog post and then drove to my local bakery on my lunch break to pick up fresh bread, just so I could make this. Thanks for giving me easy dinner inspo – I so need it when running around and being so busy all summer.
Jenny, one of your most excellent posts! Thank you!!
Oh my goodness! A meatless reuben. Going to stock up on Russian dressing!
DIY Russian dressing: 1 cup mayonnaise 1/2 cup minced shallots 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish 2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce, optional 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika 1/8 teaspoon salt
have fun playing around with the ingerdients!
Hot tomato soup with a cheese toastie (our version of grilled cheese) all the way. Dunk the toastie into the soup. Perfection. It’s one of my favourite comfort meals. Cheap and easy and always a treat.
Even on a hot day though? Try making cold tomato gazpacho, same vibe but less work and …chilled!
We call it a ‘cheese toastie’ too! ❤️
I realized a few years ago that the tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich combo is basically deconstructed pizza. I think that’s part of why it’s so popular.
There is no way that soup and a sandwich would ever fly as supper for my family! In the summer there is easy access to the grill and lots of fresh produce. It is easy to throw together something nutritious and satisfying for adults who work hard all day and active kids. Even on a night I was alone I would feel hungry and depressed after a dinner like this. As lunch I would need to add some fruit to this. Ok at your house but definitely NOT at mine!
As someone who has had this combo on many nights when I was home alone, as well as with my family, I say don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Easy, fast, delicious, with minimal dishes and clean up means more time for me to enjoy my evening doing other things.
I also want to say that soup and salad can be extremely nutritious! Whole wheat bread, hummus, veggies, meats and cheese all make for satisfying and healthy sandwiches. Soups are basically hot salad and could contain tons of veg, antioxidant rich spices, protein in the form of meat, beans or bone broth… the list goes on. And if soup and sandwiches don’t seem “nutritious and satisfying” enough for you, maybe get curious about what you normally make and try some new recipes for your family that might bump up the heartiness and healthiness quotient even more.
Soup and sandwiches are a flexible and classic pairing. There is no need to yuck someone else’s yum, and there is no need to nutrition-shame folks for what they eat, even if it doesn’t work for you.
“It is easy to throw together something nutritious and satisfying for adults who work hard all day and active kids.” – Thanks, Shelby, I needed a laugh today!
Thanks for the helpful tips, Shelby! Next time it’s 7p and everyone is starving after a long day, I’ll just remind myself how easy it is to throw together dinner…that I should have taken some chicken out of the freezer 5 hours ago, and I should have planted (and fertilized, weeded and watered) some tomatoes and cucumbers 4 months ago, that we ran out of gas for our grill last week and no one has refilled it, and that Shelby thinks soup and sandwiches are depressing. NOTED! Read the room, woman!
No need for a snippy reply.
I teared up reading these kind comments. Cup of Jo, Joanna – there is SO much kindness in your readership. I think about you and this chapter of your life almost every day – it is a big time of change for your family that you have shared with us. I hope you are PROUD of this place. Thank you for it
Potato leek soap with grilled Turkey & cheese has hit the spot this week!
Thank you, as usual, for giving me permission to do “lazy” things in the kitchen. Double tomatoes or forgoing a recipe based solely because I have to wash the blender twice, in this case. Somehow, if a published author tells me to just chill, I listen. Thank you and bon appetite!
I would happily tomato soup and a grilled cheese every single day.
I come by my love for it honestly. My grandma made the best tuna sandwiches and the best “toasted” cheese sandwiches ever, always served with canned Campbell’s tomato soup. Pretty sure the secret ingredient was love…and maybe sodium? After I went away to college, I used to time my visits to her house for about an hour before lunch because I knew she’s offer to make me one or the other sandwiches. Then, she’d crack open a bag of Lay’s potato chips, tell me to get a “lo-cal” soda from the porch refrigerator–it was Tab–and we’d spend the afternoon chatting away. No matter how long I stayed, when I left, she’d say, “Do you have to go already?”
She passed away maybe 15 years ago, but just recalling it, I feel every bit as loved now as I did then.
Thanks for triggering this lovely memory!
Omg I love this so much. Thank you!
This is such a lovely memory, thank you for sharing M.E. !
It reminded me that my grandparents also filled their fridge with low calorie “pop” (having migrated from the midwest to California).
I can imagine the exact taste of the soda and the cool ceramic tile floor on my feet in their hand-built kitchen in the East Bay hills.
Oh gosh, M.E., I have almost identical, lovely memories–the only differences are that mine are with my mom, and it was always those tiny little bottles of 7UP or ginger ale. She passed away 11 years ago. Everything else is the same. ❤️
Loved reading this memory, M.E. Grandmas can be some very real magic. Thank you for sharing.
Beautiful post about a very special grandmother.
Yes, to all of this! And you can never have enough tomatoes in the house.
Grilling each side of the sandwich separately is blowing my mind. Going to try this immediately!
Jenny, all of this looks amazing! Thank you for some great dinner ideas.
Fellow readers for whom this is relevant, can someone explain how you are only eating half a sandwich with soup for dinner? Are you satisfied? Do you get used to feeling not satisfied? I’m genuinely asking, no snark intended. I eat to feel full. Not sick, but well fed. Is this healthy? I have a lifetime of disordered eating, and I struggle to trust my eating patterns or self-perceptions about food/hunger. And now my body is larger than I’m comfortable due to a whole stew of reasons (no thyroid, autoimmune disease, emotional eating, insomnia, stress, perimenopause)…which is fine, I’m finally grateful for this body at every size, but I want to model healthy eating for my young children.
Any personal insights or direction for further reading? For what it’s worth, I’m a therapist, I’ve worked with nutritionists in the past with a little success, but I still get confused and frustrated when my hunger seems so very big.
This is going to be so different and personal for every person and their body. I’d say eating healthy food to the point of being satisfied is a good goal, but I’m not a nutrition expert or doctor. However, as a fellow ED survivor, it’s what I aim for. If I’m happy after half a sandwich I’ll stop, but if not, I have no problem going back for that other half!
Hi Confused and Frustrated—I just wanted to validate that I would probably not feel full based on half a sandwich and a chilled veggie soup for dinner either! I struggled with an intense eating disorder for many years too, and while I don’t know if I’ll ever be fully free of the little body-image gremlins in my head, the only thing that made any genuine difference for me was to have truly *zero* restrictions around food and to try to get to a place of intuitive eating. It takes a long time to get those cues back, but it sounds like by noticing that you’re hungry, you’re listening to and getting more in tune with them! Two things that have been helpful to me in this regard were learning that most people need a meal to have a combination of protein + fat to feel sated, and, when it comes to balancing my restrictive past with current health needs (including autoimmune issues) to focus on what nutrients I can *add* to my meal / day rather than ever taking anything away or limiting specific foods, food groups, or caloric amounts. I know it is so hard, but you’re doing great!
Hi! I am not an expert by any means, but really appreciate your openness and vulnerability in asking these questions. Re: the half sandwich, I think people have very different appetites depending on many factors, including what they ate earlier in the day, what the temperature is like (I know when I’m hot my appetite goes away even when I really need food). So I can’t really answer that question – my personal response would that historically I’ve always been the full sandwich person, and it’s only recently as I’ve been recovering from my own disordered eating, embracing intuitive eating in all its messy, unpredictable glory, that I’ve found that some days, I really don’t need the second half. This has felt revelatory and disturbing all at once.
I think, however, maybe the bigger question you’re asking is about “why [your] hunger seems so very big.” I want to give you a big hug reading this because I think so many of us feel that our hungers are so very big, especially if we have a history of disordered eating or feeling that our bodies themselves are too big. I obviously know nothing about your personal situation or body or hunger, BUT if I can give you two pieces of information that are my lodestar when I start to think perhaps I’m not allowed to have whatever my appetites are:
1) There’s a strong physical and psychological compensatory mechanism to food deprivation, especially if it’s part of a long-term pattern, meaning, e.g. if you’ve been depriving yourself of food all day, you might very well have a big ole’ binge in the evening (this has certainly been my experience). And if you have a history of depriving yourself of food or denying your appetites/hunger for years at a time, I think it makes perfect sense for that sense of hunger to be “so very big” all the time. Maybe it is very big, maybe it just feels that way, but I think it’s your body pleading with you to let it be hungry, and then satisfy it. It’s only through the routine repetition of satisfaction and listening to and honouring your body that your body – and hopefully you – will be able to trust that deprivation is over and you can trust your hunger. Does that make sense??
2) The other thing is something that the authors talk about in Intuitive Eating (the “original” book) is finding your satiety point – this is something I’m always working on (with self-compassion and without blame, as much as possible). So this is the point where you are satisfied, start being bored with the flavour maybe, but not so full that you walk about with a stomachache. Once I started identifying it it became its own reward: you mean I can walk away from a meal feeling pleasurably full, without either a gurgling stomach or indigestion?! What bliss! I often miss it and eat too much or too little, but that’s what I’m aiming for. So I think if that’s where your appetite takes you, like when you say that you “eat to feel full. Not sick, but well fed”, then I think your hunger is spot on ❤️
Hopefully this is useful, and all love to you on your journey xo
All these responses are so loving and thoughtful, and I just want to add that, as someone who’s been reading and cooking and LOVING Jenny’s recipes for many many years, I’ve come to think her recipes and meal ideas are engineered for eaters with small appetites (IMO). As someone who’s trying very hard to raise girls who don’t shy away from their hungers, I have to say I find myself using fewer of her meal ideas.
Confused and Frustrated, your question is much bigger than just the half sandwich/soup meal that Jenny wrote about, and other commenters have beautifully and compassionately answered the bigger question. As to the smaller question specifically about a half sandwich, I thought it might help to point out that I have noticed over many years of reading Jenny’s recipes (which are delicious!) that Jenny is simply a person who cooks and eats small-for-me portions. I think Andy even mentioned this on the DALS blog at some point! Her portion sizes are awesome for her but not enough for me. When I make a Jenny recipe that says it feeds 4, I know it’s not going to be enough for my family and I expand the recipe.
I feel like this would depend a lot on portion size and how hearty the soup and sandwich are. Protein is more filling. And everyone is different. But that said, if you are looking for a frame of reference, I am an average sized middle aged woman who has never had any disordered eating, and I would probably not feel full after eating half a sandwich and soup for dinner. I would probably want the whole sandwich or else add a side salad or piece of fruit if only eating the half sandwich.
Confused and Frustrated – Thank you for this note and for sharing your honesty and vulnerability. I am so sorry if this made you feel bad in any way. I wish I had an answer for you. I’ve written about this a lot on Dinner: A Love Story, but I try to write recipes for people, who, in theory, feel like soup and a half sandwich one night, then a cheeseburger and fries the next. I just find my personal eating (and it is obviously SO different for everyone) depends on a million factors — how I’m feeling that specific day, what I’m craving, what I had for lunch, what my kids are in the mood for, what THEY had for lunch, what the weather is even! I’ve always tried to recognize that we are human beings, and we are not the same person day after day with the same cravings and appetites. That’s what makes things interesting, in my opinion. Also, for the record, my kids have been constantly complaining that I don’t make enough food for them when they come home from college. They are both college athletes and since they’ve come back from school to our house, they hoover up the salmon salad or the tofu banh mi or whatever, then ask “what’s for dinner?” So I’m working on that! Anyway, I hope this makes you feel a little better. Apologies again if I upset you, and thank you to the rest of the community for this conversation. xo P.S. The soups are more filling that you’d think: the gazpacho has a good amount of olive oil whirled into it and the Avo-Cuke, obviously has 1 1/2 avocados, plus whole milk yogurt.
FWIW, different eating patterns can also make a huge difference in what’s considered satiating. My husband eats 3 meals a day and this would definitely not be enough. I basically eat 6 meals a day (I think some people call it “grazing”) so this would be enough for me for dinner, only presuming I’d had my typical big snack mid afternoon.
I saw this comment earlier when there weren’t replied yet and was delighted when I came back to chime in to see so many responses! I definitely relate to this and really appreciate the conversation! Would love to see a future COJ post exploring some of these ideas. One random thought I had today is that maybe I really do need to eat more than others because I am quite tall? I know there are sooo many factors that go into this and at the end of the day I guess the answer is just “everyone is different.”
I’d nearly always have the whole sandwich! I was raised by a mom who truly only needs very small portions to be full. I am so glad she did not insist that her 4 daughters should be the same because we all eat more than she does and have pretty positive relationships with food. We are all different shapes and sizes too. I think we have this idea that we should all be relatively similar in how much we need to eat but that really isn’t true. Everyone deserves to eat what it takes to feel satisfied whether portions are large, small, or somewhere in between. I agree that Jenny’s portion sizes are often small for me but they are probably just right for her and that’s just fine!
Here to validate you. I absolutely would not be full on half a sandwich pretty much ever. Always going for the full sandwich and I’m fairly petite and have no history of ED. You’re doing fine! People have different appetites for sure. I don’t get how anyone is ever satisfied on a meal that consists only of salad. I need some bread!
I think this is a fine question, and also think the answer is just totally up to your mood and hunger level. I eat until I am full, and I often have soup and half a sandwich for dinner. But I am older, and as I have gotten older I have found that is plenty. My metabolism has changed, I used to need more. But I also still often have embellishments, like raw veggies (carrot sticks, radishes, etc), pickles, sliced apples, roasted nuts. And am not above a cookie or two for dessert. It’s way too hot to worry much about cooking but I still like to enjoy my dinners. I hope you find just the right balance, and that it is easy and delicious for you and your family.
Dear Confused and frustrated: Thank you for sharing so candidly and openly. I felt invited to share this:
I struggled with eating disorders for much of the first half of my life (I’ll be 45 soon) and have found, that eventually accepting the fluidity of my relationship with food has given me the most relief. There are days when my body wants only light amounts of food, and days when my hunger feels outsized. I try not to fear or pathologize or either extreme. Somedays I am at ease, and others, I still feel consumed by what I’ll eat and when.
Yet, I can share that I no longer feel governed by food. I have gradually found my way to a relative peace with the truth that “recovered from an eating disorder” looks different day to day, and my truth is that it is much like living with an addiction–I’ll always carry this history, and its complexity, in my cells.
You asked about reading–I read “When Food is Love” and “Feeding the Hungry Heart” in my most embattled days, I found them both a balm.
I’m wishing you calm, peace, and healing in your continued journey, Sending love and solidarity.
No history of disordered eating and there is no place on earth where a small cup of soup and half of a sandwich would satisfy me. LOVE Jenny… seriously my older sister and I are fan girls and speak of her often but I take her ideas and riff off them/scale them up for me and my appetite.
Hi there! I would need more to eat than a soup and half sandwich at dinner, unless I’d had a REALLY big lunch. The only sandwich I reliably like for dinner is an open faced tuna melt with *lots* of tuna salad on each slice of bread. I’d probably eat it with something other than soup, but maybe tomato gazpacho would be good!
I’m a dietitian and a relatively thin person who’s always had a large appetite. I definitely would need at least 2 sandwiches with the soup or another side dish. Personally, I’ve found that eating until I’m full, which tends to be more food than other people, is best for me, and my weight is pretty stable, which is best. As dietitian, I tell my clients to tune into their hunger and eat until they’re comfortably full. So if a recipe is suggesting a serving size that feels too small or large for them, feel free to modify based on your appetite at the moment.
I think this comment is so interesting! Thank you for the thoughtful question. It’s a very interesting conversation to have because so much about how we eat in the United States has politics, trauma, class etc. attached to it. Not that it’s so unique to the USA, but there is a constant negotiation of what is ‘normal’ that I find remarkable, hence all the lifestyle blogs working this out. Partially, I think this has to do with the mixture of cultures and not basing US American cuisine on one single tradition. Also, I should say I certainly have a history of disordered eating and am wrestling with similar thoughts every day. 2 things for my perspective and background. 1. I agree with the other commenters that ‘intuitive eating’ seems the best approach if an approach there must be. 2. In the older food culture I was raised in (1/2 the time) I had the benefit of an old Oma who had a very strict food rules that had everything to do with tradition and nothing to do with dieting (since near starvation was her childhood experience). I have noticed some European cultures have the similar meal divisions: Light breakfast, big more elaborate lunch, coffee or tea and snack in the afternoon and then lightish dinner with or without alcohol. So my (long winded) answer is that I could be satisfied with a bowl of soup and a sandwich at dinner, but probably because I tucked into a big plate of food at lunch and ate something before dinner as well in the afternoon. That’s my personal experience.
Confused and Frustrated here. Now I’m surprised and incredibly grateful :) I’ve read and re-read these comments. Thank you so, so much for taking time to respond. I feel seen, understood, and validated. I bet many more people have been supported by reading them, too.
I’m bookmarking this for when I need a reminder to look inward. I appreciate the frames of reference, it’s helpful! And Mel, I sobbed with gratitude reading your words. Thank you all!!
Hey there, so I just had a really helpful therapy session around the recurring voice in my head that tells me I’m “not allowed to want things.” And your question struck a similar chord to me.
What I told myself today in therapy is: my future selves aren’t going to let bad and scary things happen to me. I’m allowed to be scared or sad or frustrated by something, but that doesn’t imply that at the big picture level, my life is doomed to failure or badness.
Maybe you can find a similar source of trust in parts of yourself that help you understand that you’ve got this. It’s okay to feel hungry. It’s not a sign that you’re back in your past. Your hunger can exist and not threaten the trust you have for you.
And like many have said, I’m a whole sandwich kind of person. I’m an order two entrees at a restaurant person when the mood strikes me. I’m an “oh shoot I didn’t eat enough at my last meal, guess I gotta get back in there for some serious snacks” person. I’m a two breakfasts, two lunches, STILL whole sandwich dinner person. And we’ve got this, together. ♥️
where we live (phx) its too darn hot for heavy meals tonite we had cheese crisps and a salad. not hungry after.
Here to validate also!! A half sandwich (even with soup) would tide me over for maybe half an hour. I’ve found this with DALS recipes and others – Caro Chambers feeds her family of five on portions that would feed my husband and I for one meal with maybe one small portion of leftovers, if that!
Different people definitely have different appetites – my mom has a really small appetite and it has always been fascinating to both of us how much and how little the other needs to feel full. I don’t have a history of ED, so I don’t have the context and apologize if this is triggering in any way, but your framing of your hunger seeming so very big really resonated with me and made me feel delighted to also have a hunger that seems so very big – it struck me that those of us who have heartier appetites get to take extra pleasure in food, and eating, and the feeling of being satiated!
You sweet thing. There’s nothing wrong with you.
For a nuts and bolts answer to your question, I generally only eat a full sandwich (a big one) if I’m very hungry – like, haven’t eaten for half the day. That said, I typically get full easily, still have plenty of room and desire for dessert, and would also often easily return to the other half of the meal that I left in a few hours. It doesn’t take much to make me feel full, AND it doesn’t take long for me to want to eat again.
Hi, I want to echo what everyone else said that every body is different, but I also would never feel full on soup and half a sandwich if I were having it as a meal rather than a snack. I absolutely love Jenny’s recipes – her Dinner: A Love Story cookbook is my most used one of all my cookbooks, but I definitely agree with other commenters that her portion sizes are consistently significantly smaller than what we eat or what you see in other cookbooks. I learned years ago to always double her recipes as a baseline – if you saw my version of her cookbook you would see that every list of ingredients has hand written notice where I’ve gone ahead and noted the increased amounts I need. (And for her stews or soups, I actually triple the recipe in order to feed our family of 4.)
Over the years, I’ve gotten the sense that Jenny’s portions are geared toward people with small appetites… I’ve often found myself thinking, wait, seriously? when looking at the suggested quantities. (Of course, it’s easy to just scale things up for the quantities that I know would work for me and my family!) (And Jenny, I love your food writing…the portion thing is just something I’ve noticed.)
One more comment to add to this thread, just on the topic of different people having different appetites… Visiting a beloved friend once (in a situation where I couldn’t go get more groceries/food) I ended up feeling ravenous the whole visit because she and her family were satisfied with (what seemed to me to be) tiny little portions, and I…wasn’t. It made me think about how awkward the thing of different people needing different amounts of food can be.
This is one of the things that is part of the new order: as new generations of people have now grown up entirely fed by the produce of depleted soils that big ag has bequeathed to all generations going forward, we begin to feel the effects. Beog “hungry” but unsatisfied by what you eat is a classic sign of contemporary malnutrition.
Mainstream food has no longer has nutrient density. If you don’t take a quality multivitamin, ie: food based, which are expensive yet vital, or eat organically grown, which is only marginally better, but better than convential food, than what you eat will never satisfy you no matter how large your portions. You are just eating empty calories. You have eat primarily whole, organic foods, preferably grown locally, ie: shop at your local farmers market, or you will be malnourished no matter how much you eat.
Haha I was chatting with my mom last night and she said, “I made chili for dinner and your sister made fun of me for having chili when it’s over 100 degrees out, but I wanted it!” So, when I saw the headline today, I was like, “hey, maybe mom was on to something.” But, no, it was a chilled soup, what any normal person would want to eat in this summer heat. Oh, mom.
I’ve never been able to get into chilled soup, so I support your mom in the hot chili!
Haha this is an ongoing debate in our house. I feel like some things are only appropriate in cold weather (chili, bolognese, chicken pot pies, etc.) whereas my husband maintains that our house has heating/AC so it’s the same temperature in our house regardless of the season. The debate continues…
+1 to Erin! Chilled soup is a vegetable smoothie. Hard pass. Give me the soupy soup!
I’m ok with hot soup in the summer (I made chicken/veg/rice soup just last week!) but there’s something about specifically chili that feels like that first tinge of chill in the air to me!
Haha I’m like your mom, nothing like having hot soup on a hot day!
Hahahaha, I’m eating hot, fairly spicy instant noodles from Costco as I’m reading this
I made a hot soup last night! Roasted tomatoes and butter beans with chicken meatballs (both NYTimes recipes) but then I live in Northern California where it hasn’t been hot…
Ooh I have all the ingredients for this soup right now! Perfect for summer, yum. My kids won’t eat it which means MORE FOR ME.
I made BLTs and plain ol’ hot Campbell’s Chicken Noodle for the crew last night and it hit the spot!
Oh and the Mexican Street Corn Chowder (hot) and Green Goddess salad I had at Panera recently? Perfection.
BLTs are a summer staple of my childhood and now. We typically make the bacon in the morning when it’s cool. Although now technically we have BLAPs (avocado and roasted red peppers), but it doesn’t have quite the same ear appeal, haha.
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