Food ready to eat after short time (5)
I believe the answer is:
tripe
'food' is the definition.
(tripe is a kind of food)
'ready to eat after short time' is the wordplay.
'ready to eat' becomes 'ripe' (I've seen this before).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'short time' becomes 't' (abbreviation for time).
'ripe' after 't' is 'TRIPE'.
(Other definitions for tripe that I've seen before include "Junk; food" , "Garbage" , "Rubbish (colloq.)" , "Stomach for consumption; nonsense" , "Rhubarb" .)