Cooking for 1
 

I get the impression that a fair amount of FT's members are single so I bring this up.

I don't eat breakfast on weekdays.

For lunch, I make a large salad that lasts a week (ingredients and greens kept separate - usually with grilled chicken) and a sandwich.

My normal dinner is a piece of meat (fish, chicken, pork, or beef), a side (usually brown rice or baked potato), and a biscuit (I make these cheddar biscuits with Old Bay seasonings).

These meals are certainly filling and somewhat healthy, but for the love of God they are boring.

My question is, what do you (single people) make for yourself? I google "cooking for one" and a multitude of recipes come up, but many (if not all) ask for ingredients that would go bad in 1-2 weeks if not used. You just can't buy a lot of these ingredients in small quantities (unless I am shopping in the wrong places) and I'm not going to piss away food & money for variety (i'm just cheap that way).

Any suggestions?

I'm sure any here will turn their nose up at frozen vegetables but for me they taste fine and they will keep a long time. Buying fresh vegetables for just one person isn't very economical as it goes bad so quickly. I usually use frozen vegetables and then by fresh meat as I need it. Frozen chicken breasts are usually fine for things like pasta though.

Years ago when I was single, I found a book entitled "Fifteen Minute Meals", by Emalee Chapman. I see amazon.com still has some used copies for sale. Every meal had a prep time of 15 minutes or less. This did not include purchasing the ingredients so it required a little advanced planning, but many recipes contained common everyday things the average kitchen might already have.

Many evenings I'd come home tired and hungry, within 30 minutes dinner was ready. I often improvised and came up with all sorts of things once I got the idea.

I still have the book and could use it, but I'm not the primary cook now.;)

Most fresh fruits and vegetables are bought by the pound, so getting a week's worth or less is not that hard. Exceptions: lettuce is the big one; even when buying a bag I'm pitching a fair amount in the end. Watermelon's the other. If I have to buy mushrooms in bulk, they'll freeze ok. Onions and fresh herbs might be a problem so I just use the dehydrated / powdered.

Other than that the only thing is having to refrigerate the bread and buns.

+1 on the utility of frozen vegetables, especially when you don't go grocery shopping with regularity.

There are a few books I like, as well:
One Pan, Two Plates (you'll have leftovers! And this is apparently Amazon's #1 bestseller in "cooking for one")
Fast Food My Way
More Fast Food My Way

A different slant on some topics .... so I'd say the following!

Frozen vegetables have more vitamins and are generally better for you than fresh vegetables which of course are not fresh .... and make much more sense for a single cook. No waste. Portion control.

Frozen fish is much much better than fresh unless you can buy it off of a fishing boat. You can also split packs of two fish into one. I feel dumb at my life long presumption that fresh is better than frozen. It isn't - the only way you can tell is that frozen tastes fresher. Sea bass is a favourite and frozen haddock in batter for fish and chips. Frozen chips are really good these days. We only ise them and never fry.

I think the most important thing you can have is some freezer space and a supply of small square plastic reusable containers. I'd see this as a game changer. Being able to make a batch of fresh bolognese sauce and split them into single portions means you are always eating superior home cooked food and done in moments. Same for stuff like curries which always improve when reheated. Cooking for one is a great excuse to have a lovely reassuring stock of great home cooked stuff in the freezer in small packs. It is always going to be better than bought and normally much cheaper.

I am not a very skilled cook. I can follow a recipe just fine, but I don't have much inspiration to do much else. I eat a lot of sandwiches and easy veggie dishes like veggie tacos. Pretty boring. I rarely have much food in my house at all. Really need to start dating a chef. :(:p

Get yourself a soup cookbook. It's too warm half the year, but in cooler months I make a pot of soup every weekend. Almost everything that goes in the pot could come from the freezer and the leftovers can go back in for another week. Heavy on the vegetables and it's healthy. Heavy on the meat and it's hearty. Change the seasonings around and keep ingredients separate to make changes to the next night's pot. For instance, I can make a chicken noodle soup and using the same ingredients (less the noodles) the next night add some curry powder and diced apples and you have something entirely different. I got used to cooking for a family of 6 and when the kids moved out, there was an adjustment necessary. I'm still cooking for two but Mrs BamaVol eats like a bird so I cook to please myself.

I'm the queen of overbuying produce, but I've found that if I take the time to clean and prep them as soon as I get home, I find ways to use it.

Like BamaVol and the soup recipes, If I have carrots, onions, peppers, kale, and zucchini on hand, I can put them in soup, stir fry, curry, enchiladas, in addition to just serving them on the side roasted, or grilled, or raw.

As for fresh herbs, asian groceries are the best for larger quantities, but the regular grocery will usually have some sort of mixed pkg like "poultry blend" or some such that will have two or three types that I can make work with what I'm cooking. I also grow my most used herbs in the summer.

Cooking for 2 is almost as hard. We embrace the slow cooker as anything braised holds up well to reheating. On a Saturday or Sunday we'll fire up the cooker, yesterday it was chicken pieces with onion/garlic/ginger with some pepper bay leaf and soy sauce along with a bit banana pepper.

We'll have one meal off it tonight with rice, and the rest will go into containers in the freezer - this will become various things - taco filling, sandwich mix, chicken for a noodle casserole, etc.

A couple weeks ago it was a big batch of chili which also became all sorts of things. Another favorite is pork shoulder.

I am lucky enough that I live close enough to work to go home for my lunch break. But that means lunch has to be fast. And in the evenings I often don't have time for complicated cooking.

I have started to so cooking ahead on the weekends. I will usually make a few frozen meatloaves, that gets me a few meals a week and reheats well in the micro. I have also become dangerously dependent upon frying frozen corn in a small pan, sprinkled with a bit of garlic, pepper, and grated parm. I also fry up preboiled potatoes. I usually make an almond or banana bread on the weekend too which serves as breakfast.

Then again, I can be a pretty boring eater.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I did order the cookbooks off Amazon, 6P&E and Gfunkdave, so I will see how that goes.

I'll try buying frozen vegetables more and thanks to Missy and Bama, I will certainly try throwing in leftover vegetables/perishables into stews/soups/meatloafs.

I guess my follow-up question would be - what foods (especially vegetables) do you find that do not freeze/refrigerate (over time - 2 weeks) well? Lettuce has been mentioned. I was surprised that mushrooms freeze OK (though I've never tried so what do I know?).

Would be interesting to see how many FT members are actually single. BTW not trying to derail thread.

+1 on frozen vegetables.

Single here. I work from home, so breakfast and lunch are typically made for me alone. Dinners are typically for 1 or 2 depending on whether the boyfriend is around.

I take several approaches...
* Make regular sized portions of recipes and then make 1-3 meals of it while it's still fresh (Day 1 dinner, Day 2 lunch and maybe Day 3 lunch or dinner) while freezing individual portions of the leftovers to eat down the road.

* Make rice 1-2 times a week in my rice cooker, use it throughout the week for one-bowl meals (rice, protein, veggie or two, sauce).

* Once or twice a week, buy an individual portion of fish (salmon, most typically) and roast it in the same pan as veggies. I use the Pike's Place fish seasoning to sprinkle over the fish before roasting, veggies are tossed in olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and an herb or two. Broccoli, brussels sprouts and asparagus are my favorites for roast veggies. Often I'll buy an extra large piece of salmon and then toss the leftover into a salad the next day.

* If I have a large quantity of veggies that need to be eaten, I'll make a frittata (sliced potatoes sauteed in olive oil lining the bottom of a casserole pan, then topped with veggies, feta or Parmesan cheese, maybe some crumbled bacon or other meat, then topped with eggs and baked). I'll eat it cold for breakfast or lunch over the course of several days, or for dinner paired with a salad.

* If I have to buy a larger portion of protein, I'll cook it and then cut into small pieces, then freeze. That allows me to grab a handful of protein, add it to rice and veggies for a quick meal. I do this most frequently with chicken (poached) or pork loin (grilled/roasted)

* Once a week or so, I do a grazing lunch or dinner with cheese and crackers, veggies and dips, salami or other cold cuts or preserved meats.

* I'll do egg dishes for lunch or dinner. Sometimes I make individual egg muffin sandwiches with Canadian bacon (muffins, bacon are in the freezer, so no worries about them going bad). Or I'll do a riff on chilaquilles -- eggs scrambled with salsa, served on top of a tortilla or tortilla chips with slices of avocados.

* If you have tortillas in the house, there are endless varieties of quesadillas you can make. Lately I'm doing a corn-flour tortilla, spread with refried black beans, a few slices of roast beef, a little cheese and a lot of salsa and avocado.

* Salads are, of course, a great way to go through a lot of veggies. Stir fries are also terrific, and you can freeze the leftover veggies to use as a side dish down the road.

* Clearly I'm not much of a sandwich person, but I'll occasionally make a sandwich if I have great ingredients. That said, I go for more elaborate sandwiches. For example, leftover steak might be sliced and warmed in some garlic butter then served on an open-faced sandwich. Or if I've made some caramelized onions I'll buy a nice blue cheese and some roast beef for a sandwich.

I am curious about your "you just can't buy these ingredients in small quantities" comment. Where in Chicago are you shopping? I do most of mine at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Jewel, Mariano's and even (I hate to admit) Walmart Express.

I am certainly by not means an angel when it comes to consuming everything before it spoils, but I don't really have a problem with most things. Every protein under the sun can be bought in almost any portion size if you're willing to shop at the butcher counter/seafood counter. Sure, an entire chicken is a fixed price, but many cuts of beef, pork, poultry and fish are available in flexible sizes. Fruits and veggies can be purchased in bulk. (If you're feeling lazy, salad bars are a great way to get just the right amount of many common ingredients.) The deli counter can give you flexible-sized portions of cheese and coldcuts. (Whole Foods near me even has a basket of better cheeses that have been cut into portions costing $4 or less.)

I don't freeze cheese (but I know some who do) or milk (ditto). I have frozen tomatoes if I intend to use them in sauces/stews, but I normally wouldn't refrigerate or freeze them. I do refrigerate avocados and know some who freeze them, but I haven't. Lettuce doesn't freeze, but other steamed/sauteed greens such as kale, spinach and brussels sprouts freeze well.

at least in the US frozen products are going to vary dramatically by brand

fish is usually previously frozen, so i know what you mean

but veggies are not previously frozen are they?

You lose the "vitamins" when you cook the vegetables :) Raw, non-cooked vegetables contain the most "vitamins".

For me, I cook in multiple quantities that you can stretch out for a week.

Usually, it's a base soup/stew or sauce that can be modified by adding spices like curry, chili powder, etc.

Beef bourguignon tastes better as it marinates in the fridge after cooking. :p

My grocery can let you buy by the kg so I hope you're not shopping at Costco all the time.

I think what uk1 is saying is that "fresh" veggies may have been picked days, weeks or months ago. I was at Chicago's best farmer's market (only local farmers, no one allowed to sell stuff they bought from wholesalers) on Saturday and one farmer was selling apples. It's May...those apples were picked last fall because there are no local apples ready to be picked in the spring in the Chicago area. My CSA box has included carrots almost every week for the last couple months. The farmer is very transparent in letting us know these carrots have been in cold storage for a while.

thanks chgoeditor

id think it varies though, and again especially in US with frozen brands (OP is US, not elsewhere)

I tried freezing cheese once and although it was edible once thawed, the consistency changed and it could no longer be sliced.

I don't think any of your strictly salad vegetables can be frozen (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, sprouts). But I think almost anything you spot in a can will do okay and if you see it in the grocer's freezer, you can freeze it too although some things may need to be cooked before freezing. I freeze fresh onion and celery and bell pepper after washing and chopping and so always have a supply on hand for cooking. You can do that with jalapenos and other peppers as well. I don't know about garlic but BamaVol Jr #1 has got me almost completely converted to the stuff in jars anyway.

Speaking of frozen vegetable, Costco's Kirkland Signature Stir-Fry Vegetable Blend is very good. It contains a variety of premium frozen vegetable and keeps well in the freezer. Its also easy to cook, you can throw in some diced/cubed meats (beef or chicken or pork etc) in the stir-fry before adding in the vegetable, or skip the meats to have a vegetable only stir-fry.

wegmans also has some large bags of frozen, although not in chicago

have experienced some poorly 'mixed' bags of mixed veggies at wegmans and elsewhere

I would say this is not categorically true. If the subject interests you, OP, you should do your own research. Whether vegetables are healthier before or after cooking is a complicated subject, as there are a lot of vegetables, nutrients, and cooking methods to consider. Available vitamin C is more plentiful in several types of vegetables before cooking, for example, but available lycopene is more plentiful in several types of vegetables after cooking. I frankly don't worry about not getting enough vitamin C.

I also can't agree with or really even understand the comment about frozen veg quality varying by brand. In my experience, frozen vegetables are among the most reliably consistent things you can buy in US grocery stores, whether they're national brands such as BirdsEye and Green Giant or generic store brands.

Overall, I am with uk1 on this; frozen vegetables are often fresher and more nutritious than fresh vegetables. I keep several types of frozen vegetables on hand all the time, use them several times a week, and cook them minimally (a few minutes boiling or steaming).

I concur also on keeping frozen fish in the freezer: unadorned fillets, beer-battered pieces, whatever you like.

Chicken doesn't stock very well in the freezer; its liquid bleeds out and doesn't go back into the meat. (You can tell a frozen/defrosted package of chicken pieces in the grocery store from a not-previously-frozen package; the frozen/defrosted one will have pink-tinged water pooling in the corners of the package. In contrast to chicken, beef and pork both freeze well.

I agree also on making and freezing batches of things like ragu bolognese and curry sauce. Many types of sauces and soups freeze well, but potatoes, rice, and pasta aren't as good when defrosted--frozen/defrosted potatoes are mealy; rice and pastas soak up too much liquid and get blown out. Save containers of sauce or soup without these and add potatoes or pasta fresh. The Italian soup paste e fagiole is a good example: the liquid, tomatoes, and beans will all be fine when defrosted, but you're better off not freezing it with pasta (such as ditalini) in it before freezing, but rather adding freshly cooked pasta to smaller servings that you defrost. Chicken, especially chicken breast, can also get tough if frozen in dishes and defrosted. I occasionally make a big pot of a "chicken a la king" sauce (creamy chicken sauce with sherry and vegetables) that I freeze in containers and later add to freshly cooked chicken meat and biscuits.

Same is true for shrimp or other seafood in soups, sauces, gumbos, etc. The shrimp will be tough after freezing and reheating. Just freeze the sauce and add fresh shrimp later.

I grew up in a household of nine and still find it hard to cook for just two, much less one. Another thing I do, which has already been suggested, is make multiple batches to freeze---meatloaf, for example, as someone mentioned. When I make turkey tetrazzini, I make a lot, serve one dish of it, freeze one or two others. I would do much more crockpot cooking (household of nine, remember) and freezing if Mister Mister weren't so dismissive of crockpot-type meals... I do manage to sneak them in on him occasionally, though. If I lived alone, I would probably make something in the crockpot at least once a week -- but then, I think I'd also buy a smaller crockpot than the one I have.

Bread also freezes well, especially if you suck the air out of the bag. I keep croissants and French bread and the like in the freezer. Forget them too long and they'll get freezer-burned, but use them in a timely fashion and they'll defrost quickly and taste as good as new. Freezing bread preserves it longer than refrigerating it does.

When you come home for lunch or are tired after work, you usually don't feel like defrosting something frozen. Two suggestions for this: (1) occasionally take something out of the freezer a day or two in advance of when you think you'll want to eat it, and let it defrost in the fridge. That gives you a chance to check its texture etc. after defrosting and change plans if necessary. (2) keep some pantry things (canned beans, rice, pasta, canned tunna, canned clams, canned salmon, canned diced tomatoes, garlic, onions, potatoes, also jarred sauces for pasta such as tomato, cream, or pesto-based sauces) on hand for quick meals such as linguine with clam sauce, red beans and rice, tuna salad on a croissant, bruschetta, etc. If you like egg salad, hard-boil a few eggs once in a while.

A thing I've been doing lately once a month or so is buying a bag of frozen meatballs, heating/browning them in the oven, and then crumbling them into some defrosted pasta sauce of my own or even, in a pinch, some homemade spaghetti sauce. The cooked meatballs broken up and some olive oil and seasonings, some sauteed onions and garlic, and a can of diced tomatoes mixed in with homemade or storebought sauce makes for a large quantity of meaty, chunky, tasty sauce that freezes well.

A couple of the supermarkets near me have a salad bar, and I just use that as an ingredient bar.

Yesterday, for example, I picked up about a quarter cup of shredded carrots and maybe a couple of tablespoons of chopped onions to add to a saute I was doing. I think it cost under 50 cents, and there was nothing left over to rot.

While it's not the most cost efficient way of shopping for ingredients, I've done this, too, particularly for stir fries, if I need a small amount of an ingredients, or if the ingredient is time consuming to prep from scratch.

So good question. When I google, "Cooking for One", this is one of the recipes that comes up:

Ingredients

2/3 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 English cucumber, seeds scooped out, skin peeled off, and cut into chunky half moons
1/4 cup roughly chopped mint leaves
1 bunch roughly chopped chives (about 1/3 cup), divided
3 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh oregano (divided)
3 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
2 teaspoons fresh juice from 1 lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
14 ounces ground lamb
A drizzle of olive oil
2 warm pitas

Yogurt-Bad in a week
Cucumber - No, won't last a week at best.
The spices? Yes they say fresh but I guess I could get freeze dried.
Lamb - How do you buy 14 ounces of Lamb? Everywhere I look, it is 2-3 pounds. Yes, I could cut it up, but it is difficult with bone in.

So, am I just going to the wrong places?

Brilliant, although I would be too tempted to make a salad and be done with it. Really, it's all about motivation.

You can always get a cookbook of your favorite cuisine and mathematically cut the ingredients (ex. if the recipe serves 6, each ingredient should be 1/6 of required).

It's a guideline to get you started.

Yogurt - get a spoon and eat the rest of it - mix in a little honey/preserves if you like.
Cucumber - buy the smallest you can find and either just eat the rest or use it in a salad.
Fresh herbs - harder
Garlic - keeps for quite awhile, we just have a little cup that we keep in our kitchen towel drawer and it is good for several weeks.
Lamb - why would you buy bone-in lamb? A good supermarket will sell you exactly what you need, already ground.

Greek yogurt won't go bad in a week...trust me. Not withstanding that fact, I'm certain you can by single serving portions of unflavored Greek yogurt at Trader Joe's and other stores.

You said you make salads, so the rest of the cucumber can get thrown in there.

Fresh herbs can be chopped up and frozen.

Whole Foods sells ground lamb in the butcher section. I believe I've also seen it at Mariano's.

I just cook for more than one, eat what I want, and put the rest away for later.

Is the problem that you're cooking for one, or that you are only cooking sporadically? I guess I don't understand why its a problem that the cucumber only lasts a week. Throw the other half into a salad in a couple days?

Greek Yogurt comes in a 7 or 8 oz container ... if it were me, I'd just add the extra in.

14 oz of lamb seems excessive for a recipe for one person, but I see ground lamb all the time in 16 ounce packages. And even if I really wanted to debone and grind it myself, I see chops in much smaller pkgs than 2 lbs all the time.

Extra herbs can get thrown into a salad with the extra 1/2 cucumber. Or I dry them myself for later use.

I buy pureed garlic in a tube. Less chopping for me, and it lasts a long time. http://www.britsuperstore.com/acatal...dIZcAuw#a23783

Sacrilege! :eek:

It's lovely. It's in my fridge, right next to the tube of tomato paste. :)

I generally have fresh garlic around too if I need to roast whole cloves or have slivers or some such thing, but if its going to get chopped to bits anyway, out comes the tube!

Not at all. Like missy, I keep the real thing on hand too. I buy mine in a jar and use it more than ever. No difference in flavor when added to most recipes.

I agree but I can't admit that to my Italian friends who tend to go ballistic.

Thanks. I guess I don't know why I thought some of these ingredients went bad so quickly. I just assumed?

Anyway, thanks everyone for your tips. Looking forward to trying some of these recipes in the cookbooks suggested.

+1 on the soup. I make a regular recipe and eat one meal, keep another meals worth in the fridge and freeze meal sized containers.

I also freeze fresh blueberries and grab a handful almost daily to thaw and use to top oatmeal or salads.

I also freeze thaw sliced bread and take a slice or two out to toast for breakfast and such.

Ditto on bacon. I'll buy a lb or two of my great bacon and parse it out in 3-4 slice portions and freeze in individual bags.

I usually make soups and stews in regular or larger batches and put them in individual-sized containers, label them and freeze them. The same goes for larger quantities of meat. The meat either gets portioned and marinated into ready-to-cook or cooked and portioned into ready-to-eat. Having a variety of both types helps keep things interesting.

My freezer is usually full and my fridge is mostly full of condiments, wine and beer and maybe a package of eggs. That way, I can either heat something up to eat or I can cook something in a relatively short amount of time.

To help prevent spoilage and to keep organized I have a list of condiments on my fridge door as well as a list of the ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook stuff. I also have a few quick cook ingredients such as angel hair pastas, a jar or two of pasta sauce and some frozen dumplings for when I'm feeling especially tired or lazy.

If you don't have one already, I would recommend getting a small pressure cooker and a smallish-sized rice cooker. The rice cooks in 20-mins without supervision plus there are a bunch of one pot dishes that can be made in it. The pressure cooker is awesome for flavourful, inexpensive cuts of meat.

For veg, I just pick up a bag of spinach or a head of broccoli on my way home.

The hardest part was building up the pantry from nothing without buying "club-sized" quantities.

The problem I have with frozen stuff is that it takes so long to thaw or cook from frozen.

I am lucky enough to be able to come home for lunch, but I am limited to about 20 minutes to cook and eat. I am not too keen on sandwiches, so end up with reheated leftovers. So I am looking for some good ideas on something I can make ahead and keep in the fridge for a few days and quickly reheat.

Oh, another good book to check out - Edouard De Pomiane's French Cooking in Ten Minutes. Some good inspiration.