The Coin Return Foundational Fundraiser is here! Please donate!
Eating / Cooking for one
Lucascraft
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've recently moved into an apartment by myself. This is the first time I have ever lived 100% on my own. I've lived with roommates before, and I've of course lived with my family in the past. But being entirely on my own is a new experience.
I'm looking for tips, suggestions, recipes, and ideas for how to cook and eat for 1. When I had roommates, I didn't mind cooking because I was doing it for more than just myself. I didn't mind preparing a meal to share with other people. But now that I'm on my own, I hate the idea of cooking, because anything I want to make always produces too much for just 1 person.
I'm discovering that the easiest options for solo meals are all extremely unhealthy. So anyway... I'd like some help.
I'm looking for tips, suggestions, recipes, and ideas for how to cook and eat for 1. When I had roommates, I didn't mind cooking because I was doing it for more than just myself. I didn't mind preparing a meal to share with other people. But now that I'm on my own, I hate the idea of cooking, because anything I want to make always produces too much for just 1 person.
I'm discovering that the easiest options for solo meals are all extremely unhealthy. So anyway... I'd like some help.
0
Posts
But really, think of cooking for yourself as developing a skill. You get leftovers, but you also get to perfect your cooking technique for the time when it's not just you. Also, cooking enables you to eat better and healthier, usually for cheaper.
Yes, it's easier to fill your cart with a bunch of crap that screams bachelor... Totino's pizzas, mac and cheese, beer... but really, you don't want to be that guy. So either adjust your recipes for smaller amounts, or just keep leftovers.
As for what to cook... my mom got me a subscription to Food Network Magazine... holy shit... that thing is like a fucking Harry Potter spell book. Using it I have wowed people at various function as well as winning two cooking contests at work. Against women 20-40 years older then myself.
Are you prepared to invest in a good sized freezer or do you have one already? If so then as said above that makes things easier: make stuff that will easily keep and just divide into portions.
Also look at ways to keep transmuting a meal. So if you really roast a chicken, OK you eat a leg one night, then you use some of the the breast meat for chicken salad sandwiches, and finally turn the rest of the meat into a chicken stew/chunky soup big enough for 2 portions, one of which you freeze.
And ofc there are some nice meals you can just make for one. One of my favourites is spaghetti (or linguine) cooked like this:
Put a pot of salted water onto boil. Put your pasta in to cook.
In a deep sided non stick pan, glug in 2 oz of olive oil, and put a low heat under it. Either crush 4-5 cloves of garlic and put them into the oil or put in a tablespoon of minced garlic. Add in some dried oregano. Saute gently for a minute or so, until it just starts to change colour, then add a similar quantity of tomato puree, turn up the heat some, mix the puree in and saute for another minute. Pour in a glass of good, dry red wine (chianti is great) and stir vigourosly. Very quickly, the wine, oil and vegetable purees should combine into a smooth, glossy sauce base.
Now add in one ingredient for the sauce to carry. You only need one - keep this simple. I have used: baby plum tomatoes, halved, chestnut mushrooms, leftover chicken meat (see above), fresh spinach, diced aubergine (eggplant), shrimp, salmon, spanish chorizo, and they've all worked well. Add seasoning appropriately (you can't go wrong with pepper; nutmeg works with spinach, smoked paprika will bring up the aubergine, etc) and cook on a high heat for a minute. The sauce will very quickly reduce and become quite sticky and concentrated.
Check your pasta; if it's almost done, add in a ladelful of the pasta water to your sauce, which will instantly become very thin and liquid. Quickly drain your pasta (no need to be thorough about this), and tip it into the pan with your sauce in. Mix the pasta around until thoroughly coated with the sauce, and keep cooking it until it's done. Tip into a warmed bowl, add parmesan if you like it (I do) and serve with a glass of the wine you used to make it. It's very cheap, incredibly rich and tasty, quick and easy, plus easy to clean up after. And an excellent way of using up leftovers.
Yeah. When I'm just cooking for myself I tend to just dice some onions and mushrooms to sautee with curry and any other ingredients I feel like adding to put in a wrap or bowl.
And I'll second freezing if you don't mind leftovers.
This. When I was bacheloring it up, I'd cook something large for a lunch-time meal, and just toss it in the fridge. Get hungry again? Put some on a plate and reheat it.
That's the easiest way. And most things you cook that way will still keep for several days, even if they're ultra-healthy type stuff.
I also agree with suggestions to just cook big meals and eat the leftovers - this is the way to go.
I do actually own a nice crockpot. My parents bought me one as a house-warming gift when I moved into this new place. I have already cooked a couple things in it, including a pretty good tater tot casserole with green beans, corn, and hamburger.
The crockpot is a time machine. It allows you to come home from work to a hot meal without having to do any real cooking. It feeds you for days into the future. It transforms the meat you find in the clearance bin into a tastier version of itself. It is magic. Bachelors have one true god, and its name is crockpot.
Soups, chilis, stews, pulled <meat>, curries, hell even desserts if you do it right, the crockpot can produce them all with a minimum of effort. Shop for cheap, bland cuts of meat, then build a recipe around it. Ground beef on sale? Brown it and make a meat sauce for spaghetti. Chicken thighs? Make white chicken chili. Pork shoulder? Pot roast with like five minutes of work.
If it's cheap and comes from an animal, a crockpot will turn it into a great meal. Vegetarians can get just as much use out of it, I would assume.
A small hibachi style grill is a very space- and fuel-economical option here.
HOW TO COOK A STEAK IN YOUR KITCHEN:
2) I kid, it's actually not that bad.
3) Tenderize/marinade. I used to just use a fork to poke it a bunch (giggity), then use some Worcestershire sauce and ketchup (if you're broke and don't care about flavor), or a nice marinade from the store (A1 makes them, so do several others). If you want something a bit more hardcore, rubs are relatively cheap for the amount you get. Either way, let it sit in the marinade for a while (like, set it up before you go to bed, have it for dinner the next day).
4) Get a frying pan that's oven safe. I use a glass one. This is key to making sure you have a properly cooked steak, without being overdone, inside or out.
5) Preheat the oven to 350.
6) Preheat the pan. You can just wait until the oven preheats, then let the pan sit on the stove on ~medium heat for a few minutes.
7) Slap that steak on that pan. Make sure the pan is good and hot. Let it sit for THREE MINUTES (well, 2-4 depending on exactly how done you want it)
8) Flip. ONE TIME! And cook the other side for the same length of time. You will want to have placed the steak to one side of the pan, and flip it to the other side, as your marinade is probably sticking to the pan a bit. Let it sit on this side as long as you did on the other side.
9) Toss it in the oven. When I do this, I let it sit on the stove for 3 minutes per side, and 4 minutes in the oven, so it's a 10 minute steak. Your cook time will vary depending on how well done you like your steak, as well as how thick it is. I did this with NY Strips that were not quite an inch thick (I always got them cheap in the mornings when the butcher marks down the meat from the day before to make room for that day's cuts).
10) Pull the steak out. DON'T EAT IT YET! Let it rest for a few minutes. This is important, because all the juices are cooked out of the steak, so the meat is dry and tough. Letting it rest lets it re-absorb the juices, and it'll be much much better for it.
11) Eat. That. Steak. You're welcome.
This has been Tox's guide to how some guy with meager cooking skill stumbled onto a way to make a halfway decent steak. The original recipe calls for three beers. Two you drink while you're cooking, the third you have with your dinner. I didn't feel like being quite that silly this time around.
Man I really dislike doing the leftover thing too much. At least in the "eat the same thing for 3/4 days" sense. Far better to switch it up with little variations on basics. Make a simple sauce and then use it in different recipes for example, or make chicken and then use part of it for sandwiches and another part for some wok-style dish and such.
Best idea is having friends over and also going over to your friends for dinner. Make it a thing. It basically gives you a few days a week where you can really cook/be cooked for. Gives you a reason to stay interested in cooking too, even if it's only one friend you change feeling from "I need to eat" to "I'm going to make a meal and have dinner".
This is pretty good. If i can make two additions.
1.) Don't bother marinading your steak, It won't tendorize it. Instead, focus on good cuts of meat and don't overcook them. Use a simple pepper\Garlic\Salt rub on your steak.
2.) Use a cast iron pan. Cast iron can get really hot and used on the stove top and in the oven. Plus it'll get a really nice sear on your steak. I like to fry up some bacon first to get a little grease going, but it's optional on a well seasoned pan.
Don't like doing dishes? Stick to nuts, tuna (cans), bananas and other fruits.
All of those options (careful with frozen meals) are healthy. Tuna and bananas alone will provide you enough carbs and protein.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Ayup. The crock pot in our house is used virtually exclusively by my wife.
OP, the one thing I'll relate to you that I find a bit of a challenge is that buying produce (fruits and vegetables) is a trial, since it seems that fresh produce is sold in amounts that are far too much for a single person. In my area, anyway. Take sandwiches, for example. I love sandwiches. For me a sandwich requires lettuce - a sandwich without lettuce is a sad sandwich (sadwich?). Butter lettuce, romaine, spinach, even iceberg if nothing else will do. My problem is that 90% of lettuce heads (of ANY type) are more than I can handle. I use half the thing before it goes bad. I just can't keep up. I can find the prewashed, sorted, organic stuff in plastic containers, but that's a hell of a lot more expensive. The same holds true for certain items like strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers - anything with a high moisture content.
Again, YMMV.
Other than that, being a bachelor is a hell of a lot of fun from a food perspective. Go nuts. I recommend buying LARGE quantities of meat - chicken and fish, if you're being healthy and sticking as much as possible in your freezer. Then you pull it out ahead of time to thaw whenever you're anticipating eating some for dinner. Combine that with lots of frozen vegetables and some wholesome starches and you've got a dinner, usually with leftovers for a lunch.
I don't know if they do them in the US but here in the UK I can buy a living salad - what is basically a little potting tray with some small salad greens growing in it that I can put on the window sill and crop leaves from when I want some. One of those will generally last me a week or so, and the leaves are totally fresh because I just picked them from the living plant (and also no washed with chlorine).
http://angalmond.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/she-sits-among-cabbages-and-peas.html
There's the only picture I can find of them and it's not a very good one, but you get the idea. Also in that page are some tips for growing your own salad in a window box.
Good tips! I always did the marinade less for tenderizing and more for added flavor, but that was before I understood how delicious a simple salt/pepper/garlic powder (equal parts) seasoning could be. So. Good. And of course I don't currently have a cast iron pan, but that's probably much better than glass (probably cleans a bit better as well).
You need to maximize your use of fresh veggies. Make salads and well as using things like tomatoes and lettuce on sandwiches. You'll use 'em up before they go bad.
http://www.chow.com/food-news/54924/10-things-to-cook-for-one/
Decent article on what to put in the fridge, what not to. I always used to store tomatoes in the fridge for example, as well as apples etc.
http://www.freshfoodcentral.com/view_feature.aspx?featureid=6
I'm a huge advocate of cooking big meals and eating leftovers. Some days you don't feel like going through the production of making something, and you have that container of pasta or leftover steak or whatever, and you just heat that up. =d
Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
I dont cook nearly as much as i should, but when i do, i try to limit it to meals that not only can be leftovers but remain good dispite being leftovers. So pick foods that hold up well.
Soups that can be frozen and still taste good after defrosting (vegatable beef), I usually make a dutch oven full of loose spagetti and just cook a little pasta each night i want it, it lasts about a week. Beef stew, chicken, etc.
You also can stock up on things that arent meals on there own, but can be turned into a beter meal with what you have on hand. I'll buy the lipton chicken flavored rice packages for a dollar, then when chicken goes on sale, ill blacken a few breast pieces, then make the rice using the same pan i used to cook the chicken in with the same drippings.
Rice is always a pain in the ass to make for one. some of it always is going to be thrown out if you cook it in a rice cooker or stove pot...I switched to the frozen rice that cooks in the bag in the microwave and its surprisingly good, so its easy to buy and keep in the freezer until something needs it.
Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
Also +1 for the Foreman, love mine.
Yep. Simple pastas/rice & beans etc. are a good "lazy food". Also it's always nice to have a frozen entree backup (I recommend Trader Joes Indian food for deliciousness), but limit yourself to 1-2 a week.
It's like a Foreman grill, but (at least compared to the foremans I've seen) it's got better control over temperature. It also has removable dishwasher safe grill plates (making cleanup much easier), that can reverse to form a griddle or a grill. If you want to spend the extra bucks, you can also turn it into a waffle iron by purchasing additional plates. Best of all it can open all the way forming a flat griddle that is ideal for pancakes.
Downside is that it is more expensive then a foreman grill, but I have to say between the added flexibility of being able to switch the cooking plates around, and the added ease of cleanup it's really worth looking into.
Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
Seriously though, it actually does drain off, it just isn't at such a steep angle as the Foreman, so most of the stuff you're cooking out will stay on the grill plate instead of draining into the cup. Just like on a real grill where most of it would simply slip between the grill bars onto the coal/gas burner or whatever instead of being collected in a cup.
Meh, whatever. It's the OP's call. I was just offering an alternative that I personally prefer to a foreman grill. I'm not a salesperson or getting a commission. Just offering another option for a space saving meat cooker. Since my small apartment has a kitchen approximately the size of a shoe box, it's important that I get as much use out of my storage space as possible.