Folk who live alone, do you cook? If so, what do you cook?

Cafe Society
1

I have never lived completely on my own before. I should be doing it soon, however. I cook for my parents and relatives when I’m at home and my slate of recipes is a bit limited. (My dad was very surprised when we didn’t have spaghetti for dinner Monday night. Monday is spaghetti night.) When I have to fend for myself, I usually eat a sandwich. However, this leads to me consuming rather a lot of bread, which I feel could be less than optimal. I picture myself making an enormous pot of potato or vegetable soup and eating from it for a week. (Yum.)

Do others pursue the sandwich route, eat take-out or fast food, or do you cook wonderful meals, though they are only for you? What do you cook?

This is a poll, but it’s food-related, so I thought it belonged here.

2

I eat a lot of those cheap packages of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Usually there are two small ones and three tiny ones in the packages. I either bake them or crock-pot them, with various add-ins, and get two meals out of it. Often I bake two or three sweet potatoes at a time, then remove skins and mash, and have sweet potatoes for several meals (if I could eat nothing but sweet potatoes for the rest of my life, that would be fine). Sometimes I steam asparagus or broccoli to go with it, too.

My other meat staple is hamburger. I make meatballs to go with spaghetti, or kefta to go with flatbread and hummus, or I break it up and make a stew–sometimes sloppy joe style, more often with vegetables and either tomato or yogurt sauce. Curry-ish. Sort of. To eat on rice or pasta. Curry-ish and kefta both come with salad of tomatoes and/or cucumbers dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar. The major drawback to curry-ish is that it stretches to four or five meals, and I am sick of it well before that.

I also make big batches of soup and freeze it in individual portions. That with fancy bread is my standby no-brainer meal.

Other than that… I have found a few flaky meals to keep things interesting. I can whip up a white sauce like nobody’s business, and eat half of it on pasta and the other half, the next day, on spinach. I make latkes to eat with sour cream and green tomato pickle. I have french toast phases (flavor the eggy milk with vanilla and cinnamon–yowza). If I feel very strong, I sometimes make risotto. Scrambled eggs and toast are a valid option. I have period love affairs with green salad dressed with tomatoes, walnuts, rotini, and pressed garlic. Sauteed mushrooms on toast, sometimes with a little camembert between. Sometimes, I just have kasha and green beans for supper.

3

Oh–and I am happy to provide recipies if requested.

4

I’d appreciate recipes, thank you.

One problem I have is that I don’t like many vegetables. I could start by experimenting with what I cook for my parents (so I wouldn’t have to throw out as much if it didn’t turn out to be something I liked), but they both take a dim view of new foods.

5

I find cooking for yourself cheaper, but the hassle of it gets to me - all that washing up for one meal? No, thank you. So my solution is to make two meals at a time and put one into the fridge for later in the week.

As far as what to make: my meals tend to be tuna/mince with a few choices from spinach, sweetcorn, peas, peppers, onions. In a week I try to shuffle through curry, stir-fry and pasta. Occasionally for a change, I’ll have sausages or Mexican.

6

Well, so far I’ve mostly gone the fast food route because I absolutely hate cooking. It’s torture. I eat about once a day.

Although occasionally I will get sick of it and make myself cheese burritos for awhile. I can also make spaghetti, rice-a-roni and various cold sandwiches but mostly I see cooking and eating as hassles (it happened to me back in 1992 for reasons i don’t understand) and want to get it over with as quickly as possible. I am slowly beginning to healthify my diet though. Unfortunately I also hate shopping.

If only there was a place that sold month long supplies of soylent green I’d just do that. Imagine, one little square that gives you everything you need.

7

I used to live alone. Yes, I cooked sometimes. But yes, without a dishwasher, it was a pain washing all those dishes.

More often than not, I ate a lot of frozen dinners. I’m not much into take out. Expensive and just too many calories to do on a regular basis. I did reach a point a couple of years ago when the local grocery store closed down and I was stuck eating way too much fast food which put about 20 pounds on me.

When I made something, I tried to make enough for at least a second meal. I had some of those reheatable plastic single serving storage thingys.

For Veggies, I bought a steamer and bags of frozen veggies. Easy to cook and make enough just for one serving.

8

I don’t do it every week, but I will buy a whole side of salmon, or a pot roast, or a chicken on Saturday (meats are usually marked down at the local stores on Saturday, but still a few days from their sell-by dates), then cook it on Sunday and have dinners off the leftovers for most of the rest of the week, plus sandwiches for lunch.

9

You don’t have to have vegetables-all-alone. I grew up in a household where veggies were served in a dish on the side, with butter and salt for seasoning, and maybe some cheese sauce if it was broccoli. I HATED vegetables, and would eat them only because I had to (and in the case of green peas, not even that).

Astoundingly, now that I’m a grownup, and can put vegetables in the sauce for my chicken, or in my potato-and-ham soup, or chop them up fine and add to tomato sauce for spaghetti, I eat a lot more of the broccoli, green beans, spinach, corn, and other stuff I really should be eating.

Have you considered choosing things to cook that are similar enough to what you’re already making for your parents, that you could make two things, one for them and one for you? (for instance, I make two kinds of potato-ham soup, one has sweet potatoes and one doesn’t. I can make them in separate pots with very little effort.)

Corrvin

10

When I eat alone, I almost never make myself a decent meal.

Instead, I buy from the supermarket a meal consisting of my favorite things. Not mixed, but all spread out on a serving plate and eaten in about 1,5 hour, while reading or watching tv.
A few examples of those meals:

  • 1 can of maize, one packet of crabsticks and 2 mandarins.

  • half a pot of tomatosauce, half a pot of dill-pickles and some
    defrosted spinach-a-la-creme.

  • a bowl of cooked spaghetti with oil and salt, a sandwich, and a yoghurt dessert.

  • one entire little mozzarella cheese, some salad (or just a bell pepper or something) and a pot of applesauce.

  • 1 can of ravioli, some yoghurt, and a packet of raw sauerkraut.

Prefab things are cooked, and seasoned to perfection. I can’t improve much on that by mixing them with other stuff. And, some things just taste better cold, and you don’t have to worry about them cooling.

11

I live alone, and I’ll cook a pan of something and freeze it in individual portions. I like cheese lagasna without the sauce, so I can add whatever sauce and toppings when I reheat it. Veggie chili is good too, particularly with cornbread.

In cold weather, I always have a pot of soup on the stove, and frozen veggies to toss in. With a salad, it’s a meal.

I cook about twice a week.

12

I bake my own bread, and if I may say so myself, it’s delicious. The mix mainly contains white flour, wholewheat flour, rye flour, raisins and buttermilk. It’s also very long lasting, probably because of the rye flour.

I eat very well at work, so at night it’s a quick meal, which is mostly bread (no surprise there) topped with baked beans. I love baked beans in tomato sauce.

On weekends I have been known to do a mean vegetable “potjie”. It’s a vegetable stew done in a three legged pot over an open fire. Lasts me the entire week thereafter.

13

Unlike some people in this thread, I love cooking…but DESPISE cleaning up after it. And you know what? You pretty much dirty just as many dishes making dinner for one as you do making dinner for four (of course, the after dinner dishes are less), but you have three les people to help clean up after. So I often find myself thinkig that I could make dinner, but don’t feel like cleaning up after myself in any capacity, so I end up either eating just junk food, or maybe a one pot meal (and by meal, I mean one of those instant pasta-side dishes.)

I’m also bad at using leftovers. I often roast a whole chicken (because again, one pan meal), eat maybe half of it that night. Maybe I’ll eat some more for lunch the next day, but then I’ll forget about it and in a week have to throw it out. I’ll also have to throw out the leftover steak from the day before the chicekn, the leftover soup from three weeks ago, etc…Of course, this is just some weird problem I have of never remembering I made food earlier, and will probably not apply to you.

When I first started living on my own, I ate a lot mroe crap. I put on a few pounds (nothing to get shocked about, but enough for me to notice,) and decided to cut back on the high-fat, high-sodium premade foods. I’ve actually been good about sticking to that. I have the occaisional frozen pizza (maybe two times per month,) but other than that anf the pre-mentioned pasta side dishes, I steer clear of almost all “heat and heat” foods from the supermarket. Also, they are much more expensive than cooking for yourself…provided you’re not like me and actually eat leftovers. :smack:

One caveat, thuogh: it’s a lot harder to buy in bulk for one. Soem things, like rice, frozen veggies, and canned goods, can be boguht in alrge quantities if on sale and kept, but meat is harder, adn fresh veggies impossible. Yes, you can freeze meat, but a) that’s a hassle (cause you have to take it OUT of it’s original package to put it in a new one less it get freezer burn,) b) requires more planning (you have to remember to take meat out to thaw night before/morning of) and c) again, more of an issue with me and my crappy memory, I forget I have frozen meat and continue to buy fresh meat until the frozen stuf is too freezer-burned to use. Oh, and fresh veggies? Good luck with that. Beyond root vegetables that keep for a while (carrots, potatoes, onions, etc…) it’s hard (for me, anyways) to keep veggies from rotting. Hell, I find myself throwing out half of a bell pepper cause I needed it for a recipe then forgot to use the rest. And some things, like lettuce, only comes in large (for one person) quantities, and goes bad real quick. They should have a “single-persons” grocery store, with everything miniturized. Also, it’d be a great place to get date, cause everyone there would be single. :smiley:

14

I handle dishes by putting everything, absolutely everything that I can, in the dishwasher. Pots, pans, etc.

Vegetable soup is made thusly: put a stockpot on the heat and drizzle some olive oil in the bottom. Cut up on onion and put in. Stir and fry a little. Add six cups water and three bouillon cubes. Add about three bags of frozen vegetables (I like peas/corn/carrots/green beans), put the lid on, and let it all thaw for about 30 minutes. Add two cans of diced tomatoes, one little can of tomato sauce, two bay leaves, lots of dry basil, lots of black pepper, salt, and maybe–if you want–a handful of lentils. Put lid back on. Let simmer for at least 30 minutes more, up to an hour.

And I eat it with a dollop of sour cream mixed in… tastewise, it counteracts the vegetables.

15

I live alone. I cook practically every day. During the week, I prefer dishes that are relatively fast to make and don’t take up the whole stove (i.e. less pans etc to wash up!): pastas, curries, risotto/paella.

I’m getting in the habit of making more pasta-sauce and re-using it the next day, and I tend to make chicken and beef in larger amounts, but I mostly cook from schratch every day.

16

I lived alone for a most of a year when I got my first academic job and my husband was still finishing his degree. I always had pretty much the same thing for breakfast and lunch on weekdays–oatmeal and canned soup in a thermos, respectively. At dinner I usually cooked something simple, like steak and salad or tacos. Sometimes I brought home fast food or a frozen pizza. On weekends I might attempt something a little more elaborate, like a stir fry. I was living in a studio apartment, but it had a good kitchen, with a dishwasher.

17

I would to, if I had one. :frowning:

18

I’ve lived alone for years but I’ve never gotten the hang of cooking much. Lately, most nights I have a big spinach salad with a little crumbled gorgonzola or feta and basalmic vinegar. If I’m still munchy I make popcorn. (yeah, it’s not the most well-balanced meal)

In the winter, I do make a huge pot of chili and will eat it for weeks. I use a prepackaged chili mix but add a whole lot of extra beans, fake meat crumbles, and tomato mixtures so it’s relaly good.

I have a rice cooker and will sometimes make brown rice and eat it with beans or lentils. (if it’s not obvious by now, I’m a veg).

I do like vegetables but don’t really know how to cook them. My only decent recipe is lightly steamed kale with a olive oil, tamari sauce, and garlic. I make that once a month. I’m lucky in that I live real near a huge Whole Foods and I make enough money to shop there. I buy premade stuff all the time and just heat it up at home.

19

I pretty much always cook, and rarely eat out for dinner. One, it’s usually cheaper, and two, I feel I can cook better than pretty much all restaurants in the price range one would go to every day, and better than anything you can get frozen.
Heck, a lot of stuff I cook I can’t get anywhere near here. Hungarian food is pretty much nonexistant in Chicago (minus the restaurant Paprikash) and it’s my favorite stick-to-your-ribs fall food. Super spicy stuff like Chicken Phal I’ve never been able to find at any Indian joint, so I make it myself. During the summer, I always get a hankering for Mozambique chicken piri-piri (aka pili-pili/peli-peli/pili-pili), but where to find here? Or Carolina-style pulled pork? Heck, I have to make 'em myself if I want to eat it. Most of this stuff is not difficult to make, nor as exotic as it sounds, it’s just that nobody makes it around here. And with other foods–like pizza and pastas–nobody makes them to my liking. Don’t get me wrong–I’m actually not a picky eater–I will eat anything that’s put in front of me. I may be critical, but I will eat it. However, given the choice, if I’m going out, I want something that I can’t make at home.

Of course, I do eat convenience foods from time to time, but I simply love to cook. It’s only the cleaning I despise.

20

Ever since I was six or so, my dream of “what are you gonna be when you grow up” never has gone beyond my basic desire of : I want to live by myself so I can eat what I want when I want (and go to bed when I want to, too). This dream came through at 18, I am now 40, and I still am enjoying it very much.

What does change is what and when I want to eat. I go through cycles of cooking every night and loving it to the point of experimenting with ridiculous elaborate self-invented cuisine like stuffed peas just to see if it can be done to periods when I don’t cook much if at all. (but during those low cooking periods I usually go through a raw veggie/salad plus bread phase; my non-cooking phases have a lot more to do with not wanting to spend the time on clean up than going through a unhealthy pig out period.)

In between these extremes, the spring and autum of my cooking cycle so to speak, I usually go for dishes that only need one pan/container to prepare. It seems that I gradually increase cooking utensils until I’m in full cooking mode and then gradually decrease use of kitchen gear until it’s just a knife and cutting board.

I learned to cook when i was very little because my mum enjoyed teaching me and my brothers so I can’t remember with which things I started. One tip I can give you,however, to get a luxury fancy though low budget feel to whatever you’re having is: buy fresh herbs ready grown in a pot,or grow them yourself in a window sill. (chives,parsley,basil,oregano,mint that kind of thing). A sprinkle of these in ever changing combinations on a sandwich, in a sauce, mixed through a salad, on top of a hot meal as decoration etc. tends to make me feel being caring and good to myself when alone. It’s also a great way to enhance a meal when you have unexpected visitors during low-budget periods in your life.