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

Cafe Society
41

I take a lot of regular recipes and halve or quarter them. Works out well, as long as it doesn’t call for 3 eggs! (then I just mix one up and scoop out about half)

Last night I made lasagna in a loaf pan. Used 3 lasagna noodles, a 8 oz container of ricotta, drained in a strainer before adding to the recipe, a fairly chunky ragu made with ground veal, and topped with a blob of grated gouda on top. 375deg for 45 minutes and serves 3, or 2 piggies. :smiley: I had piggy serving for dinner and now have 2 petit servings in the freezer for sides to something else. Tonight is the leftover fettucini and sauce from a osso bucco I crockpotted on Monday, no more bucco left so I’m frying up some italian sausage.

42

:eek: How is such a thing possible?!

I can imagine not hating doing dishes, I can even imagine not minding at all. Hell, if I try really hard enough, I can even possibly imagine liking it, because you don’t like clutter/mess, gives you time to unwind, whatever. But to actually go so far as to say you LOVE it?! I’m no longer sure you’re human!

43

I hate unloading the dishwasher!

Anyway, back on topic, I love to cook. And I’ll go with the hints that others have said before:

    • Above all else - the freezer is my friend. Right now I have 2 soups, succotash, and 2 kinds of sweet breakfast breads in the freezer. That’s a low for me.
    • Portioning into smaller containers. I am on WW, and what works for me is to know how many servings a recipe makes, and have the containers out to portion out that many servings next to the stove as I am cooking. Once the meal is ready, I portion it out into the individual servings. I eat the one serving, and the rest go in the fridge/freezer.
    • Halving/Quartering recipes. This can be an advantage, as it opens you up to using different recipes with the same ingredient. I used 1/2 a block of firm tofu to make Curried Tofu Salad this week; I will be using the other half on Saturday to make Fettuccine & Tofu in Finger-Licking Peanut Sauce (or I may do something different, since I have done this recipe before).

The advantages of cooking for yourself is that you have good food, and if you work it right, you have it in the right quantities. I eat leftovers the next day for lunch - or I freeze, and can have them a few weeks later. I know exactly what went in the dish, and when it was made. (I know, a bit obsessive - it’s a control thing). I have it as an ambition to eat my own cooking as much as possible.

Susan

44

Strange but true.

I like to think of it as one of my good points. Right up there with having nice feet. :smiley:

45

Two things I would recommend:

Get a “30 minutes or less” and a “5 ingredients or less” cookbook. That way, if you don’t like the recipe, the you don’t feel so depressed about what you wasted.

Always make at least 2 servings. I have been cooking for myself for 5 years now, and I usually just cook twice a week. I sit down with a cookbook on Sunday and choose two meals that have ingredients I don’t hate (I’m a pretty picky eater too). I then go to the store and get my ingredients. I cook one recipe that night and make a large green salad, and the second recipe comes a few nights later when I run out of leftovers or get sick of the first one.

The other nights I fill in with leftovers, frozen ravioli or some other pasta, or popcorn (waves at tremorviolet). Soups are also my friend because they freeze so well. I make a few of them a month.

A filling, no-brainer recipe:

Boneless, skinless chicken breast
cream-of-mushroom condensed soup
paprika

cook, covered, over low heat for about an hour. Serve over rice.
I actually prefer to cook for just myself. Now that I have someone else to cook for, I have to cook 4x as often (he eats 3x as much as me), and I don’t like it as much.

46

Clearly, you need to be my roommate. I’ll give you all the dirty dishes you want. Hell, I’ll give you even more than that! You’ll never stop doing them with me around. I’ll shove plates in the toilet and smear them with feces just so I can dirty them faster than you can wash, and give you a sense of joy that you are cleaing the foulest dishes known to man.
Hell, it will practically be orgasmic for you. :stuck_out_tongue:

47

Why are people so agitated about the dishes? I don’t like doing dishes, but I can imagine liking it. One thing about cleaning things is sense of accomplishment: you clean something and, for now at least, it’s clean, dammit. Nothing inhuman about that.

If you don’t have to watch cholesterol, it’s worth learning how to make an omelet. They’re incredibly cheap, especially compared to diner or restaurant omelets; and at home you can put any filling you want in them. I sometimes like an omelet filled with jam; my father made them for me when I was a kid, and restaurants and diners never seem to sell sweet omelets.

For all that it took me till this past year to get the hang of making half-decent omelets. The key, I found, was to use a bigger frying pan then I’d been using, and get it REALLY hot. If it’s so hot it starts to scare you, it’s about right. Then just make sure the eggs and pan are never still until the omelet is done. Whatever filling you intend to use should either be cooked in advance or allowed to warm to room temperature. Some fillings, like shredded spinach or crumbled bacon, can be added to the egg mixture and cooked as part of the omelet; experiment.

If you like dried fruit at all, keep it always around to handle snack attacks. If you have access to a farmers’ market, go. When fruit is in season I can make a meal of peaches or strawberries.

48

Hey, I said I loved doing dishes. What you’re describing is in a realm far beyond even my capabilities.

::backs away from bouv quickly::

49

I havn’t lived alone for years, but when I did, i did a lot of cooking.

A really good quick meal is chicken and rice. you can take a frozen chicken leg quarter, mic on defrost for 6 min, season as you like, cook on high for 6 min.

While that is going, make a small pot of rice (actually a rice cooker is a wonderful thing to have), but if you don’t have one, put 1/2 cup rice and 1 cup water in small pot, bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 15 min.

One thing about me is that I don’t mind leftovers. I would often cook a big pot of something and eat it for 3-4 days. Pasta is good for that. The only thing is, make sure you leave some sauce out of the noodles. If you mix them together and put them in the fridge, the noodles tend to absorb the sauce and you just get flavored noodes.

and finally, here’a great recipe to fix and eat for a couple days.

Chicken Paprika

Saute half a small onion in olive oil, add 2-3 cloves of garlic (more or less to taste), then add about 1tbs butter. When that melts, add 1TBS paprika.

Take the chicken and let each piece fry in the paprika for a couple seconds on both sides.

Add 2 cups chicken boullion, bring to boil, turn down to simmer. allow to simmer 1 1/2 hours (yes, it takes a while, but it’s good and lasts a couple days)

While simmering, mix up a couple tbls of flour with water to make a paste.

After simmering, take the chicken out and put in a bowl (chicken will tend to fall off bone). Then, with the boullion still simmering, slowly pour the flour and water mixture in while stirring. When done mixing, remove from heat. You can put the chicken back in or not. I usually do.

Serve chicken and gravy over rice or noodles.