Single people, how do you eat?

Cafe Society
41

I don’t know if this is offered in grocery stores where any of you are, but here in Sweden a number of chains offer a weekly package of ingredients and recipes (for 2 or 4 people). I’ve been doing it for a couple months and I swear, I haven’t eaten this healthy in years. Every week, I pick up the ingredients at my local grocery store - I have an online subscription - and pick up whatever spices or garnishes are needed. Four recipes for the week, which gives me space to eat the leftovers over the weekend or whenever the hell I feel like it. And the recipes are uniformly good. Nothing takes more than a half hour to prepare. I figure I’ll do this for about a year, and then I’ll have 200+ recipes collected to deal with as I please.

Check with your local chains, see if they have anything like it. A handful of simple recipes like some of you are doing is good, but there’s a risk you’re shorting yourself on various nutrients you should be getting.

42

When I am eating alone for a week or more at once, I often make a meal out of easy-to-prep snack and appetizer foods. As long as you do a little advance planning and make reasonable shopping lists, you can do this without eating crazy unhealthily. If I’m by myself and don’t feel like cooking, my meals will consist of things like:

Good whole grain crackers with: interesting cheeses, turkey, hummus
Grapes, sliced apples
Crudites (carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, celery) with dip
Peanut butter on whole wheat
Mixed nuts
Cottage cheese
Red wine

I do like to cook, though, so often do what others upthread have suggested and make chili, bean soup, etc., and freeze it in reasonable portions. The freezer is really your friend.

43

With great big tears dripping from my eyes, into my food, into my mouth, a self-sustaining stream of salivary salinization saturating my sad solitary sustaination.

44

In addition to your budget and health, your main concerns should include learning recipes and cooking methods that are fun, relatively easy and rewarding. It’s disappointing to have to throw away food because you didn’t feel like cooking it before it spoiled, and it’s frustrating to invest time and energy in unappetizing results. The disappointment and frustration will be inevitable until you get the hang of it, so don’t be discouraged. It’s definitely a process in which you learn from your mistakes.

Without going into too much detail, here are some guidelines.

All of this is cooked at home, except the pizza, because I don’t have an oven.

I find it’s easier to plan meals by thinking in terms of how often I eat certain foods. For example, fruit, vegetables and bread several times a day; lentils, garbanzos, navy or pinto beans three times a week; chicken, pork or beef three times a week; fish two or three times a week and rice, pasta or cuscus once or twice a week. On a once-a-week basis: pizza, hamburger, sandwich, omelet, stew, pureed vegetables, green beans, artichoke hearts, chard, stuffed eggplant and rice with vegetables. More fun but less healthy, so a couple of times a month or less frequently: big whopping steak, fried foods, cold cuts, etc.

In order to keep frozen meat on hand, I buy chicken fillets from a butcher, separate them with pieces of parchment paper, stack them up and freeze them in an airtight plastic bag. They’ll still freeze together but can be pried apart with a butter knife or something. Defrost in microwave (optional), pan fry, add salt afterward (otherwise they’ll come out dry) and use as is or any way you like. Similarly, I freeze ground beef/pork in patties that I use in different ways. Typically, I’ll buy 15-20 fillets and a couple of pounds of ground beef/pork for freezing, but I often buy fresh meat when I’ve got a particular dish in mind. This allows me to have fillets and patties in the freezer for a month or more and, as a result, I rely less frequently on my last-resort options, which means that I don’t tire of them as quickly.

45

Here’s a quick and easy dish I started making for myself when I began low-carb dieting and the rest of the family did not: chicken fajita quesadillas!

What you need: some butter, some low-carb tortillas, some shredded cheese, some chicken fajita meat. They sell it pre-cooked in bags, it just needs to be warmed up; it can sit in your fridge or freezer until you need it.

Get a shallow pan just big enough for your tortilla. Heat some butter in the pan and put one tortilla in to brown it on one side. Remove it, add some more butter to the pan and put in the second tortilla. This time, put some cheese on the tortilla, then some of the chicken fajita meat, then some more cheese. Put the other tortilla on top, cooked side up. Heat until the cheese melts, cut into fourths, and enjoy. Quick, easy, and only one pan to clean up. If you want to get fancy, you can put in some diced tomatoes, or serve with guacamole and sour cream. I like to keep it simple.

Something I used to do occasionally in college: get several potatoes, or one big one, just whatever you think you’ll eat, and slice into discs. Spray a baking sheet, or cover with nonstick aluminum foil. Spread your potato slices out on the cookie sheet. Spray with spray butter, and sprinkle with garlic salt. Bake at (I think, it’s been a while) 450 degrees for about 18 minutes, then flip the slices over with a spatula and spray and sprinkle the other side. I would usually sprinkle some parsley on this side as well (but not on the first side because parsley’s more likely to burn if it’s in the oven that long). Bake another 18 minutes, or until you have some nice crispy ones.

I used to make a meal out of just the potatoes, but it could be a side dish for something else. Pretty simple and satisfying, though, and once again cleanup is minimal.

46

I like cooking, and make exact portions of what I want to eat. No leftovers are planned or desired. If I am hungry after I will cook more. I also buy ‘ingredients’ not ‘heat and eat’ meals, so snacking is just not a option.

47

Fajitas are just stir-fry in a tortilla. I usually buy individual chicken pieces rather than the whole bird. I’ll often saute a couple chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) one night and then just refrigerate the rest for later. I rarely use more than half a single breast for one meal. Just enough to add a little meat taste and texture to the dish. The vegetables are very filling.

48

From my alone days…once every week or two I’d chop up a bunch of different veggies (onions, celery, carrots, bell peppers, etc) and freeze them. Omelets and stir fry were my major meals and took a simple dump of some veggies into the eggs or noodles and I’d have an instant yummy meal.

My other major meals were sandwiches, either cold or squished in a panini press. Again you can do a shop once a week or so for various meats, cheeses, bread, then it is a quick yummy meal to assemble with little clean up.

49

I’ll be honest, it sucks. You’re going to be throwing away bread, milk, and numerous other things. It’s a pain in the butt to buy spices and condiments that aren’t going to be used all the time.

Making most dishes means that you’re eating it at least twice, and eating the same thing gets old quickly.

I try to limit food delivery and take outs to the types of cuisine that I can’t easily make at home., so that means a lot of Chinese, Thai, and Indian.

50

I find quite the opposite, now, living with 1A 1C, so much goes to waste, on my own it was rare, as I could control the portion sizes to my needs, a family setting there is so much variability that I have been unable to calculate what is needed. Perhaps i will learn.

51

Lots of good ideas. One thing that I’ve done is develop some “Onceler” recipes. Things I can make a single serving of. There is a Central Market (kind of like Whole Foods) near me with a salad bar with broccoli, onions, bell peppers, spinach, olives, cheeses, mushrooms, beans, etc. They also have an olive bar. I usually keep turkey pepperoni, pizza sauce, skim mozzarella, and flatbreads at home. I get one pizza’s worth of sliced pepper, mushroom, olive, onion, and spinach from the salad bar (about $.75 worth).

I also keep those laughing cow cheese wedges. Broccoli from the salad bar and 1/4lb shrimp from the store. Cook shrimp and broccoli in a little olive oil. Melt cheese wedge in milk, add garlic and a little parmesan. Serve over linguini.

A lot of people recommend rotisserie chickens. I hate them. I don’t eat the skin and there’s so much waste. I make two or three chicken breasts in my instant pot and shred them. You can roll it up in a tortilla or flatbread with your choice of sandwich toppings. You can add rice and beans and salsa for a burrito. You can add it to a green salad with spinach, strawberries, blueberries, pecans, and feta. You can open a can of chicken broth and add zucchini noodles and carrots for chicken zoodle soup. You can add a diced corn tortilla, a couple of ounces of pico de gallo (back to the salad bar!), and the juice of a lime for Mexican lime soup. Layer corn tortilla quarters (not fried chips), Mexican cheese blend or cheddar, white beans, and shredded chicken in a small casserole dish. Pour a can of green enchilada sauce over it and bake at 350 til warm through.

52

I find that fresh produce often spoils before I can get to it, so I shop about every 2-3 days and only pick up what I need for the next couple days. That said, I don’t cook from cans and boxes – 90% of the time, I shop the perimeter of the store and only venture into the aisles for cleaning supplies and paper products.

On days off, I will cook ahead for several days, so I make a lot of soups and stews and keep things like crackers on hand, so that’s always just a quick heat up. And, unless it has potatoes in it, you can freeze portions so you don’t have to eat the same thing multiple meals in a row. (I have a three-meals-in-a-row limit on leftovers.) You can also plan ahead for lunches and make 5 sandwiches on Sunday night, for example. The reason singles eat out a lot is more about convenience, so plan ahead and make things more convenient for yourself.

And then, invest in food preservation supplies (freezer bags, tupperware/snapware). Let’s say I cook something that calls for onions, and I chop up a whole onion, but I only need a small amount and now I’m left with a ton of chopped onions. The remainder goes into a freezer bag, so for subsequent recipes, I can just pull whatever amount I need from the baggie. Peppers freeze well and whole fresh ginger freezes well. Bread also freezes well, so if you can’t get through a whole loaf before it goes bad, freeze half of it. Or, hell, freeze all of it and pull out a couple slices at a time. Make a whole friggin’ batch of lasagna, but Stick all the leftovers in individual serving portions in the freezer. Bam, now you can have homemade, fresh, healthy ingredients, lasagna whenever you want it.

But also, I’ve just learned to cook in smaller portions. Instead of a whole cup of dry rice (say, for dinner for two), I’ll use a half cup and just make less rice. One rule of thumb I use a lot is that it’s easier to deal with cooked leftovers than raw leftovers. So you got a deal on four pieces of chicken but you don’t want that much in one sitting? So, cook all the chicken and now you’ll have a couple pieces for lunch tomorrow or whatever. I use a lot of bags of frozen veggies and use only what portion I want for myself for that one meal, make a one-person portion of rice, and lookit, dinner is half done already.

If you’re the type of person who does not like/eat leftovers, then I suggest about once a week, invite a hungry friend over and clean out your fridge.

53

This is not going to work for you probably, but if anyone likes rotisserie chickens and is feeling a bit guilty about the waste, throw the leftovers in a stockpot or an instant pot (or other pressure cooker) and turn them into soup.

54

Strategies to minimize waste: freeze half the hamburger buns, or half the loaf of bread, as soon as you get home from the store. Same with a pound of sliced ham. Buy ultrapasteurized half-and-half (often lasts months in my fridge) rather than ordinary milk.

I’ve never figured out how to keep eggs, though, and I don’t know anything about vegetables.

55

Absolutely! I pick the carcass clean as I can and use the bones and what’s left for soup or stock.

56

What an interesting way to phrase it. I know exactly what you mean.

One thing I noticed is that my fajitas are better if I cook a smaller batch. If I put a whole pound of chicken in the frying pan, I think it’s over-crowded. It takes longer for the chicken to cook through and it doesn’t brown very well. I don’t know if that’s a result of the heat output of my stove, or what. If I cook half a pound in the same pan, it’s faster, more caramelized, juicier, better. The problem is I now have half a pound of raw chicken I have to use in the next day or two, or I cook a second batch while the first batch is sitting there getting cold.

If I ever build my own place, the kitchen is going to have a really good stove, and a really good ventilation fan.

57

Spaghetti sauce is another easy thing to make in quantity and store. Brown some Italian sausage (I prefer the hot variety), saute some chopped garlic and onions and add, throw in canned diced tomatoes and tomato puree to thicken, mushrooms or peppers if you like, spice to taste (oregano, rosemary, thyme, and/or sage, depending on preference), and a bit of sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes. (It’s easy to oversweeten the sauce, so add the sugar in small amounts until you reach the desired flavor.) Simmer to the desired consistency, let cool, bag and freeze. I like mine chunky, but if you prefer it of a finer variety, you can use a hand blender or food processor.

Aside from the obvious spaghetti, it makes tasty sloppy Joes with a slice of mozzarella cheese on top, sauce for pre-prepared stuffed peppers from Costco, quick ‘n’ easy cacciatore over a grilled chicken breast, even pizza sauce in a pinch.

58

I always make a big pot or pan of something on Sunday. Enough for three dinners. Usually it’s some kind of pasta/rice tossed with some kind of sauce and some kind of meat.

On Wednesday, I’ll heat up a frozen pizza. I’ll eat one half on Wednesday and eat the other half on Thursday.

I always eat a big salad with my dinner. This makes me feel virtuous about my veggie consumption and keeps me from pigging out all the meat and starch.

Friday and Saturday are always take-out nights.

I have a friend who teases me on how predictable my meals are, and I guess I do have a boring diet. But I’m one of those weird people who will spend the whole day in low-key anxious mode if I don’t know what I’m going to eat for dinner.

59

I’ve been single since 1986. I’m one of those that has a high tolerance for eating the same thing several days in a row. I fix a pot of chili, burrito/taco filling, spaghetti sauce, etc. (sometimes using ground turkey, sometimes ground beef, sometimes ground chicken) and eat it over 3-4 days. Since my health crisis in April I’ve been advised to cut back on salt and I’ve been pretty good at it. I compensate for the lack of salt by using a lot of chilies, peppers, onions and no salt seasonings like garlic powder. This has caused all the things I mentioned preparing above to start tasting more and more the same to the point that I use them interchangeably such as making burritos filled with spaghetti sauce or chili over rice or pasta. I don’t even think of them as separate dishes any more, just as "the usual.’ I’m happy with that and I’m definitely not malnourished.:slight_smile:

60

With my mouth ! :slight_smile: