Cooking For One

[Zhizara]

I buy deli-sliced meats for lunches. They come in a nice size smaller container with lids. They are just perfect for a can of something like drained canned fruit. I pour some salad dressing over, (honey mustard is especially good) and use that for a sweet snack.

I freeze the celery except for the tender inner part, because the rest gets used in soups and stews where the freezing doesn't matter.

I do get SNAP but it's down to $20 a month.

Cooking and handling/storing foods is a great way to prevent boredom as a daily activity!

 

[Mad Cook]

Cooking just for myself is fraught (I always wanted to use that word.) with adjustments.

Most dishes I make have to have enough ingredients that it ends up being a big amount of food.

This has to be: eaten, reheated, frozen as well as fit into the fridge/freezer in the proper space without taking up too much room.

How do you handle this ongoing juggling act without food going bad in the fridge before it can be eaten or frozen.

Then there is dealing with the dish that just didn't turn out right. Sometimes you can fix it, but sometimes it's just wasting more ingredients. Can you just toss it (thus making room for more) or do you try to force it down so as to not waste food?

Aunt Bea, Addie and all who cook for one (or two) - what do you do to handle these situations?

If what I make is enough for two I just have it on consequtive days. If for more than 2 and I can't scale down the recipe I freeze two portions. Yesterday I bought two portions of salmon and cooked both together. I had one yesterday with salad etc., and had the second in a sandwich for lunch today.

If something doesn't work and it's not too vile I'll eat it. If it's really disgusting it used to go into the dog but now it goes into the dustbin!

 

[Mad Cook]

Some things I will eat until gone B,L&D, like chili. Some things I will make and eat as is, like an Italian tomato sauce over pasta as one meal, then morph the sauce into one or two other dishes. Our deep freezer serves us well.

B,L&D?

 

[Dawgluver]

B,L&D?

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

[Whiskadoodle]

Sometimes my logic is skewed. I would like to make a Cassoulet (a la-de dah French bean dish good enough for company) "someday". What holds me back, is it makes so-oo much. ( never mind the cost if one uses duck or goose instead of chicken.) Yet I frequently make Cowboy beans, with at least 4 cans of beans, burger or chopped smoked meat and bacon and I use my largest casserole dish or a CI dutch oven. Could eat it for days, and often do.

It is pretty easy to make a Greek/ Mediterranean salad, and even have it come out just right per # servings, but if I say I will make a Salad Nicoise, might as well get out the Turkey Platter even if using the same ingredients.

And why is it if one uses a little of this and a smidgen of that, add Leftover rice >> make fried rice, eat, and then find, There is as much to put away as when you started. Well, I exaggerate, but not by much.

 

[Andy M.]

Sometimes my logic is skewed. I would like to make a Cassoulet (a la-de dah French bean dish good enough for company) "someday". What holds me back, is it makes so-oo much. ( never mind the cost if one uses duck or goose instead of chicken.)...

Coincidence! Cassoulet is on my cooking bucket list. I'm basically in the same boat. SO doesn't like bean dishes so I'd be eating it myself.

 

[Somebunny]

Coincidence! Cassoulet is on my cooking bucket list. I'm basically in the same boat. SO doesn't like bean dishes so I'd be eating it myself.

You two fellas need to get together to cook and eat that cassoulet!

 

[Oldvine]

I found it difficult to adjust to smaller recipe batches and figured it out for some things, but soon realized there are somethings that can't be made in small batches... spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, pot roast, etc. When I cook something that I know will produce a mountain of left overs, I send an email to my son who commutes an hour and 15 minutes both ways, to come by and pick up his care package on his way home. He's more than happy, and my recipe turns out like it did in the good old days and I get rid of the multiple day left overs. As a returned favor he occasionally lets me know that he's picking me up on Saturday or Sunday and taking me to breakfast. It works great for us.

 

[taxlady]

Oldvine, that does sound like an excellent solution.

 

[Mad Cook]

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Durr, of course!

 

[taxlady]

Durr, of course!

Don't feel bad. I didn't understand it either.

 

[Kayelle]

I found it difficult to adjust to smaller recipe batches and figured it out for some things, but soon realized there are somethings that can't be made in small batches... spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, pot roast, etc. When I cook something that I know will produce a mountain of left overs, I send an email to my son who commutes an hour and 15 minutes both ways, to come by and pick up his care package on his way home. He's more than happy, and my recipe turns out like it did in the good old days and I get rid of the multiple day left overs. As a returned favor he occasionally lets me know that he's picking me up on Saturday or Sunday and taking me to breakfast. It works great for us.

The real bonus is you get a hug from your son on his way home. I understand your methods well.