Suggestions, hints for cooking for one

[dragnlaw]

OK guys, here's a good thread for single people searching.
Let's hear your suggestions, and rather than post a recipe here, please, put in a link to a specific recipe.

There are actually lots of recipes available for one or two servings. Google is your friend.
Although I also look for recipes that freeze well. Then I have no problem with making a meal for 4. Eating one straight off, a 2nd a couple of days later and freezing the last 2.
Those frozen meals are especially good when you just don't feel like cooking as in the efforts is just too much that night.

Don't forget Breakfast for Supper is great too! One is so used to making breakfast, eg. bacon and eggs. Do you even have to think about it? Nah, you just do it. A bowl of cereal works too, add some fruit to the cereal or have it later as a dessert.

Make a fancy meal and invite a friend! I used to make as fancy a meal as I could, tell my friend to bring a salad and/or dessert. It grew to sometimes up to 4 friends, they would insist on sharing the cost, I would total the mains and divide by however many we were. We had fabulous meals, great conversations and I enjoyed the cooking and they enjoyed a meal out for under $10. When you think that a meal out can easily be over $50 per person, it was cheap at half the price!
And they knew they were guinea pigs while I explored my fledgling cooking abilities. We'd have a good laugh over the flops and more importantly discuss why it went wrong. Lesson for all of us. Two of them were starting to explore more cooking techniques and recipes. But one of my favourite guinea pigs wouldn't - she just enjoyed anything I made, LOL.

 

[pepperhead212]

Learn to like leftovers! And, like you said, figure out what freezes well, if you are able to do that.

 

[caseydog]

Great thread. I need to take some time and look up some of mine. I'll post recipes in recipe forums, and post links here. I have a couple in my head. I may need some time to find them and post them, because I'm in Denver half of this week.

I don't freeze cooked foods. In my kitchen, the freezer is where cooked food goes to die. I do often cook meals that are actually too big for me to eat in one meal, but I have the leftovers the next day.

CD

 

[Badjak]

Ah, the freezer is my friend
I "bulk" cook as cooking just 1 portion doesn't give me the variety I want.
So lets say onions, garlic, ground meat, tomato.
Then portion.
Now when using you decide which way to go
Italian - add oregano, maybe basil
SE Asian - fish sauce, chili, coriander
Use as a base for a fritatta, or noodles. With rice, or mashed potatoes

Thats one way,
The other is mainly stews and curries. They get frozen as well.

Plus I got garden produce. Thick veg soups that can still be turned into all kind of things

I don't mind left over's or eating the same type of meal 2 times in a row

 

[caseydog]

The freezer is my friend for raw meats. I buy in bulk, divide into meal size portions, vacuum seal and freeze.

But once I cook something, I eat it. If I freeze it for a later date, two years later I find it buried in my freezer and throw it away. A lot of people can freeze cooked meals and eat them later. For some reason I do not understand and can not explain, I can't do that.

CD

 

[taxlady]

The freezer is my friend for raw meats. I buy in bulk, divide into meal size portions, vacuum seal and freeze.

But once I cook something, I eat it. If I freeze it for a later date, two years later I find it buried in my freezer and throw it away. A lot of people can freeze cooked meals and eat them later. For some reason I do not understand and can not explain, I can't do that.

CD

Even with soup? I'm reminded of the twenty something year old who looked in a friend's fridge and complained. "There's no food in your fridge, just ingredients." That's your freezer.

 

[Steve Kroll]

My favorite tip when cooking for one is to learn to make some one pot recipes and portion them into separate containers for lunches. Soup and casserole recipes work great for this. Usually I'll put a couple of containers in the fridge and whatever is left goes in the freezer for another week.

I don't always eat breakfast, but when I do I try to make something that's high in protein. Yogurt with granola, berries, nuts, and hemp seeds is something I try to eat 2-3 times a week.

 

[caseydog]

I'm reminded of the twenty something year old who looked in a friend's fridge and complained. "There's no food in your fridge, just ingredients." That's your freezer.

Yup, that is pretty true. I do have some frozen egg rolls in there. But for the most part, my freezer is full of ingredients. Keeping leftovers in the freezer is pretty normal, but it just doesn't work for me. I don't know why, but that's how it is. I Amy actually eat those egg rolls, but I may throw them out sometime in 2026.

CD

 

[Kathleen]

Freezer space can become a premium (as can any space,) but micro-canning can also be wonderful. Small canners and pressure canners can be wonderful. Then can whatever you want in pints for a meal for one. Soups, stews, meats, veggies, fruits. One can do so much with a small canner.

 

[taxlady]

Freezer space can become a premium (as can any space,) but micro-canning can also be wonderful. Small canners and pressure canners can be wonderful. Then can whatever you want in pints for a meal for one. Soups, stews, meats, veggies, fruits. One can do so much with a small canner.

Are there any small pressure canners? If I got one as big as the one I had before, I wouldn't have a good place to store it in the kitchen. It wouldn't get used often for canning and it would probably never get used for pressure cooking.

I keep thinking that I want to do some micro canning in my stock pot with the pasta insert. I figure that would work well as a water bath canner for 3 or maybe even 4 jars. It would also mean I don't have to find a space for a new item. This already lives in my kitchen. It's not in the most convenient spot, but not hard to access.

 

[dragnlaw]

I hardly do any canning anymore. Having cut back on jams and although I love pickles, other than beets, not really my thing to can. One small batch can last me 2 years!
So nope, haven't canned in several years.
My pressure cooker is not the type for canning so have never done that.

 

[pepperhead212]

I'm not much on canning, either, except for some pickles. Many veggies just aren't very good canned (the reason a large portion of the older population hates Brussels sprouts! ), and some aren't even as good frozen, as fresh. Green beans are something I'll freeze some of, but that's something I won't use in a simple bean dish, as it will be overcooked, for that type of thing - only do this with fresh. Something I freeze a good number of is the Szechwan dry fried green beans, which I usually use the purple for. I pack those in vacuum seal bags, and they last until I use them, and can't be overcooked! Okra is something I freeze, and is good, as it is usually cooked for a generous amount of time, not the "al dente" type thing, like green beans.

 

[Kathleen]

I am getting more into canning each year. We lose power from time to time, and recently lost a lot in the fridge/freezer. There are a lot of small pressure canners along with water canners. Here is a list of "rated" small pressure canners. I have one that is not made anymore, but it is very similar to the T-fal. I've never had an issue with it.

 

[blissful]

@taxlady I have a friend, her and her husband, they just use a small electric pressure canner, for tomatoes, soups, meats, veggies. It only cans 4 or 5 quarts or pints at a time. She keeps it right on the counter. If she finds something on sale in winter, she makes a large amount of stew or soup and cans part of it for future use.

About 95% of my canned food pantry is home canned. Ketchup, mustard, pickles 2 kinds, gr beans, corn, tomatoes and sauce, brown sauce, soups, jams and purees of fruit, pineapple, grapes, mandarin oranges, cranberries and cranberry sauce, pear sauce, apple sauce....so much more...anything we run out of we just can a case or so depending on how much we use. Now that we are just the two of us, we are going to smaller jars. Things we used to can in quarts will get canned in pints. Things that will stay in quart jars will be soups, tomato sauce, and if I can legumes (that's only a maybe).

A pint of soup is a life saver with some bread if a single person is feeling sick and unable to make food. The soup can just be warmed up. When I was sick last year mr bliss would eat a quart of soup with bread for a meal. I'm so glad I have it on hand. There's a vegetable soup w/legumes, a taco soup, and sometimes there's a habitant soup. My favorite is the habitant soup so it never stays in the pantry very long.