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Cooking for one
Housemates and I have separate meals. It works out taste-wise, money-wise. But I find grocery shopping and cooking for one difficult.
I like going to the grocery store every day, taking into account the cheapness of large quantities, and the amount of time I have, that proves difficult as well. I go about once a week, and try to buy for the week.
That is part of the frustration. If I want to have salad, I can buy those bags of lettuce, but that's about five salads for me. Which means I have to have salad every day of the week, or else it goes back. Seems the best way to handle that would be making the salad a little different every time, but this requires supplemental ingredients. And the supplemental ingredients often come in large quantities too: I could have a salad with red peppers one night, and a salad with pears and blue cheese the next. But I would not use all the red pepper and all the pear, and I would need to find other things to put them in.
Meat should be easier. You can buy a pack of chicken and put it in the freezer. Then each night you can take out a breast and cook each one differently. But I find I am not creative enough to come up with different things to do with the chicken. Mostly I come up with baking or frying it with different herbs and spices. Sometimes I think about using different sauces. And of course sometimes I think, "I could make a cassarole! Or a chicken pot pie!" or something. But again, so many other perishable ingredients go into those. I could use all the ingredients up and eat pot pie seven days straight. Or I could waste the other ingredients, the red peppers, the pears. Or I could find other uses for them, but again, I lack creativity in this department.
I also have problems with freezing meat. It never tastes as good once it's been frozen. Things stick to each other so you have to defrost them just to get one out. Even if you put them in separate baggies the baggies end up sticking together. They stick to the boxes they're in. Thawing takes so long.
You guys, my life is obviously a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.
I'm just wondering how you single people, or those of you often cooking for one, handle these things. Got freezer storage advice? Foods you buy because they last longer? Base ingredients you buy and then change up every night? Different fast simple ways to cook chicken, make a salad? Combinations you do--like what to do with a red pepper when you've used a fourth of it for salad but don't want to have red pepper in the salad every night? Things you don't mind eating every single day?
And how about recipes in general? Got any you want to share?
I love food. Except beans and potatoes; those are gross.
I like going to the grocery store every day, taking into account the cheapness of large quantities, and the amount of time I have, that proves difficult as well. I go about once a week, and try to buy for the week.
That is part of the frustration. If I want to have salad, I can buy those bags of lettuce, but that's about five salads for me. Which means I have to have salad every day of the week, or else it goes back. Seems the best way to handle that would be making the salad a little different every time, but this requires supplemental ingredients. And the supplemental ingredients often come in large quantities too: I could have a salad with red peppers one night, and a salad with pears and blue cheese the next. But I would not use all the red pepper and all the pear, and I would need to find other things to put them in.
Meat should be easier. You can buy a pack of chicken and put it in the freezer. Then each night you can take out a breast and cook each one differently. But I find I am not creative enough to come up with different things to do with the chicken. Mostly I come up with baking or frying it with different herbs and spices. Sometimes I think about using different sauces. And of course sometimes I think, "I could make a cassarole! Or a chicken pot pie!" or something. But again, so many other perishable ingredients go into those. I could use all the ingredients up and eat pot pie seven days straight. Or I could waste the other ingredients, the red peppers, the pears. Or I could find other uses for them, but again, I lack creativity in this department.
I also have problems with freezing meat. It never tastes as good once it's been frozen. Things stick to each other so you have to defrost them just to get one out. Even if you put them in separate baggies the baggies end up sticking together. They stick to the boxes they're in. Thawing takes so long.
You guys, my life is obviously a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.
I'm just wondering how you single people, or those of you often cooking for one, handle these things. Got freezer storage advice? Foods you buy because they last longer? Base ingredients you buy and then change up every night? Different fast simple ways to cook chicken, make a salad? Combinations you do--like what to do with a red pepper when you've used a fourth of it for salad but don't want to have red pepper in the salad every night? Things you don't mind eating every single day?
And how about recipes in general? Got any you want to share?
I love food. Except beans and potatoes; those are gross.
no subject
I should make my own pasta more. Usually I just have it from a box--I actually love my pasta from a box, but it gets old fast.
Omelettes are awesome and a great way to use up veggies. I should have more of them.
Thanks so much for sharing your food experiences! The comments to this post are so neat! I'm such a dork.
no subject
Something Jamie Oliver suggests (I love his recipes, he's fabulous) is very simple: pour a good amount of olive oil in a pan and toss in some fresh sage leaves and some garlic; sautee until the leaves are almost crispy and very fragrant, then pour in the drained pasta and toss together. It is just delicious, and takes only as long as it takes the pasta to cook.
Another thing I like to do is a meal in a bag: I brown a chicken breast or a pork chop, whatever I want, then I put it into a tinfoil bag (fold a length of tinfoil in half, and fold over the edges to make an envelope), toss in some sliced potatoes, carrots, whatever veggies I fancy, add some olive oil, salt and pepper and fold the top edge. Put it on a pie pan or something and bake it all in a 350F oven for about 45 minutes or so. It's delicious, and best part? No pans to wash!