cooking for 1 person...anybody have any good ideas or tips?

[cmv]

If I were cooking for one, I would cook in bulk, bag down to meal-size portions and freeze. I'd do:

- split pea w/ ham soup
- chilli
- frozen hamburger patty (buy family pack, make patties and freeze -- not the the frozen cardboard patties)
- spaghetti sauces (trial and error should get the fresh pasta amount down to a science fairly quickly)
- Indian curries (chicken-based usually)

For my "damn, nothing to eat or that all sounds bad" days, I'd have a bag of frozen chicken breasts on hand along with seasonings. Check out Penzey's for seasonings (although they aren't exactly a deal on some things). I'd also have bags of frozen vegetables (if you like corn buy the "select" grade as it is about 100x better than the cheapest option).

That's all I got off the top of my head.

 

[Bill Brasky]

When I want something quick for myself I like to fix a loaded baked potato and a salad. Easy clean up and its pretty tasty.

 

[LS21]

Originally posted by: NTB

This is also true, at least partially. There are *some* things that I do know how to cook - but with those I'm used to cooking for, at the very least, 4 people. Usually more.

Nathan

you can scale pretty much anything down, plus you can always cook for 2, have a large portion for yourself, and some left over for lunch

heres a book that, though i dont think is particularly great, is perfect for you
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook...&qid=1208746453&sr=8-1

 

[ProfJohn]

Rubbermaid is your friend

I often cook dinner and then take the left overs to work for lunch the next day.
That way you can cook a 'real' meal instead of trying to cook small meals.

 

[Q]

Buy that Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix, and follow the directions on the back (need ground beef, of course)

It's easy to make, provides tons of food, and is very, very good.

 

[nageov3t]

I found this cookbook to be really invaluable when I was in college / fresh out:

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-...&qid=1208746555&sr=8-1

some pretty tasty meals that can be made with just some simple modifications on things you'll find in your grocery store.

best suggestion I ever got was to use the salad bar at the grocery store when you only need a small amount of some veggies for a recipe, as opposed to, like, buying an entire head of lettuce.

 

[Wheezer]

Feta Chicken bake:
Ingredients
6 boneless skinless chicken breast half
2 tablespoons lemon juice, divided
salt and black pepper
4 ounces feta cheese with dried basil and tomato, crumbled
1/4 cup finely chopped red pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

Directions
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2 Place chicken in a 13x9 inch baking dish.
3 Drizzle with half of the lemon juice.
4 Season with salt and pepper.
5 Top with feta cheese and the remaining lemon juice.
6 Bake for 35 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
7 Sprinkle with red pepper and parsley.

I also fillet the chicken breast in half so that the flavor of the lemon, pepper, Feta cheese all get through the meat.

To compliment this I make a quick green bean dish:

Frozen or Fresh green beans
fresh garlic
fresh Onion
frozen/fresh pepper slices

simply mix all the vegetables according to your taste in a frying pan with some Olive Oil and fry...I usually do the garlic and onion first get them nice and toasted then add the beans and pepper.

Cook for about 15-20 minutes and you should be good. You want the beans to be coocked and hot but still have a little snap to them when you bite into them.

The left over chicken is great on a salad the next day.

 

[ProfJohn]

Hamburger helper
Chicken helper
Tuna helper
All easy to cook and taste pretty decent too.

Baked Ziti (or other pasta)
Get a jar of favorite spag sauce,
1 pound bag of ziti
2 cups of mozzarella

Place pasta, jar of spag sauce along with another jar of water in big glass casserole style dish cover with tin foil place in oven at 400 for 30 minutes.
Take out, remove tin foil, spread cheese over top, put back in oven for 10 minutes.
Then enjoy
I like to add sausage as well, get a thing of sausage, cut them down the middle and then cook them in olive oil and then place them in dish at the same time as you put the cheese on top. Yummy

 

[ProfJohn]

btw there are some really good cooks books and such online that you can get at for free.

People who just put what they are cooking every day on-line.

You just need to play around in the kitchen. Most of the stuff you get at a typical restaurant can be cooked easily if you know what you are doing.

Take a can of Tomato soup, add a little milk, heat up on stove, add some croutons and some basil and you have 'Tomato Basil Soup' that you would get at a restaurant. Simple, but dang good and very easy.

 

[Born2bwire]

Get a cookbook or two and look through it at the start of each week to come up with a meal plan. That's what I do and I do the big cooking on the weekend. For example, yesterday I cooked up a batch of beef broth and collard greens. Then today I used the broth to make French Onion soup and I cooked a slab of ribs. The ribs will be good for three meals, the soup and collards will last the rest of the week (and they keep good too). On Wednesday I plan on making Boston baked beans with a pressure cooker. I don't have to cook them overnight like I have before, see how they turn out this way. And any unused collards get used in a quick quiche like pie. Take a frozen pie crust, add collards (instead of spinach), ham, and cheddar cheese and then a mixture of eggs and half&half. The only thing left is three or four more main dishes which I will have pasta or I'll just find something else to cook at my fancy.

It's real easy to make up a batch of rice in a rice cooker, microwave some frozen vegetables, and cook pasta for meals. But after doing stuff like during my years as an undergrad I grew tired of it. So now I spend more time cooking real meals and meting them out for the week.

EDIT: I second cooking a whole chicken. You can get a fryer for around $4-$5. Pan fry it up for some real good eats and then save the uncooked carcass (bones, back, wings) and the giblets for making chicken stock. Then use the stock as a base for a soup that you can eat throughout the week. I always go through a good supply of carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes these days.

 

[Howard]

Gotta do something about that veg soup...

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Yucky/sched.png

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: Howard
Gotta do something about that veg soup...

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Yucky/sched.png

what's wrong with vegetable soup?

soup's probably the one thing that I really know nothing about making, although in theory it seems like it should be easy.

 

[legoman666]

Originally posted by: Howard
Gotta do something about that veg soup...

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Yucky/sched.png

who the hell makes a spreadsheet for their meals

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: legoman666

Originally posted by: Howard
Gotta do something about that veg soup...

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Yucky/sched.png

who the hell makes a spreadsheet for their meals

Gotta learn to plan somehow, right?

 

[lokiju]

The grocery store has frozen chicken tenderloin that's in smaller pieces, throw that right into at pan/skillet on medium heat, cook until it's mostly done and then add in teriyaki sauce (I prefer veri veri teriyaki brand), cook uncovered until it reduces into a glaze then scoop out into a hoggie roll and top with cheese, salt and pepper.

Makes an awesome teriyaki chicken sub.

 

[shortylickens]

Mom sent me two cookbooks from Better Homes & Gardens.
Easy Weeknight Favorites and something else similarily titled.

It should be called "easy cooking for desperately lonely single males".
I think Mom was trying to tell me something.

 

[Alistar7]

Originally posted by: lokiju
The grocery store has frozen chicken tenderloin that's in smaller pieces, throw that right into at pan/skillet on medium heat, cook until it's mostly done and then add in teriyaki sauce (I prefer veri veri teriyaki brand), cook uncovered until it reduces into a glaze then scoop out into a hoggie roll and top with cheese, salt and pepper.

Makes an awesome teriyaki chicken sub.

Oh damn that sounds good, I know better than to stumble into a food thread when I am hungry lol.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: NTB
Cooking for one person turns out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be . Part of it, I know, is just me - I just plain stink at eyeballing things, at figuring out how much is too much, or enough, or too little. Every time I try it, I end up with either too little, or too much for one meal but not quite enough to be worth saving.

Part of it also though is that I'm not sure *what* to cook. I never was the creative or artistic type, so just 'throwing something together' is not something that comes naturally to me. I'm also not one to eat 'because something sounds good'. I get cravings once in a while, but mostly I just get hungry in general - not for any one specific thing. So I'm at a bit of a loss. I need to do something though - I'm getting tired of fast food and frozen stuff, and my waistline isn't taking too kindly to it, either. Suggestions?

Nathan

Find recipes that you can make large quantities of, then freeze it in individual serving sized portions. I have a recipe for Mexican Lasagna that is great for that type of thing, if you're interested.

 

[nageov3t]

someone recommended this to me in another thread and I thought it was really good advice -- set a goal of cooking at least one new recipe every week.