Cooking For One

[xeemzor]

You didn't state what your schedule looks like (unless I missed it). If you never know what time you'll get home, then cooking pretty much isn't for you, unfortunately. But if you get home at the same time every night, then there's really no excuse, save laziness, to prevent you from cooking.

TONS of great tips/advice in the replies; some of them I would've posted too.

Being that you're single, your schedule dictates how much time you have for cooking. Trust me when I say that eating healthy NOW will dictate how much work you have to do later in order to stay in shape. In my 20's I worked 12 hours a day, then partied until way after midnight, then ate whatever fast food I could buy at 2:00AM and got up at 6:00AM to do it all over again. I never gained any weight until about 34 year old and THEN...all that weight just dropped on me like...a fatass deferred, or something.

I've had to work very hard to lose the weight and KEEP IT OFF. Eat well NOW and it will help you later. And later WILL come.

Eating healthier is the main motivator. My Dad gained a ton of weight in his late 30s and I want to avoid that at all costs.

Generally I get home at a set time so I should be able to find time to cook. The plan right is to develop a monthly schedule of meals with the info posted above. If I don't follow a plan I know I'll have problems following through.

Just ordered the cast iron skillet and slow cooker from amazon and can't wait to try them out.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I despise cooking, I find it's just a waste of time to spend half an hour to an hour just so I can take 15 minutes to eat. I do it once in a while so I can at least have a few healthy meals here and there but I just can't justify to do it every day for every meal. There are some things where you can make last but most things just don't taste the same or cannot be frozen. I find myself eating lot of canned/frozen/prepared things. Not really healthy though. :/ I wish there were more healthy choices as far as premade meals go.

Part of the issue as well is everything is designed for families. Living alone, I cannot buy stuff like hot dog buns for example, or even a loaf of bread. You have 2 days before it expires, if you're lucky. While some things you can go past the expiry, bread ain't one of them. Learned that the hard way. A week later and I have a full blown ecosystem going on. D:

I try to eat fruit as much as I can though. The nice thing with fruit is you can buy each individually so I can go to the grocery store and pickup a couple apples at a time, as opposed to a full blown family size package like lot of other things.

I decided I wanted to make pitas once. Yeah, there's 10 in a bag, 5 days till expiry, I was eating that for a week straight and got sick of it.

 

[bigrash]

Probably not the healthiest of options.

lies. Pizza is extremely healthy.

 

[Blackjack200]

Pro-tip for reheating leftovers - avoid the microwave, utilize your slow cooker, oven or the stove-top. It'll taste like a fresh meal instead of reheated leftovers.

I have to disagree here. I find the microwave is fine for many, many things, especially the soup I make about once a week and throw in the fridge. 4 minutes in the nuker and it's piping hot and delicious.

This is especially true with pizza. The best way to reheat pizza is in a pan. You end up with nice crispy crust instead of a moist crust that you would get in the microwave.

This is one exception. Sometime I do microwave pizza because I'm lazy, but doing it right in the oven makes a huge difference.

Crock pot: IMO, you want a good off-brand, such as Hamilton Beach, if buying new. Old Crock Pots(tm) are awesome, but the new ones get too hot at low settings.

I was going to post in this thread that I hate my crock pot, but maybe this is the issue. I follow recipies and have tried every setting and every meal comes out like total garbage. I can't even eat them, they're all dried out and disgusting.

 

[Blackjack200]

I despise cooking, I find it's just a waste of time to spend half an hour to an hour just so I can take 15 minutes to eat. I do it once in a while so I can at least have a few healthy meals here and there but I just can't justify to do it every day for every meal. There are some things where you can make last but most things just don't taste the same or cannot be frozen. I find myself eating lot of canned/frozen/prepared things. Not really healthy though. :/ I wish there were more healthy choices as far as premade meals go.

Half an hour to an hour? Here's my go-to meal: Cut up 2 small or 1 large onion, 3-4 pieces of garlic, and cube a chicken breast. saute the chicken breast in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and remove from the pan. Put the onions and garlic into the pan and cook them down until they're soft and sweet. Add the chicken back in to the pan, and add 1 can of diced tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano to taste. Once you're good you can do this is 20 minutes, it's healthy, cheap, and I find it delicious.

Part of the issue as well is everything is designed for families. Living alone, I cannot buy stuff like hot dog buns for example, or even a loaf of bread. You have 2 days before it expires, if you're lucky. While some things you can go past the expiry, bread ain't one of them. Learned that the hard way. A week later and I have a full blown ecosystem going on. D:

With bread you have to buy it, remove what you're going to eat that day and throw the rest of it in the freezer immediately. It works if you do this. Bread defrosts very quickly even at room temperature, just take it out 20 min. before you need it. If you're making hot dogs, just throw the frozen buns under the broiler for 5 minutes, they'll be perfect.[/QUOTE]

 

[kache]

Kebab plate at your trusted kebab maker.
Kebab meat (proteins), potatoes (carbs), and all kinds of fresh vegetables (vitamins, salt, fibers).
Perfect meal, for less tham 10euros.

 

[xanis]

Half an hour to an hour? Here's my go-to meal: Cut up 2 small or 1 large onion, 3-4 pieces of garlic, and cube a chicken breast. saute the chicken breast in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and remove from the pan. Put the onions and garlic into the pan and cook them down until they're soft and sweet. Add the chicken back in to the pan, and add 1 can of diced tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano to taste. Once you're good you can do this is 20 minutes, it's healthy, cheap, and I find it delicious.

With bread you have to buy it, remove what you're going to eat that day and throw the rest of it in the freezer immediately. It works if you do this. Bread defrosts very quickly even at room temperature, just take it out 20 min. before you need it. If you're making hot dogs, just throw the frozen buns under the broiler for 5 minutes, they'll be perfect.

Some good advice here. I make some variation of that chicken dish all the time, and it's always super easy and delicious. If you wanted to be extra lazy, you could get a bag of the pre-cooked seasoned chicken strips that are meant for salads. I usually get a fajita-flavored one that's pretty good. Here's what I usually make:

Pre-cooked seasoned chicken strips
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of Rotel
3/4 white onion
3-4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup Marsala wine

Toss all of that over some wheat pasta and you're good to go. If it set it up right and get everything cooking in the right order, I'm ready to eat in under 30 minutes.

 

[Mixolydian]

I also live in the NW Chicago suburbs. Maybe we should start a cooking club?

As long as you do all the cooking.

 

[Saint Nick]

Pretty easy to cook for yourself.

 

[ichy]

Do you guys have many fresh vegetables? My parents always cooked fresh vegetables as a child, so now when I'm living alone and relying so much on frozen veges it feels like I'm cheating.

Frozen vegetables are just as good nutritionally (unlike canned ones) but obviously they're less tasty and lack the crunch of fresh veggies.

 

[ichy]

Having freezer space makes life much easier. I like to make big pots of chili, lentil soup, pasta sauce, etc. I'll get a couple of meals out of it and then freeze the rest in individual size servings. Then when I get home I can pop it out of the freezer like frozen dinner, only it's homemade and much healthier.

For salad I actually avoid lettuce. I get cucumber, tomatoes, peppers & olives from Costco to make Greek Salad. Wholesome & delicious.

 

[Possessed Freak]

I have recently re-started cooking for myself. I have yet to get into slow cooking, and I know it is a great way to make some kickass stews and whatnot. I just cook everything on a pan. It helps that I like simple food (egg sandwich). So a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, some chipped ham and turkey, and whatever cheese I fancy goes a long way.

For lunch at work I normally have a slimfast shake (less into losing weight, more into the 88 cent meal replacement). For breakfast it is either a shake or a quick egg sandwich. For dinner it could be a grilled cheese (w/ or w/o meat), or just a simple turkey sandwich. On the weekend I normally make some french toast and bacon.

I have very little food waste.

I do need to branch out and make some dishes with rice (I love rice), and this seems incredibly simple to do. However, I dislike a lot of clean up, (yet another reason I like to make my grilled sandwiches).

 

[Tiamat]

Costco perdue individually wrapped frozen chicken breasts. Take one out in the morning to thaw.

Cooking for 1 portion is very difficult, but cooking 2-3 portions is easy. Just eat the leftovers 2 days later.

Chilli and spaghetti sauce can be frozen without issue.

Nothing wrong with those birdseye steam-fresh if you can find them on sale.

For Fresh, I usually stick with fruits (tomato, apples, banana, pears, nectarines, bell peppers), and things like carrots, potato, sweet onion. If I feel like eating broccoli just buy 1 or 2 crowns (pay slightly extra per pound, but easier to finish in a timely fashion)

Also, you can "Cheat". If some days you just want to do the frozen premade meals (stoffers, Voila etc.), you can spruce them up with your own meats, veggies, grains, etc. so that you have a half-home cooked meal with very low effort.

My lunch is usually a leftover dinner from a couple days ago. If you stagger like this, it helps you not get board of the few dishes you know how to make.

 

[RossMAN]

Having freezer space makes life much easier. I like to make big pots of chili, lentil soup, pasta sauce, etc. I'll get a couple of meals out of it and then freeze the rest in individual size servings. Then when I get home I can pop it out of the freezer like frozen dinner, only it's homemade and much healthier.

For salad I actually avoid lettuce. I get cucumber, tomatoes, peppers & olives from Costco to make Greek Salad. Wholesome & delicious.

How big is your freezer, normal combo fridge/freezer or a chest freezer?

 

[Nintendesert]

Lol cooking for the lonely.