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Cooking for one

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 12,492 Forumite
    Combo Breaker First Post
    The upside is that the fuller the freezer is, the more efficient it is regarding cost and it will survive better in a power cut
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    edited 17 May 2017 at 8:32PM
    kittie wrote: »

    I did the marie kondo with my kitchen some months ago and got rid of anything I wasn`t using, including electrical appliances.
    I've not got much money - and that won't change. Eventually I will end up alone on single state Pension (when I'll probably be better off than at most previous years in my life!). Most things I already own will be "enough to last me for life" - and some things I bought because they'd be "handy", but not all the time.

    What I've started doing is spotting kitchen items I've not used recently and trotting them upstairs... they're currently in a pile and at some point in the next year or so I'll gather them together into a box. Then I'll know "I've got one" .... that I might be able to use in the future, but not now. I accidentally bought a new Pyrex jug the other day - I mistakenly thought it was smaller than the two I usually cook in ... but once home I realised it was the same size; that's in the pile. At some future point I'll no doubt break one of my existing two and I'll already have a spare in the box :)
    kittie wrote: »
    I don`t have an electric kettle, just a hob kettle as it takes up less space. I got rid of my slow cooker because I have an induction hob and good pans that use heat efficiently, so I can have a pan on number 2 all day
    My biggest waste of space are the hob and oven I have never used... but I won't take them out as I'd need to replace them in order to sell the house, so it'll save £400-500 in the long run by just ignoring them.
    kittie wrote: »
    I have a very good dishwashing bowl, its narrower and the drainer can sit in the bowl, so it leaves the draining board area free
    http://www.lakeland.co.uk/25409/Joseph-Joseph-Wash-%26-Drain-Plus-Grey-and-Grey
    I don't actually understand what that is ... or how it's used :)
    kittie wrote: »
    I must admit that I am trying hard to keep the kitchen clear, especially in the evening, so its nicer when I come down in the morning

    My kitchen is a bit of a bomb site most of the time. The bin and all the recycling are on the floor under a temporary table.
    The mini oven is on top of a bread bin on top of the temporary table.
    There's fairly clean washing up beside the sink, there's "in soak" things in the sink, there's washing up drying in the drainer - and to the right of that there's a drying mat that holds "washing up that was nearly dry when I next decided to do the washing up so I needed to put them somewhere so as to free up space on the drainer".

    :)
  • Hollyharvey
    Hollyharvey Posts: 1,939 Forumite
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    kittie wrote: »
    The upside is that the fuller the freezer is, the more efficient it is regarding cost and it will survive better in a power cut


    See, I knew there must be a positive in this somewhere, I just needed to find it ;)
  • Hollyharvey
    Hollyharvey Posts: 1,939 Forumite
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    PasturesNew wrote: »
    I try NOT to freeze anything in the main, I see it as a "last resort short term store of food" else you just run out of space and then want a 2nd freezer....

    It costs, I think, £30-40/year to run an appliance, so it would actually make sense for some things to simply be binned occasionally ... e.g. if you binned half a loaf twice a month ... on the basis it's cheaper to do that than to buy/run an additional freezer.


    Or in my case a third freezer :)


    I think that I will just have toast for breakfast for the next few days and use up some of the bread mountain.


    I agree about the running cost of an additional freezer. I think I just need to get things back under control, This has built up since January, I can't remember them being this full just after Christmas. I think a lot of it has to do with me adjusting to having more time to go to the shops and pick up y/s items and batch cook more. I do think that it will take me a good few months to eat enough to make a real dent in eating the contents of them.
  • caronc
    caronc Posts: 8,087 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post
    I had a lovely, lovely dinner tonight and perfect CFO as no leftovers and it used bits up:-
    70 g spaghetti,
    tips from 4 asparagus,
    slice smoked salmon (approx 30g) cut in slivers
    tablespoon cream cheese
    2 spring onions
    knob of butter
    black pepper
    chopped parsley.
    I cooked the spaghetti, took a ladle of the water and added the water to a pan with the asparagus, spring onion, cream cheese and butter. Let it bubble a bit, mixed in the spaghetti, smoked salmon, parsley and pepper it was so tasty ....:D
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    caronc wrote: »
    I'm fortunate in that when the ex and I split I had to replace the full kitchen (walls, floors, electrics and everthing) due to his botched DIY job. The "silver lining" was I could design my cupboards units round what I knew I needed. :)A few things don't work so well for me now I'm not so mobile/bendy but mainly it's grand. If/when I ever move I'd prefer to pay less for something that needs "doing" up despite the nightmare that is rather than try and work around someone's elses "ideal" kitchen...

    I know exactly what you mean by working around someone else's kitchen.

    To me - I could look at a kitchen that was brand new/decent quality and even in my taste and still want to replace it. Obviously I'd be all the quicker to replace one that was tatty and old.

    We all use kitchens differently. Some people will take a ready meal out of the freezer and put it in the microwave and that's their definition of cooking. Others will cook from scratch to some extent - eg buy ready-made pasta and make a sauce themselves to go with it.

    My own definition of "ideal cooking" goes:
    - make the pasta myself
    - make the sauce myself
    - make the cheese to put on top of it myself
    - make garlic bread to go with it right from scratch (as in literally making the bread myself in the first place)
    - maybe have some icecream afterwards - yep = made by me

    I'm working my way gradually towards my personal version of "ideal cooking". For that - I need more storage space and worksurface space than a level 2 cook (ie bought pasta and made the sauce themselves) and way more of both storage and worksurface space than a level 1 cook (freezer to microwave).

    Add things like:
    - I don't even want a microwave or dishwasher
    - I do want a dehydrator and couple of food processors

    and so it goes on.

    Hence why I think each kitchen is so individual and needs to be designed from A-Z by the particular person that is going to be using it. That's before we start going into things like the number of so-called "kitchen designers" that will "design" dead/unusable corners into a kitchen.:cool:
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    edited 17 May 2017 at 11:10PM
    moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »
    ...
    My basic requirements would be to have a long stretch of workspace, say 3 base units long minimum - and a big cupboard/pantry where everything lives on open shelves, so you can move things around no matter how big/awkward things are, or no matter how many items of that sort/similar you have. So you can see everything you've got.

    Buy a sack of spuds? In there, on the floor.
    Want to keep all your saucepans/frying pans together? Long shelf means you can and they'll take up just the right amount of space they need.
    Happen to have bought 6 large bags of pasta where you previously had one? Just move some things along a shelf to open up the extra space needed for now.

    My parents had one of those "typical 1970s style triple base units" - open up the doors and inside there was one continuous floor and one continuous shelf. No dividers. That was quite handy. Their kitchen just had two of those, one with a long worktop bit and one with the sink/double drainer on top.

    I struggle to remember what I've got as things are tucked here/there and squeezed into where they'll fit, so there's no system or coherence to what I've got.

    I've a large floor footprint in my kitchen, but it's poorly planned and only has 3 walls (for the fourth, think patio windows). So you have a galley-style kitchen, with 8' of floor space to continually trot back/forth over as you're trying to do something.

    Beans on toast? Should be simple.... I sometimes think I walk 1/4 of a mile to make that :)

    Into kitchen, get beans, cross the kitchen to nuker.
    Start to nuke beans, now you need toast, cross the kitchen to toaster.
    Toast in toaster. Beans pinged/need a stir, cross the kitchen to nuker.
    Toast popped, needs turning, cross the kitchen to toaster.
    Beans pinged a 2nd time, cross the kitchen to nuker.
    Toast popped, cross the kitchen, to toaster.
    Bring toast to where beans are, cross the kitchen to nuker.

    I've been 7x across the kitchen just to make beans on toast!

    And that's without extra journeys for the washing out of the bean tin, getting a bowl, knife, fork, back to the fridge for brown sauce, back to the sink to put dirty dishes in.... or even think about grating cheese for the top!

    Ideally the nuker and the toaster would be close together - but that's not workable either because I have 3 single "worktop spots" I'm trying to work from. The nuker only fits where it is - and the space beside it is where I put the mini oven, or the slow cooker, or use the space to stir/mix/sort out what I'm nuking. It'd be a tight fit to even put the toaster beside the nuker just when I was making beans on toast.
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    Basically - "time and motion" done on the kitchen Pastures:)

    That's very much how I was thinking when I planned mine. So it now runs along from take cookbooks off shelves to decide what I'm going to cook - along to recipe book holder to put book on and the salt/pepper grinders nearby - to cooker hob - to place to put dirty dishes - to sink/draining board space. On another wall is breakfast bar - where I keep kettle and toaster and the drinks stuff and mugs/glasses is in cupboard directly over that.

    Now got breakfast bar stools and I must get them out of packages. Then I'll be able to sit at breakfast bar if I want a snack there or to use the space on there to spread out cookbooks to decide what I'm going to cook.

    I've got a walk-in pantry:). Yep...I do think they are a good idea and I can see at a glance what store cupboard food I have:). Time/motion = I can hoick what stuff I want there down onto a wide shelf/transfer to breakfast bar from there.

    But - yep...I'd have liked a bigger and better-designed kitchen room. However, I've now done the best I can with the kitchen this house has.

    But - I can see that someone else would panic that there is no room imo for a dishwasher for instance.
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »
    ...

    What's the bare floor kitchen measurements there? It sounds huge!

    If everything were ripped out of mine it'd be 12' x 8'2". But due to one wall being completely out of the equation (e.g. patio doors say) ... it's just awkward. For all the use of it it might as well be 6'x8', there's just a big empty void in the middle.
  • caronc
    caronc Posts: 8,087 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary First Post
    Good morning,
    I'd love a proper walk in pantry but no space unfortunately.
    A dishwasher is a must for me and a microwave (used mainly to heat wheat packs for my dodgy neck & back!)
    Forecast is for dry weather today so I'm going to waft the weedkiller....
    Not sure about food, breakfast will be toast with banana and lunch probably a sandwich.
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