Cooking for one - motivation needed

Ilona

Although I don't go to work, I don't want to spend time in the kitchen either, far better things to do. My meals are mainly from scratch, lots of steamed fresh veg. I have a baskety type thing that goes in the pan and the steam comes up through the veg. It only takes a matter of five minutes to prepare a bit of veg, and another 7 or 8 mins cooking time. Most of my meals are veg or salad based, I don't eat meat. I have bran flakes or porridge in the mornings.

What motivates me to cook good healthy food is that I don't want to fill my body with crappy ready meals, and junk. You are what you eat is so true, eat crap and you will feel like crap. Making the effort to eat good wholesome food pays dividends.

I hate washing up, and will often cook a meal in a pan and eat it out of the pan. A three day veggie stew only takes 20 minutes to prepare, day 2 and 3 you just heat it up. I do a bit of batch cooking but only if I have bought a lot of yellow sticker veg cheap, and it needs to be cooked and frozen before it goes off. Most of my meals are on my blog, pictures, and shopping lists.

OP I suggest you go to bed earlier so you can get up earlier and spend ten minutes making a decent breakfast, and a healthy pack up lunch.
Ilona

suki1964

Ilona wrote: »

I hate washing up, and will often cook a meal in a pan and eat it out of the pan.

:j:j:j

I thought I was the only one who done this lol

I love pasta and would eat it every day, out of the pan And if I get a call or something in the middle of eating I put the pan on top on my shove to keep warm

Ilona

suki1964 wrote: »

:j:j:j

I thought I was the only one who done this lol

I love pasta and would eat it every day, out of the pan And if I get a call or something in the middle of eating I put the pan on top on my shove to keep warm

Yes, and if I have porridge in the morning, and scrambled eggs at lunch time, I use the same pan without washing it. :eek::rotfl:
Ilona

suki1964

Ilona wrote: »

Yes, and if I have porridge in the morning, and scrambled eggs at lunch time, I use the same pan without washing it. :eek::rotfl:
Ilona

Love it lololllol

I love solo living. When hubby comes home it will be back to meat and two, served the same time of day every day, on plates at the table

And dishes to be washed

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If you have room in the freezer, bake a whole bunch of jacket potatoes and freeze them.

That way, you can nuke a spud in five minutes, bung on butter/cheese/mayo/tuna, etc, chuck it on a plate with some salad and dinner took about 7 minutes from opening the fridge door.

And it is better for you than a lot of packet dinners.

Meadows

sixtiesgal wrote: »

How often do you shop for food? I do an online shop once a month for cleaning products, cat food and tinned stuff which is heavy to carry and buy the rest fresh, though that also gets heavy too. I can never seem to get into a proper shopping routine.

The healthy breakfast thing is part of our diary plan but to be honest, though I am prepared to make an effort when I get in from work, I am not a morning person, am always running behind time and have to be at work on time so can't afford to mess about.

You can shop monthly for anything that keeps and your vegetables will last a good week - 10 days if you have the space in the fridge, so you can get away with 2 - 3 smaller shops through out the month (these are ideal times to spot offers and bargains). It make take a little getting use to but better for the budget and stops you impulse shopping for naughty things.

As for breakfast try, 30g oats, 50ml milk & 125g Low Fat Natural Yogurt (if you have a sweet tooth try adding a little honey), mix it all together cover and leave in the fridge for breakfast the next day, you can eat as is or with a chopped banana and or berries (you can also chop the banana lay, on the bottom of a dish, pour over the oat mix, cover and leave in the fridge overnight).
What could be simpler, a yummy filling breakfast with slow release oats to keep you going until lunch and all you have to do in the morning is uncover and eat

juliettet

Monday to Friday I am on my own, but agree that a n hour or two at the weekend cooking is the only way to plan. Who wants to cook lasagne at 6pm at night when you left the house at 7.30? I make two dishes at the weekend for example chilli and lasagne. Each has four portions that go in the freezer and that is two nights per week for a month taken care of. Just need a salad and rice or garlic bread to heat up. My best purchase is a remoska as it is very quick to heat up and easy to clean. For example last night I cut up peppers, tomatoes left over green beans put in the remoska and poured 3 eggs beat up and left for 10 mins. I had a pitta bread and grated cheese over when finished. Very filling. In the morning toast a muffin and microwave a beaten egg for a minute and you will not be hungry. Protein fills you up in the morning.

[Deleted User]

Batch cooking is ok for relatively liquid foods like chilli or stew, because you can put them in a bowl and stir them so that the microwave heats them evenly. The problem is with more solid or drier foodstuffs that can't easily be stirred. Reheating a plated meal is absolutely hopeless, all you get is a dinner frazzled round the edge and cold in the middle.

The problem then with dishes of that sort is that you can't buy ingredients in the quantities you need. Here's a good example:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2121673/smart-crab-linguine

Where do you buy 2 tbsp low-fat crème fraîche, a handful rocket or half a lemon? If you ignore the fact that you can't buy the right quantity of ingredients, any recipe is a recipe for one!

suki1964

jack_pott wrote: »

Batch cooking is ok for relatively liquid foods like chilli or stew, because you can put them in a bowl and stir them so that the microwave heats them evenly. The problem is with more solid or drier foodstuffs that can't easily be stirred. Reheating a plated meal is absolutely hopeless, all you get is a dinner frazzled round the edge and cold in the middle.

The problem then with dishes of that sort is that you can't buy ingredients in the quantities you need. Here's a good example:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2121673/smart-crab-linguine

Where do you buy 2 tbsp low-fat crème fraîche, a handful rocket or half a lemon? If you ignore the fact that you can't buy the right quantity of ingredients, any recipe is a recipe for one!

This is where meal planning AND receipe adapting come in. No need to waste the rest of the pot, either use it in another receipe or use it to top fruit for a dessert

You need to get your meal out of the freezer in the morning to defrost before reheating, you should have more success although I never freeze full meals. If I was freezing left over meat I'd slice and freeze in portions with gravy ( used plastic takeaway dishes work well ) roasties I believe work well frozen in bags and take out what you need

[Deleted User]

suki1964 wrote: »

This is where meal planning AND receipe adapting come in.

OK, lets take the recipe above as an example. There are three ingredients left over, so lets imagine we find another three dishes to use up the leftovers. But if each of those new recipes also have three ingredients leftover too that now makes nine. If you do the same again you're now left with 27...

You're not solving the problem you're expanding it exponentially. Furthermore, the more ingredients you accumulate in the pantry the harder it gets for one person to use them all up before the sell by date. The logistics of trying to plan a menu in advance is a pain in the bum, I just want to decide what I'm going to eat when I walk into the kitchen to cook it.