Cooking for one - motivation needed

Popperwell

melanzana wrote: »

Have to say cooking from scratch is a total pain when on your own. YOU have to cook. YOU have to prep. for one.

Realistically who would bother doing that after an 8 or 10 hour day or whatever working? Different for a family, some help there I think, hope!

YOU eat on your own, with NO ONE to say, "hey, that was great, thanks". And, YOU have to wash up too. So i totally empathise with OP.

It is soooooo nice, to come home from work and all you have to do is put the meal either in MW or oven. One dish, knife and fork, one plate, to wash!

Happy days.

lostinrates wrote: »

a lot of commiseration here about the down sides of eating alone but...on the plus side...

You can eat the things you like without upseting someone who hates your favourite veg etc.

You can, as a single adult, eat a little out of balance.

I constantly switch between both these views and think that I always will until I end up in a home or leave this world...I do all that I can not to give in though.

I could live and often do just go for the easy option and I am probably eating healthily enough but then again why deny myself lovely food and something a bit different whilst I am able there will be probably times in the future when I won't be able.

Also getting older why not enjoy meals in the time that remains? And be more adventurous.

The biggest problem is if you feel down as that makes motivation difficult and then you often just make do.

Popperwell

A lot of ingredients depending on what they are can last ages and often past the dates on the product. It would be more of a problem if it is a fresh item/diary.

Spices, herbs or items that can be frozen would not be such a problem.

And I often ignore dates etc...I often adapt meals and just try something of my own.

sonastin

Ilona wrote: »

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

Oh, if only it really were that simple. I am not a morning person either. I would go to bed an hour earlier and lie awake for an hour-and-a-half. And then accidentally switch off the earlier alarm instead of hitting snooze. And then find myself running half an hour behind time instead.

Or, if I do manage to leave the house earlier, find myself in a traffic jam and get to work later than if I'd left on time.

Did I mention I hate mornings :eek:

Doesn't mean you shouldn't try though! Somehow I've managed to get myself into a routine where I have time to make and eat breakfast, make packed lunch, empty dishwasher, sometimes put slowcooker on, etc. I wouldn't mind but I do this now while OH is in bed so its not like its because I'm not living alone!

lostinrates wrote: »

A lot of commiseration here about the down sides of eating alone but...on the plus side...

You can eat the things you like without upseting someone who hates your favourite veg etc.

You can, as a single adult, eat a little out of balance. E.g. I often just have veg in the evening (steamed broccoli with oyster sauce for example) when my husband is home he would want a proper meal around that.

I now have a resident parent and really miss my singleton meals!

I miss my singleton meals too. OH believes he eats anything and everything but he's way fussier than me. I've got a freezer full of left overs of things he doesn't like but I can't think of anything he'd eat that I don't want so never sure when I'll get round to eating them up.

Meal planning is the key to getting out of the ready meal trap. If you know in advance what you're eating (and particularly if you've got stuff out of the freezer to go into it), you don't spend time wondering what to cook before thinking beggar it I'll microwave something quick.

And washing an extra pan or two takes less time than running the bowl of washing up water in the first place. It is so easy to look at the dirty pots and resent them (I know, I've been there) but the reality of washing up isn't as painful as the expectation.

Valli

I have a little pyrex dish (well I have 4, but two small ones) with a polythene lid. These can go in the freezer and the oven (with the lid off).

In them I make bread and butter puddings, fish pie, cottage pie, lasagne (for example) so if you had these and froze your own ready meals in them you can eat from the dish then wash that.

They are sometimes available on offer.

suki1964

jack_pott wrote: »

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.

In this particular recipe I can't see your problem tbh

Crab - one sandwich has that used up

Rocket- omg I use rocket in everything if I have a bag. Stirred into pasta, on top of pizza, as a salad leaf - rocket gets eaten

Pine nuts - well they don't do off for ages so use them again or smash them up with the rocket and olive oil to make a pesto


Seriously all recipes can be adapted and worked on to cater for the single person. And as I previously said, meal plan, even a two week plan will stop waste

singlestep

At times like now, when work goes a bit crazy, I live off rations from the freezer I’ve stored up. When I have a bit more time, say a week off work and staying at home, I cook a different batch of things each day – soup, chilli, curry, bolognaise, stew, cottage pie, etc. I’d also happily eat broccoli and oyster sauce or mushrooms stuffed with herbs and breadcrumbs or even the staple pasta with chilli and garlic from my student days. .


I’m about as far from a talented (or even keen) cook as you can get and when I forget to take something from the freezer, I do end up opening a can of tomato soup or buying a ready meal. When I first moved out on my own, I did live off ready meals and it was difficult readjusting to mainly homemade – probably lack of salt and additives.

I don’t need to eat the same thing several nights in a row but I don’t actually mind it. At busy times, I make a big pot of soup on a Sunday evening, freeze some and have some when I come home from work for a few days. It’s often a meal in itself. Today, I have butternut squash and chilli soup and I have some tomatoes and a couple of leftover slices of Serrano ham, which I might enjoy with a glass of wine later. Tomorrow I’ll make a huge vat of tomato sauce, most of which I portion up for the freezer and some of which will be used with spaghetti and meatballs for tomorrow’s dinner with friends.


Lunches are difficult - I have nowhere to heat soup or leftovers and this is when I do get sick of the same things and I do quite often resort to M & S lunches (nearest to me). It's a compromise, though and it only works if the rest of what I eat is healthyish.

emmaneni

I have lived alone for 3.5 years and I love it. I love the random food I get to eat because there's no one to judge or be forced to eat it.

I never eat breakfast and get free lunch at work so only have to cook for evenings and weekends. In winter time I shop on Wednesdays and Fridays. On Fridays I do a big shop because at the weekend I get to treat myself with fun food and sometimes have people over so don't really cook for one. Then on Sunday evenings I cook enough soup to last me 3 days. Then I don't have to cook again until Wednesday when I pop out for soup ingredients and cook enough for the rest of the week.

In the summer I swap the soup for salads and just add an extra shopping day in on Mondays to keep everything fresh and yummy.

I don't have a freezer but I guess the fact that I get a different hot lunch at work everyday means I don't get bored of eating the same thing for three days. I'm also a big ambassador for soup. I love the stuff. I don't think I've had the same one twice all winter. It's fun.

Oh how I will miss my free lunches and living alone when I move back to the UK!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Small piece of steak out the tabletop freezer (slightly larger than an icebox)

Piece of leek leftover from yesterday.

Handful of bean sprouts bought today.

Huge green pepper.

Bit of red pepper left over from yesterday.

Five leftover mushrooms.


Tsp oil, in wok, add splash of soy, mirin and sake. Tip on plate.


Start to finish, ten minutes.




Or piece of chicken or salmon. Out of packet, in pan, tip on bag of leaves, throw on tomato and cucumber. Less than ten minutes.

Popperwell

This is why even with a bedroom tax and struggling I want to stay put...

There is room for a fridge/freezer. If they don't use much energy possibly a freezer. I am near the shops so can avoid taxi and bus fares.

Thinking about it at a push I could manage probably with a fridge and think of the local supermarket as a big freezer and buy something daily and decide on the day what I fancy to eat.

Saving on the cost of running the fridge/freezer.

But has been said "If" there was somewhere to downsize to what I save in the BT I could spend on taxis/bus fares to get places.

Just have play it by ear. I eat a lot of cold meals like salads/fruit etc...

Try to batch cook a few items at once or...use the microwave where possible.

Use a slow cooker a lot, microwaves and I still have to use a halogen oven I have. I hear that they are good.

I have access to manual and electric choppers and food processors and thankfully because one was mentioned on here I checked and I have a stick blender too. Which could be handy for a single person.

As no one visits me, if ever I have to move into a smaller property I am not going to worry and if I have to have a fridge or freezer in the lounge or a bedroom I don't care. If I can hide it in some way fine but what is important is that I can keep bills down and have enough food etc...

I keep trying to accept even though I like my own company that I will not let myself be lonely, easy said than done. But many of my relatives(especially the female side)remained that way when their partner passed away, sometimes for decades.

Ash_McCloud

I cook for just myself most nights.. I post photos on the 'What Are You Making For Dinner?' thread, coz I find that it encourages me to present the meal nicely.

But other than that.. I cook new potatoes and a variety of vegetables in a steamer in 25 mins, a piece of meat/fish on the grill, in the frying pan, or in the steamer, in the same time, and I've got a meal made from scratch.

Curries and Chilli are batch cooked, they can be defrosted while I'm at work and I do em with chips or rice, so again, it's 20 mins tops.