Cooking for one - motivation needed

stormy_monday

I agree with most on here I try and batch cook as much as I can on the weekend, and O my god I couldn't live without my freezer (even though it's only a small one) it's full of bits of leftover things!

I tend top shop once a week on a thursday to try and keep things fresh on the weekend and eat out of the freezer during the week. I usually buy one type of meat a week (mince/chicken etc) and make a family sized meal and freeze the rest, or chop it up it up to individual portions. Once in a while I try to cook something a bit different - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't!

It's sometimes difficult to get the right amount of ingredients as some things tend to go off before I manage to use them - but I try my best to adapt my meal plans to use up everything I can, and even if I end up chucking some things I tell myself it's still cheaper and better for me and the environment than buying ready meals.

Planning ahead is really important - there's no point in having a freezer full of things if it's still in the freezer when you want to eat it! So decide what you're going to have all week and make sure you take it out of the freezer on the night before / morning, then it's easier than a ready meal.

It's all about habit and routine aswell - I do all of my planning/cooking/reheating/making tomorrow's lunch at the same time so it's convenient and i tend to use very small leftovers as lunch the next day - and less washing up if I do everything together!

There is nothing worse than getting home knackered and then having to make a meal from scratch and having nobody to eat it with!

There's always loads of good advice, information, support and motivation on this forum I've been reading it for years it's a godsend!

[Deleted User]

aliama wrote: »

it can be really tricky sometimes, particularly if you're concerned about the saturated fat content as you seem to be. Personally I'm not convinced that sat fat is as bad as the prevailing wisdom would have us believe

I just used to eat whatever I pleased, but about five yeras ago I noticed a small cholesterol spot forming in the corner of my eye, so I decided to cut down on fat. Unlike most people though, I sat down and totted up where my fat intake was coming from first before jumping to conclusions, and changing my diet willy nilly. It's tempting to assume from the propaganda that "junk" food is the demon, but unless you're eating it in huge quantities it's not where most of your fat is coming from. In my case the biggest culprits by far were marge, milk and cheese. By switching to skimmed milk, low cal marge and cutting out cheese altogether I got my fat intake down from 35% to 25%. If I had cut out all the junk food it would have only dropped to 34%.

Mistral001

I am a fan of the slow cooker, but the OP does not like the taste of the food there. I sort of know what she means with regard to caseroles and stews. Whole chickens are great though. Big advantage of the slow cooker is that it separates the time of preparation from the eating

But one small advantage of cooking on your own is that you can experiment a bit and if it turns out less than perfect you do not get anybody complaining or leaving food on their plate. Perhaps experimenting is too strong of a word. I mean you can improve dishes and perfect them without anybody complaining when you try something that does not turn out too well. Once you have perfected a dish then when you do have company you can make it.

Also try to keep away from cookbooks which give long lists of ingredients in their recipes. Books entieled "Simple ****** Cooking" usually are not simple and give maybe 20 ingredients for one dish. You have to actually look through the book and see the list of ingredients to find out if they are simple. Fewer ingredients means less cleaning up of course, but also means that you can actually taste each ingredient in the finished dishe and that makes experimenting easier.

[Deleted User]

I saw the last few minutes of the cookery prog with the two geordies earlier this evening, I take it that the premise is gourmet cooking on a budget. They produced a pudding "for just £2 a portion". WHAT! That's two thirds of an entire days budget just for one portion of dessert, what planet are they living on!?!?!? And that's without allowing for any waste as a result of catering for one.

suki1964

jack_pott wrote: »

I saw the last few minutes of the cookery prog with the two geordies earlier this evening, I take it that the premise is gourmet cooking on a budget. They produced a pudding "for just £2 a portion". WHAT! That's two thirds of an entire days budget just for one portion of dessert, what planet are they living on!?!?!? And that's without allowing for any waste as a result of catering for one.

You didn't see the cost of the main per portion then? :rotfl::rotfl:

I saw the programme and to be honest it was very mse, but on a grander scale

Like they made a paella or something , used different cheaper fish then you would if flush, then used the bones and heads etc to make the starter

Basically it was restaurant style food at a third of the cost. Maybe too big a budget for us but I'm sure mrs Cameron and friends took note :rotfl::rotfl:

Savannah02K

I'd echo what other folks have said about batch cooking, but also think outside the box a bit. Who said you had to have a 'proper' meal every night? I batch make soups and find that a home made soup followed by a sandwich or a baked potato is more enjoyable and fills me up. When I do batch cook I try and think of double duty food, e.g. veg chilli can be eaten either with rice and garlic bread or I can have it on top of a baked potato with some cheese grated on top as well. Also, don't forget that most jar sauces can be frozen too, I buy say the Homepride or Dolmio when on special offer and then one night I'll cook my pasta (with frozen veggies thrown in), drain and leave in the colander, then in the pasta pot put some of the Dolmio sauce, heat that up, throw the pasta and veggies back in and hey presto, one hot meal, one sauce and one baking tray for the garlic bread. The rest of the sauce in the jar gets decanted into little plastic containers and put in the freezer for another day.

Savannah02K

Forgot to say, re the bagged salads not being used up, I sooooo hate throwing stuff away, I just put the salad stuff in my smallest saucepan, cover it (just) with water, bring to boil, leave to simmer till all wilted then when it's cold, blitz it with hand blender and freeze it. Good veggie stock for soups. I also keep a 'soup box' in the freezer, any bits of veggies left at end of week go in there, ditto 'wash outs' from sauce jars. When it's full, that gets added to potatoes or lentils and veggies to make soup.