Please advice, what can I cook - living alone, working full time

kboss2010

Fusspot wrote: »

Thanks, some really useful suggestions here. My boyfriend doesn't eat at my place often, he eats at home where he has a steamer and a George Foreman grill and every other gadget going

Yeah my OH is the same, he had a hissy fit when he found out that I didn't own a food processor and immediately went out to buy one! :rotfl:

As someone said, a bamboo or metal steamer is a really cheap option. You can buy them and the metal support for pennies at Chinese supermarkets. Just pop the stand into a pan of boiling water and place the steamer on top.

As for the quick, easy meals for one or two, I batch cook curries and chilli and lasagna and freeze them in freezer bags in individual portions. Ikea do really cheap, sturdy freezer bags with a re sealable top (the purple ones are the perfect size for one portion). You can cook them from frozen as long as you ensure everything is piping hot before you eat it.

My advice would be to get a store cupboard going with some basic herbs, spices, pasta, rice, stock cubes, flour and tins of tomatoes, chickpeas etc.

Here's what I keep as a minimum:
Mixed herbs
Black pepper
Garam masala
Paprika
Cinnamon
Turmeric
Cardamom pods
Coriander
Basil
Chinese 5 spice
Ginger
Bay leaves
Oregano (for HM pizza)
Powdered garlic (for when you can't be bothered peeling and chopping)
Soy sauce
Sweet chilli sauce
Tinned tomatoes
Tinned beans (cheaper the better)
Tinned chickpeas
Pasta
Rice (long grain & risotto)
Flour
Sugar
Porridge oats

Buy your herbs and spices and large bottles of Chinese sauces from Chinese or Indian supermarkets, they're so much cheaper and come in much larger bags/bottles than the same from supermarkets (e.g. Sainsburys 190 mL sweet chilli sauce £1.49, 1L sweet chilli sauce from local Chinese supermarket £1.99. Ground coriander sainsburys 44g £1.00, 500g bag from local Indian/Chinese supermarket £1.30)



Some simple recipes:

Curry:
Butternut squash (1 diced)
Chickpeas (1 tin)
3 cardamom pods (seeds only and shells discarded)
Chopped tomatoes (1 tin)
1 tablespoon garam masala or curry powder
Salt and pepper
Coconut milk (1/2 tin, freeze the leftover in a bag) or 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut and 150 mL milk

Serve with boiled rice (to make pilau rice, add 4 whole cardamom pods to the water whilst cooking) - sounds stupid but don't eat the cardamoms, remove them after cooking as a mouthful of cardamom pod is not nice!

"Lasagna" pasta:

3 cups any shaped pasta, boiled
Tin of tomatoes
150 mL milk
Handful of grated cheese
Salt and pepper
Beef stock cube
Diced carrots (x 2)
Diced onion
100g mince

Fry the mince, stock cube, onions and carrot in boiling water (not oil) until soft. Add the tomatoes, milk and cheese and simmer until the water has reduced and the sauce mix is thick. Add the pasta, mix and season then freeze.

Time-saving tips:

You can buy ready diced/sliced frozen onions and carrots for around £1 a kg from supermarkets or farmfoods.

Almost anything can be cooked in a microwave e.g. Pasta/rice - put in a microwaveable bowl, cover with boiling water (never fill more than 2/3 of your bowl or you'll get water everywhere as it cooks!) and put on for 10 minutes. Check it every 5 minutes to make sure it's not dry or it will burn.

Bacon from farmfoods is £1 for 6 rashers (frozen) and can be cooked from frozen.

It takes a little effort to start but once you're used to it, it takes minutes to whip up a meal.

suki1964

I feel your pain

For most of the past 8 years I've been " single" ( hubby working away) add to that I worked shifts, healthy eating wasn't high on my agenda

Now I eat soups. Lots of them. Home made and full of veggies. Not every day mind lol. But at least once a week I make a batch with whatever I have This week was a courgette and cheese soup. I HATE courgettes but this was so tasty ill make it again. I had that for dinner two days and there's another six portions in the freezer

I also batch cook and freeze in portions bolognase and chilli. From frozen it can be zapped in the micro. Used with rice/pasta/spuds/tortillas/crusty bread, it's a filling cheap easy meal

I no longer panic that my meals are not traditional. There is no way am I going to sit and eat meat and 3 veg every meal time. I eat my veggies when I can and how I can ( soup) and the rest of the time I eat what's convienient to prepare for one

marmiterulesok

What about salads or a sandwich for your evening meal?Tabouleh is very nice (cold couscous,with chopped up tomato/cucumber and some oil and chopped mint),and you can add some feta or chick peas too.It keeps well in the fridge,so you could have a few portions for the week.
Yogurt and fruit/dried fruit soaked in tea with some wheatgerm is also an other favourite.

I live alone and often have porridge for my evening meal.I've found that if I have it for breakfast,it doesn't fill me up enough.Sometimes I just have Weetabix and a banana.It's not complicated,but is quick to prepare and nourishing.

tiger_eyes

kboss2010 wrote: »

Serve with boiled rice (to make pilau rice, add 4 whole cardamom pods to the water whilst cooking) - sounds stupid but don't eat the cardamoms, remove them after cooking as a mouthful of cardamom pod is not nice!

Am I the only one who likes to eat the cardamom pods in pilau rice?

bargainbetty

I use packet noodles that I put into a bowl, cover with boiling water from the kettle and then dump into a pan with veggies and some kind of protein for a stir fry. I give the bowl a quick wipe and then use it to dish up the meal. One less pan to wash up.

Honestly, ignore your BF and batch cook. If you do a big pan of ragu, you can make individual lasagne, spag bol, add spice to convert to chilli, etc. Nuke them on defrost for two or three minutes, give them a stir and then cook on full power for however long it takes.

I've also taken to defrosting meat in the microwave too, before pan-cooking it (doesn't have to be fried, can be poached too). So easy, and instantly solves the problem of not having defrosted something. Defrost it.

marmiterulesok

suki1964 wrote: »

I no longer panic that my meals are not traditional. There is no way am I going to sit and eat meat and 3 veg every meal time. I eat my veggies when I can and how I can ( soup) and the rest of the time I eat what's convienient to prepare for one

That's just what I think too.I eat a lot of soup,usually at lunchtime.

ostrichnomore_2

It can be hard to motivate yourself when you just cook for yourself, but I think it's important. If you'd go to the effort of cooking for someone else, why value yourself less?

Ready meals really are (on the whole, unless you buy quite expensive ones that are basically a collection of chilled fresh ingredients collected together for you) full of !!!! and not good for you.

Frozen veg etc are brilliant and very healthy and have no preservatives etc, so your boyfriend doesn't know what he's talking about. Ignore.

You can cook meat easily under the grill or in a frying pan, or on a George Forman (I have a little teeny one that takes up very little space and is great for one person) if you don't want to put the oven on for something small.

I love my electric steamer, by the way. But I also microwave those steam bags of veg.

If you can bring yourself to batch cook once a week, the effort is worth it. A few days ago I did some minced beef. I ended up with a big pot of chilli, and a big pot of mince/veg in tomatoey gravy (great for shepherds pies, pasta, or just with pots). Ate one portion of chilli, the other two went in the freezer. Saved one portion of the mince/veg mix in fridge for use this week, and the other two went in freezer. An hour of cooking did me 6 meals.

kate_pixie

It seems like the guys above have given you some excellent advice on batch cooking and I have nothing of worth to add.

You said though that you had problems in remembering to get the food out to defrost and that's where my major problem was too. It's just another thing to remember in an already busy morning.

One small tip that I could give and has SAVED me is to get the frozen meal out in the evening instead of the morning and left it defrost in the fridge. It's a lot easier to remember when you're putting the rest of your meal together or when washing up and gives you the safeguard of getting it out in the morning if you forget. You could even put a post it behind the sink to jog your memory.

Hope that helps

Lizling

I'm cooking for one, and I rarely freeze much during summer. I tend to make very quick odds and ends that'll be ok in the fridge for a couple of days, then mix and match.

For example,

-On Sunday evening I made a salad and a batch of mini veggie burger type patties. I ate some immediately, took some in for Monday's lunch in a roll, and had some left in the fridge.

-On Monday I roasted some veg and mixed some chickpeas with cumin. Some of it went into a wrap with cheese and chilli sauce, which I had with salad the rest went in the fridge.

-On Tuesday I had the last of the veggie burgers and some roast veg with feta for lunch, then made a huge thick 6-egg omelette when I got home. I had a wedge of omelette with broccoli, grated carrot and cherry tomatoes for dinner.

-Yesterday I had another slice of omelette with some more tomatoes and olives for lunch. Was out for dinner.

-Tonight I'm doing stirfry, so I'll probably do some extra noodles and make a dressing to form the basis of a noodle salad another day.

And so on and so on.

eamon

I've lived alone most of my adult life and my tips are.
Don't defrost meat cuts in the microwave, it usually doesn't work unless you watch it carefully and this defeats the purpose. They need drefosting overnight in the fridge.
Buy frozen veg. If you don't overcook it has the same nutritional value as fresh veg. Of course there are brownie points for fresh veg but buying for one is dificult unless you like repetition. Though carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, brocolli don't do bad in the fridge.
If you have batch cooked & frozen, chillis, stews, currys etc then they don't need taking out the night before. Nuke on defrost setting for 25 mins, transfer to microwave dish, stir & nuke on high power for 4mins (750watt oven).
Using conventional oven, home made potato wedges will cook in 30mins or less depending on the size of the wedges. If you are using the oven anyway and fancy some fresh veg e.g. cauliflower/brocolli then cut into florets, make a tin foil parcel add a little water and seal your parcel. This will bake (steam) in 30 mins. Fancy a baked spud? Nuke it for 5 mins first, wrap it in tin foil with a little oil or butter and bung in the oven for 30 mins. Oven temps are Gas 5 or 180-200 C.
Save you batch cooking for weekends.
Tired veg belong in soups, stews or currys.