new widower needs help

countrymusicfan

my friend became a widower suddenly with no time to prepare. He is living on tinned foods. He works until 6 and gets home at about 7 or 8 depending on what bus he can get. I am looking for easy recipes for one for someone with no time and not energy

monnagran

Oh dear, what a miserable time your friend must be having.
If his bereavement is recent I would suggest that he forgets about healthy diets and new recipes for the time being and just buys frozen meals that can be popped into the microwave when he arrives home exhausted. The microwaveable jacket potatoes are good and can be topped with cheese, beans,....well, most things really, and some salad. Frozen veg are excellent and we are told that they have more vitamins than fresh, so he can tip some into a pan and cover with grated cheese or grill a couple of sausages to have with them. Keep it very simple and when he has sorted things out a bit more come back here and we will weigh in with recipes, hints, tips about things like shopping, planning, pre- and batch cooking, slow cookers etc.

He is fortunate to have your support.

x

JP08

For many years I lived solo. Got quite adept at 1 tray cooking.

Slap a pork chop or piece of chicken on an oven tray. Cut up tatties small, coat in olive oil and maybe some salt & pepper, slap on same tray, similar with another veg like carrot or courgette. Throw the lot in the oven at somewhere round 200C for half an hour and leave to get on with it. If you're feeling really adventurous boil a small pan for some peas.

Healthy and almost minimum effort. If you're really feeling lazy, can even eat it off the oven tray !

RAS

As above.

Chunks of tatties, root veggies, leek, pepper or courgette as available and definately a small onion quartered. Toss in oil. Add any herbs or garlic as wanted. Put chicken portions, pork chop/chunks etc on top and cook in oven.

Re-heats quite well if you microwave for a couple of minutes and then either grill or oven cook to crisp up.

Pasta - cook, eat with shop bought sauce. Make extra portions HM pasta salad for lunch or tomorrow's tea.

Sausages and tinned beans. Put sausages under grill (he can microwave for minutes to get them started or pre-cook the previous day). Fry finely chopped veggies inc onion until just going brown add beans and heat. Eat as soon as the sausages are cooked and brown. Can add a green veggie or salad if wanted.

lynsayjane

As a single who also has a lack of inclination to cook after work I find the most helpful thing is to cook extra then freeze portions. I have a drawer in my freezer full of home made ready meals for one as I'll make large meals at a weekend then pop the rest into plastic tubs. I then take something out in the morning to defrost or blast in the micro when I get home.
I also love throwing something into the slow cooker in the morning and coming home to the delicious smell in the house.

Sorry to hear of your friends circumstance, I sometimes find it difficult going home to an empty house especially when it's dark and I imagine he feels the same. Can I suggest popping a lamp on a timer? I do this and it makes it more pleasant to come home (I also did this last year with the Christmas lights which was lovely to come home to).

flipper_72

My dad is a widower of 1 year and he does the batch cooking and freezing thing for most meals, comes to us once a week and then fills in with bought ready meals for things he doesn't know how to cook and adds frozen veg to make it into a proper portion.

Meals are spag bol, chilli, casseroles of various types, corned beef hash, curries, savoury mince. He generally cooks a couple one weekend to top up the freezer but manages to do 8 portions or so of each so doesn't need to do this every weekend.

purpleshoes_2

countrymusicfan wrote: »

my friend became a widower suddenly with no time to prepare. He is living on tinned foods. He works until 6 and gets home at about 7 or 8 depending on what bus he can get. I am looking for easy recipes for one for someone with no time and not energy

Surely he has a couple of days off a week where he could prepare food for the week? Ive lived on my own for almost 20 years, cooking for one isn't a big problem and you don't need to be a fantastic cook to get a couple of quick recipes under your belt and you just build from there.

Home made soup. Pasta dishes, pasta with a tomato sauce or with tuna. Toast and beans. Curry with rice, mashed potatoes can top a lot of dishes. Scrambled, boiled, poached eggs. Porridge or breakfast oats (which you can eat at other times as well). Salads.
Noodle based dishes.

For snacks stuff like oatcakes are good. Google really is the best place to start.

LameWolf

I am so sorry to learn of your friend's loss.

I have a couple of recipes wich I keep for days when I'm not feeling well enough to do much, maybe they would be of use?

Tagliatelle with tinned toms and hot dogs.
Dice quarter of an onion, chuck in a saucepan with a little butter and fry gently. Sling in a few dried herbs and add a tin of tomatoes. Cut a couple of hot dogs into chunks and add to the pan (I use frozen veggie hot dogs, and defrost them in the micro). Keep this lot on a low heat, stirring occasionally, while you cook a helping of dried tagliatelle in another saucepan. When the tagliatelle is ready, drain it onto a plate, chuck the tomato mixture on top, and eat.

Pasta fusilli in cheese sauce
Melt a little butter in a pan, add a dessertspoon plain flour, sploosh in enough milk to make a decent roux (sp?) sauce; add some strong grated cheese, stir in and keep it on a low heat while you cook a helping of fusilli in another saucepan. Serve in the same way as the tagliatelle recipe above.
* You can add diced onion, bacon or veggie-bacon lardons, diced up fresh tomato, or any or all of these to the sauce, as you wish.

Mushroom "risotto"
I put the risotto bit in parentheses because I use ordinary quick-cook rice.
Dice a quarter onion, fry in butter as for the tagliatelle recipe. Add a couple of ounces of sliced mushrooms. Stir in and heat for a couple minutes further. Add a couple of ounces of rice. Stir. Add a sploosh of white wine and a stock cube. Stir, and bring up to the boil. Add about half a pint of boiling water, keep on the heat, stirring, til it's reduced to a nice risotto-y consistency and the rice is cooked. Serve with grated cheese over the top.

HTH.

moneyistooshorttomention

I was also thinking a slowcooker would be a good investment for him. Also salads would be quicker to get together than cooked vegetables for instance.

Batch cooking - as in cooking up several portion of main meal things and putting the extra ones into the freezer to take out on workdays. Things like spaghetti bolognaise and curries for instance.

I look to a more "conventional" style main meal as consisting of a protein dish, some vegetables/salad and a "filler" food (eg potatoes, pasta or rice).

The quickest filler food there is couscous. He could put the kettle onto boil whilst getting the rest of his meal together and he only needs to pour just-boiled water onto a helping of couscous and leave it for 4 minutes and its ready.

Other quick filler food would be potato salad. He could cook up some potatoes and make them into potato salad and have that cold as his filler food with his dinner.

7pm-8pm is late to get back after work, considering that most of us regard dinnertime as starting somewhere between 6pm-7pm. I would struggle with that myself (trans = couldn't do it, as I'm a lark, rather than an owl and my digestion sometimes suffers from eating too late at night). I hope your friend is an owl and is able to sleep on later than normal in the morning to make up for this late finish to his workday??? If he is going to struggle with that aspect, ie having such a late dinner - then is there a way he could buy himself a cheap main meal at lunchtime each day on workdays and then only needs something "light" of an evening? (eg I guess there are still a few people who have a work canteen or the like available to them....).

EDIT; How long is he likely to have this situation for? When you say he is a widower, I am picturing a man not far off retirement age anyway (ie the problem of how to manage dinner being a pretty temporary thing). Is that correct - or is he a young widower and this problem will continue for some time?

EDIT; If there isn't a work canteen or the like - then maybe he lives in the sort of location where there is a choice of pubs etc doing main meals at workday lunchtimes for £5?? My home area, for instance, I know had plenty of that available and it could be a good investment in his health if he could just go into one of them and buy whatever they were serving up that day?? That would be £25 per week just for 5 dinners - but I doubt most peoples health could cope with microwaved and/or ready meals for long and it would be worth it to avoid the likelihood of health problems from eating like that for long. I have watched this in my own family - my close family have eaten that way for a long time and I don't and I am the only healthy one in the family and I believe that is the reason for the difference (assuming the pubs to hand don't do the same thing - but use "proper" food).

Butterfly_Brain

Condolences to your friend.

Jacket potatoes can be done in the microwave and a quick crisping up in the oven, several with tuna and cheese, tuna and beans, bolognaise, chilli, baked beans and cheese or just butter and cheese.

Beans on toast is a healthy meal, sprinkle with cheese.

Macaroni cheese is quick and easy

Pork chop with a few salad potatoes and veg of choice serve with garlic butter or a sauce or gravy of some kind.

Chicken breast stir fried with stir fry veg which is available frozen and a hoisin sauce or sauce of choice, bulk it up with some boiled rice.

Sausage and mash with beans

Sausage stew

Curry cheat using a ready made curry sauce

Sausage pasta

FrugalWorker

I'm sure he's still in shock - that could last quite a while. (months to years). I've really only had to deal with the sudden death of a parent, but I couldn't talk about it for at least a year.

I struggled just keeping house - having food in, keeping kitchen clean, etc... I ended up sick, or maybe I got sick and that's what lead to making it hard keeping on top of things.

- consider online shopping
- I used to use pre-chopped stir fry veg when really short on time and frozen veg, combined with a sauce/couscous/chicken was a very quick meal.
- Make healthy food out of his tins/frozen food: cooked pasta/tinned tomatos/tin if tuna/onion fried off/some frozen peas/a pepper if he has one - will serve 2-3 days. Encourage tinned fruit in juice (get those vitamins in!) or apples/long lasting fruit.
Encourage him to buy root veggies, or veggies that won't go off quickly. E.g. butter nut squash takes no preparation and keeps for ages. So when he has time at the weekend, put a pork steak in the oven with a butternut squash halved, deseeded and cut in to big chunks (no need to peel). Makes dinner and left overs for the next day.

I'd suggest he buys soups - the ones in the fridges. They are far from the worst. I know it's really quick to make soup. He can do that when he starts to get on top of other things.

I understand what people are saying about single people being perfectly capable of cooking/preparing food - problems is dealing with a death is very difficult and trying to do the simplest of things can be hard.