meals for one

jackel

since losing my husband early this year I am on my own Are there any threads for single meal recipes and meal plans/shopping ? Please help.

missbiggles1

There are lots of good recipes for one here.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/books/delias-one-is-fun

krlyr

When I was cooking for one, I'd often actually cook bigger portions and freeze the excess. So I'd cook a couple of kg of mince into something like a bolognese, and freeze in single portions. Sometimes served with spaghetti or pasta, sometimes with rice, sometimes on a jacket potato, sometimes made into a lasagne.

A large shepherds/cottage pie can be sliced and frozen into single portions. Instead of cooking one chicken breast, put several in the oven and freeze, whole or shredded, and you then have cooked chicken for things like a chicken salad, or to add to a stir fry, etc.

As well as the meat portion, I would freeze portions of 'sides' too. So I would peel and mash the whole bag of potatoes, and freeze portions of mash (my tip would be to use less milk than usual - it does go a bit runnier when microwaving).

Rice is another one that freezes well - it's very important that you cool and freeze the rice quite quickly, as it's not actually the reheating of rice that can cause food poisoning but the rice sitting around at room temperature, letting the nasty toxins multiply. I would cook the rice, spread onto baking trays to let it cool, and then freeze in microwavable tubs. Reheat until piping hot. I'd do portions of plain rice, egg fried rice, spicy/spanish rice.

elona

Years ago Shirley Goode produced a book "Cooking for one" which has lots of shopping and cooking tips and really good recipes. On amazon it is a penny plus postage.

I am so sorry for your loss. I lost my DH over a year ago and have gone from cooking for six to cooking for one. Sometimes I just have something like an omelette or home made soup, other times I roast a chicken and let it cool to turn it into chicken salad, chicken soup, chicken and mushroom stir fry etc or just chicken and low fat chips.

Sometimes I will try a new recipe and do a big cook then freeze some of the portions. This means I have something when I feel tired or something to give to DDs to take home for a busy day.

I just try to go with the flow. I use small cartons of milk as unless family come round I can't finish them in date. I buy a small sliced wholemeal loaf and freeze half and am very pleased if I find yellow sticker bargains to put in my freezer for later use.

Hugs

Pollycat

I second krlyr's suggestion of cooking more than a single portion and freezing.

I'm sorry for your loss too.

You might be interested in this thread - Self help thread. I am a widow. Coping, getting on with it
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5185428&page=88

SailorSam

I'm another that's on his own but hardly ever cook single portions. Although i don't agree about the rice 'cos i think it doesn't take that long and while you're getting the rest of your meal out the rice can be cooked. That said if i'm doing a stirfry or rice salad where i want cold rice i'll do it of a morning and leave in the fridge all day.

[Deleted User]

SailorSam wrote: »

Although i don't agree about the rice 'cos i think it doesn't take that long and while you're getting the rest of your meal out the rice can be cooked. .

Out of interest how much do you cook, quantities etc as if I do rice I always seem to do too much
i.e. How much rice, to ratio of water.I was once pretty ill with rice so I am always a bit leery of freezing cooked rice;) those boil in the bag things are too much just for one meal and if I use one I end up binning the rest, so often don't bother to cook rice at all and have chilli/ curry etc on a Jacket spud

Farway

Much as has been said, but I do not deliberately cook more for a later day, but whole chicken for instance does get used over a few days or bits of it frozen

Don't tell the dated food police on here but I had some own frozen & cooked chicken from Jan 2014 that I resurrected for a salad dinner last week

Yellow stickers I go for, sometimes just grabbing YS "meal for one" items, curry, sausages & mash kind of stuff, saves thinking what to cook and just zapping it

Perhaps not wise choice for everyday but solves one meal time

SailorSam

JackieO wrote: »

Out of interest how much do you cook, quantities etc as if I do rice I always seem to do too much

When i first left home and got my own house, i'd never done anything. So i went to any night-school class i could do learn to learn Diy around the house and cooking.
One class was Chinese cooking with this little old Chinese man. When he was showing us how to do rice and we asked ... 'how much'. He didn't weigh anything, just held out his hand and said .... 'this much'
So i'll do a handful, same with water. If it looks right, it will do.

juliesname

About half my dinners are batch-cook frozen - cottage pie, chilli, cubed meats in tomatoey sauces, chopped roasted meats etc and the other half are things that come in single portions eg frozen/tinned fish, egg/cheese combinations. Bacon and sausages get frozen in meal-sized portions. Fresh veg carrots, broccoli, spuds can be bought in smaller amounts than say a cabbage. Frozen veg, chips. Pasta and rice get cooked while the meat part is defrosting in the microwave and being reheated.

I find it helps to be able to think 'what do I fancy?' and see a choice in the freezer. I will survive as long as the freezer does!

krlyr

JackieO wrote: »

Out of interest how much do you cook, quantities etc as if I do rice I always seem to do too much
i.e. How much rice, to ratio of water.I was once pretty ill with rice so I am always a bit leery of freezing cooked rice;) those boil in the bag things are too much just for one meal and if I use one I end up binning the rest, so often don't bother to cook rice at all and have chilli/ curry etc on a Jacket spud

I follow this method for rice (using the knuckle method for adding water) every time now and it's always nice and fluffy (unless I forget I'm cooking brown rice and don't allow longer...oops!).
http://chinesefood.about.com/od/resourceschinesecooking/tp/Steaming-Rice-How-To-Steam-Rice-On-The-Stovetop.htm

I forgot to say in my first post, often if I'm just cooking plain rice, I'll often put it in a sieve and run cold water over it to cool it down straight away - let drain dry and then straight into takeaway tubs. It really is just the letting it sit in the warm that causes issues with rice, the NHS recommend to cool within an hour of cooking.
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning.aspx?CategoryID=51