Cooking for one

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

About 25 years ago I'd moved to a new area and saw a group that met weekly at a pub called "Single & Professional Group", so I went. It turned out that all the men were retired and all the women hadn't worked and were simply "finding somewhere to go now their kids were aged 16-20" .... and they had nothing to say except when referring back to their kids - and if you tried to arrange to meet anybody outside of the group it was "I can't, got my son/daughter coming round and we're going out as a family to ABC ....."

They use groups to "get away for 'me time' for a couple of hours" rather than using groups as a springboard to find other things to do with people from the group. They've no intention of "making friends" there.... they just want to "get out of the house", so they can tell others about what's in their house, before returning to it quickly.

The fellas were organising things to do together outside of the group, but not the women. The women only saw it as "Ah, I'll do that for 2 hours on a Wednesday night then". Whereas I was there to "see what's going on and who is going out/where and see if there's something going on a group of us could go to."

I'm grinning rather in recognition here. Re "fellas organising things" - I admit I've not managed to work out yet how to go "Me too - treat me as a person and not a woman. I'd like to come".

I guess it's an improvement on a few years back (ie child-bearing age) when it was all one could do to hold a conversation with a friend that had young children with her - as the child would be allowed to interrupt constantly and the mother would never ever say "Hush...mummy is talking...just wait a minute"/never apologise/never get back into the conversation that was happening in the first place.

PasturesNew

Farway wrote: »

... 5 a day ...

When I looked into 5 a day, some of the quantities were quite large if you had all 5 like that. You really have to pick carefully around the stuff to minimise the portion sizes.

e.g. vegetables seem to be 80 grams of a vegetable to be 1 portion ... eating 5 lots of 80 grams of vegetables would finish most people off

While a lot of things have a slice of this, a bit of that, it's not enough of those items to count as one of the five most of the time. It's not enough to have 5, you also have to have enough of each of them.

So ... pfft to it all really

For tea I've just had about 150 grams of chips and 5 cocktail sausages

caronc

Afternoon everyone late on parade so just had a quick read back:)
Not much by way of cooking here today as was at hospital this morning for more balance testing which left me feeling a bit _pale_ so lunch was a dry roll and a cupasoup when I got back. That said had a lovely sleep and have just scoffed the remaining 1/2 cous cous stuffed pepper which hit the spot. I still have wee tub of the cous cous mix left so will do something with that tomorrow. I'm keeping it simple tonight with fishfingers, beans and oven chips and will be indulging in a large glass of red:) Not the best day F&V wise but it will even itself out over the next few days.

Farway - get that tinned haggis opened (if it's Grants or Wilsons it is pretty good), if you don't fancy neeps & tatties it'd would make a decent pie

Nelski - enjoy your book club hope you were actually listening when the audio book was playing LOL

caronc

PasturesNew wrote: »

When I looked into 5 a day, some of the quantities were quite large if you had all 5 like that. You really have to pick carefully around the stuff to minimise the portion sizes.

e.g. vegetables seem to be 80 grams of a vegetable to be 1 portion ... eating 5 lots of 80 grams of vegetables would finish most people off

While a lot of things have a slice of this, a bit of that, it's not enough of those items to count as one of the five most of the time. It's not enough to have 5, you also have to have enough of each of them.

So ... pfft to it all really

For tea I've just had about 150 grams of chips and 5 cocktail sausages

I aim for around 400g a day and don't worry too much about variety in the day but make sure I vary throughout the week but this is too much for everyone and not enough for some- best guide is a portion should fit the cup of your hand so if you are wee (I know you've said before your only 5ft) your portion would be quite a bit less so a few slices may well make it. You are probably doing better over the course of a week/month than you think:D

karcher

Nelski wrote: »

I know I will complete 20 hail Martins :D

Glad to hear that

By the way...is the audio book any good?

Anything food related or involving any singletons bemoaning the lack of food in the fridge? (just trying to stay on topic :cool:)

caronc

karcher wrote: »

Anything food related or involving any singletons bemoaning the lack of food in the fridge? (just trying to stay on topic :cool:)

I wouldn't worry about that...........:rotfl::rotfl:

LameWolf

PasturesNew wrote: »

So ... pfft to it all really

My feelings exactly! :T And grams are meaningless to me, I can only work with ounces, so .... pfft to that, too! :rotfl:

karcher

LameWolf wrote: »

My feelings exactly! :T And grams are meaningless to me, I can only work with ounces, so .... pfft to that, too! :rotfl:

Thrice pfft to all that!! I can honestly say I have never weighed any food portions..ever...in grams or ounces..:D

Never weigh myself either these days :eek:... too scared :rotfl::rotfl:

caronc

Just had a noodle and what a great site this is. With the perpetual cooking for one dilemma, I have spare cous cous from last night turns out you can freeze it https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/492021#Comment_492021 thought that might be handy to know for others

sitesafe

Note to self: don't rub eyes after chopping chillis earlier.


Good evening - just checking in and enjoying the read up.


I've been pretty good today on the food front. Weetabix with bananas and blueberries at breakfast; a brazil and a few almonds and a few prunes as snacks; lunch was a wholemeal wrap with half a sliced avocado, some ys cherry tomatoes, chopped cucumber, and a spoon of natural yogurt, a portion of cooked cold salmon on the side to beef it up. Snacked on a couple of oatcakes (nice but they contain quite a lot of added salt). Also a clementine. Countless cups of tea usual. Supper was a stir fry made from scratch using a carrot thinly sliced/chopped, red onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, ys mushrooms, cabbage and broccoli. When I say from scratch the stir fry sauce itself was from a packet. I usually buy the dried wholewheat noodles from SB but more recently have been buying the branded dry thin noodles as I can snap the right portion sizes off. Oh yes I added one of the ys chicken breasts I bought the other day. Anyway there was enough for two meals which wasn't my intention and I didn't fancy slimy stir fry for supper the next day so ate the lot! I know for next time. The stir fry was as good as when I buy the ready made mixtures. Still have lots of veg so added quite a bit to some left over chicken stock and simmered to make soup for the next few days. I've been lucky this week as my boss is away and had left me some things in the fridge that he was going to throw out otherwise (wish I'd known this before I'd gone shopping though). So all in all a healthyish day and I've learned not to over do it on the stir fry veg!


Thanks everyone for the advice on cooking chickpeas and lentils, definitely something I will put into practice when I buy dried ones.