Cooking for one

Tiddlywinks

Wow - sorry peeps I never knew Pantry was only for Amazon Prime subscribers :o:o.

Just in case anyone fancies giving it a go, there's a free 30 day trial of Amazon Prime.

here

You get a lot for your money - a free kindle book every month, free next day delivery on eligible purchases, video streaming of films and tv shows, music streaming etc. (and the Pantry ).

I guess it depends on whether you'd use the inclusive services - I do and love it.

I did nearly all of my crimbo shopping on Amazon - even the gift bags to pack homemade goodies.

PasturesNew

caronc wrote: »

PN - intrigued how you cook a pasty in a toaster is it a toaster oven or the usual 2 or 4 slot job? If I used my wee cheap one I'd have to scrape it out in chunks and I'm not sure it would be anything but cremated on the outside and cold in the middle:)

It's a toaster oven, oven with Centrigrade dial and timer. Top element is toaster; bottom is oven; both will make it be an oven but give extra fast browning. From cold, shelf on the bottom rung, lob it in, both elements on and it's done. No pre-heating, "ain't nobody got time for that!"

IF I had a large toaster .... I'd be quite willing to give them a go in a toaster bag to be honest I'm a maverick like that. I have got toaster bags, waiting for one day when I finally plucked up the courage to use them (I have a fear of fires) .... but my £5 toaster had slots too small for the bags, so that was a non-starter. If I were to try it I'd probably nuke it part-warm to get it going, then put it into a toaster bag and into the toaster.

They're not big pasties, quite flat ... A1d1 39p full price, bought with a 30% sticker on it, so ~28p ... couldn't make something cheaper....

caronc

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's a toaster oven, oven with Centrigrade dial and timer. Top element is toaster; bottom is oven; both will make it be an oven but give extra fast browning. From cold, shelf on the bottom rung, lob it in, both elements on and it's done. No pre-heating, "ain't nobody got time for that!"

IF I had a large toaster .... I'd be quite willing to give them a go in a toaster bag to be honest I'm a maverick like that. I have got toaster bags, waiting for one day when I finally plucked up the courage to use them (I have a fear of fires) .... but my £5 toaster had slots too small for the bags, so that was a non-starter. If I were to try it I'd probably nuke it part-warm to get it going, then put it into a toaster bag and into the toaster.

They're not big pasties, quite flat ... A1d1 39p full price, bought with a 30% sticker on it, so ~28p ... couldn't make something cheaper....

I did wonder

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

I grew up in one of those places and found that finding veggie food elsewhere seemed to be almost impossible. My sibling was a veggie. Pubs/etc seemed to only ever offer a veggie lasagne, or something with mushrooms.


I pass by the new foods, I stick to what I know so there's zero waste.

Frustrating moment of last year was when I decided to have a lunch out here last year in one of the more "upmarket" locations (ie shoulda been more likely to cater I figured)...and was choosing between the "specials" of the day as to what to have. All except one of them were obviously meat ones - so I thought the remaining (more indistinct one) must be the poor solo little vegetarian choice and was half way through eating it before I realised it wasnt:eek:. There hadnt been one single little vegetarian choice amongst the specials. Ahem....I doubt they'll make that mistake again - after the astonished comments they had about that:cool:"

Re the "new foods" - I have had to be an avid experimenter ever since moving out of the parental home 40 odd years back. The diet I was brought up on was so restricted/unhealthy/old-fashioned/etc - that I had no option basically. So - I've been experimenting my way through different foods ever since. Just thinking of the things I regard as "basics" that are in today's dinner that I hadnt tried and/or wasnt available back then - and it includes tofu, garlic, peppers, olives, cornmeal, brown rice. All of which I tried out for the first time myself.
I figure I have an 80% chance of anything "new" I try being at least edible enough I can manage to finish it (even if I then decide never to buy it again). There is a 1 in 2 chance I will like it. I figure that's pretty reasonable odds - and so if I have to throw out the odd thing because of not being able to stomach it enough to even finish it - then I find that acceptable personally.

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

I prefer to see things gone, not frozen.


Some form of base + random fridge stuff is a popular way for me to use up odds and sods.




By now, if there were enough of them, they'd have started one - there is a board for families already. They don't go short of spaces to post.

What tends to happen is the "for one" threads tend to get hijacked by those living with many .... giving out their "advice" ... "oooh freeze it! or stick it in the garage or utility in one of your 3-4 freezers everybody's got.... "

You've not had the comment - it was face-to-face too! that "Ooh...you don't need much of a kitchen. There's only one of you" said to me by a "family" person. I've forgiven it - as she is a friend of mine - but it did get pointed out to her quite firmly that "Actually I need a much better-equipped kitchen/with better storage space and worksurface space than many families do. Many families eat out of packets etc - and I cook a lot from scratch. So - no - I cannot manage with an ill-equipped kitchen".:cool:

caronc

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You've not had the comment - it was face-to-face too! that "Ooh...you don't need much of a kitchen. There's only one of you" said to me by a "family" person. I've forgiven it - as she is a friend of mine - but it did get pointed out to her quite firmly that "Actually I need a much better-equipped kitchen/with better storage space and worksurface space than many families do. Many families eat out of packets etc - and I cook a lot from scratch. So - no - I cannot manage with an ill-equipped kitchen".:cool:

I have a huge kitchen and while I'm thinking (not too hard at the moment) about downsizing to something more suited to solo living it must have a decent sized sensible shaped kitchen. I'll compromise on most anything else. As my sister says the house I'm in without the upstairs and a smaller garden would be ideal - going to be hard to find......
Although I commented earlier about lack of choice growing up, my parents' for the time and location were pretty adventurous cooks and very unusually amongst my peers my dad was pretty handy in the kitchen. Consequently we were eating spag bol and curries etc. when pasta was generally macaroni cheese and vesta curry the height of exoctica but the range of ingredients we have now compared to then is night and day. I still like my traditional fare but mixed in with more "modern" dishes and foods from different cultures and countries.

Nelski

Just invited a couple of friends over for sunday lunch and they accepted so its a mission now to cook that meal for 3 without buying anything except maybe a bit of salad stuff that I want anyway. Should turbo drive my 'clear the cupboards' out mission a little bit:)
So need to plan the menu for 2 non veg and one fish eating veg

Any thoughts of course will be much appreciated.

caronc

Nelski wrote: »

Just invited a couple of friends over for sunday lunch and they accepted so its a mission now to cook that meal for 3 without buying anything except maybe a bit of salad stuff that I want anyway. Should turbo drive my 'clear the cupboards' out mission a little bit:)
So need to plan the menu for 2 non veg and one fish eating veg

Any thoughts of course will be much appreciated.

Fish pie or a veggie curry/lasagne would be my go to for this. all pretty forgiving re what you put in them. If they all like fish and you happened to have any somoked white fish cullen skink is lovely and could be a wee nod to Burns' Night,
I'm also not "cooking for one" this weekend quite the opposite with ten us for dinner. tomorrow and two of us (unless my son's out and about) on Saturday. Making a "crowd pleaser" of a sort of coq au vin followed by trifle. Apart from chicken thighs, shallots, a bit of extra veg and cream the rest is all from stores so tomorrow is working out a pretty cheap night.( I realise the stores stuff I have already paid for but that money has already been accounted for in previous spends so still feels like a cheap night) Although I do make chicken dishes for myself neither of these are really what I would make for myself and I think a rich chicken dish is best made in larger amounts and while you can make an individual trifle you need to make lots of them so definitely something I'd buy if the trifle notion struck. I'm looking forward to something I wouldn't usually have and hoping there might be some chicken left so I freeze some for a future meal. Saturday will be a freezer rake depending on what "the boy" fancies or is doing.

PasturesNew

caronc wrote: »

I have a huge kitchen .... about downsizing to something more suited to solo living it must have a decent sized sensible shaped .... the house I'm in without the upstairs

This is the thing for "settled singles of a settled age", you don't want a 4-bed house, but you'd like the downstairs functionality they come with. Singles need just as much cooking/utility type of space as most families, yet the way houses are built you have bed3 and bed4 upstairs that you don't need.

A 2 bed house simply doesn't have enough downstairs, or laid out right, most of the time ...

We'd all like a utility room, space to store all that cleaning carp, outdoor shoes, brushes, washing on a drier, space for recycling ... and maybe a tiny "craft/hobbies" corner or bit of worktop.

My actual kitchen footprint is large really.... but it's very odd, which I can't describe. The long and short of it is that all the base units are single cabinets and dark in colour and the services shut offs and plugs etc are behind the base units, so you have to really not use them if you wish to be able to access those "in an emergency". And there aren't enough sockets, nor are they in the right spots. My kitchen is, say, like a 2-sided 6' galley kitchen .... where the walls are 12' apart - I'm forever walking back/forth, back/forth, back/forth, back/forth .... there is actually room for a table/4 chairs in there, except I've not got those (I do plan to get a table in that spot by 2018). I'd like a bench seating bit by that table, but there's a s0ddin' radiator there.

Developers are building for the maximum profit possible, while fitting in a ticklist of things that are needed to be included. To actually "design" that space etc would add costs to their development costs so they're not interested in doing that... so you end up living in an "awkward house, that could be better if only they'd ...."

PasturesNew

Re dinner/menu ideas:

I can't help.

I've never cooked for people. Nobody ever comes here for dinner. I've never fed anybody. I've no table; no chairs... it's not comfortable or welcoming here... half the lights don't work and there's stuff not put away because when you live alone you don't need to put things away all the time if you think you'll need them again - and if there's not actually an actual place to put them as such... nothing's got "a home".