alot of people say “its hard to cook for just one”… what are your secrets to success in cooking for one?
Hello Calidee – The simplest way I manage ‘singles’ is close to what you do. Once a month I spend a good part of the day cooking the meats, these can be ground beef, sliced steaks, or a small roast, cooked on the stove top; when done and cooled they’re placed in containers and popped into the freezer section of frig so there’s always something on hand from day to day. Most times I don’t care to cook chicken either and take the easy way out. I buy a whole barbecued one (you can try two!) then just divide this up into small dishes and zip them into the freezer. When it’s time for a meal I can quickly defrost a frozen meat dish in the microwave and either combine it with veggies in a pot or have it separately. Veggies and potatoes only take about 20 minutes of cooking so it means very little preparation time, and fixing a salad is quick enough. Of course one usually has the old standby of a big pot of soup on hand and that lasts for days, or you can try convenient tins of soup, whatever y
I still have difficulty cooking for myself things that are not frozen. It’s gotten easier since I got a George Forman. I have the one with removable plates, timer and heat settings. I can easily go the the grocer and get a few nice cuts of meat for the week and grill them on there with no problem. I recently got Jessica Seinfeld’s “Deceptively Delicious” and I intend on trying that this summer. She purees veggies/fruits and adds them to food. They’re freezable, so they’re easy to keep on hand.
I love cooking but always found myself cooking for one, so I cooked a couple main dishes at once and combined them in containers so I would have meals for a few days. It’s a lot of work and it’s hard to get motivated to cook for one sometimes, but this way I only cooked a couple times a week and I had homemade meals for every day!
