Cooking dinner for one

[letsride89]

Hey guys! I need some ideas for some simple, cheap, healthy dinner recipes for one!

I just started a new job so my schedule is now consistent!

Breakfast- cereal @ 6:30am
Lunch- Healthy steamer @ 1:30pm
Snack- health bar
workout either run/swim/ride
Dinner-????? help!

[Biciclista]

Ok, i'll answer your question. Go to the grocery store; buy a bunch of veggies, some cans of beans, some rice, some potatoes.
Maybe pick up a chicken.

monday bake the chicken legs & wings; set aside the breast, throw the carcass into a pot of water; cook with a piece of celery, a carrot and an onion for 1 hour. save that broth -freeze it if it's too hot to make soup
make rice and a veggie, eat chicken leg, save the rest for a lunch or another meal.
tuesday cook the chicken breasts, use some of the veggies you saved from the day before. Use 1/2 can of the beans with the rice; make beans and rice.
now you have more left overs too!

wednesday it's cold? make soup! grab the broth, cut up some of the leftover chicken breast, some veggies, the 1/2 can of beans! did you buy greens? put some of that into the soup.

thursday; bake a potato, grab a leg and a wing, steam another veggie 5 minutes; dinner!

Friday- you can go a long ways on 1 chicken. From your post, i am guessing this isn't what you want to hear; but it's just not that hard to cook for one.
good luck.

[OakLeaf]

I usually can't be bothered to cook when DH isn't home, which is a lot, but one thing I do is make a big pot of minestrone. Whatever vegetables are on hand, chickpeas for sure, red kidney beans and/or cannellini and/or borlotti, and pasta to complete the protein.

Here's how I usually do it:

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil in the pressure cooker
Add a bay leaf and chickpeas (soaked overnight, drained and rinsed) and about six times as much unsalted vegetable broth or water as peas
Bring to high pressure, cook for 5 minutes and release pressure by a quick-release method
Add the other beans (also soaked, drained and rinsed), lock lid, bring to high pressure, cook for 4 minutes and allow pressure to come down naturally
When pressure is reduced, open lid, add additional broth if necessary, then add tomato sauce, tomato paste and/or chopped tomatoes (the acid will stop the beans from getting mushy), and your longest cooking vegetables (e.g. carrots, green beans). Add in the remaining vegetables as their cooking times indicate.

**warning: this next step is my lazy-*ss American way of making a one-pot meal that I can eat for several days with no more work than the microwave, and it WILL result in mushy overcooked pasta. :o I know this will offend Mimi ;) ... but my first-generation Italian-American husband tolerates it because he's as lazy as I am. :p If you want your pasta al dente, cook it separately each night and stir it into the re-heated soup just before eating.**

Last, making sure you have enough broth in the pot and that soup is boiling, add pasta, salt, black and red pepper, parsley and basil or oregano, and cook to taste.



*** Edit on making poultry broth: I do this maybe once every two years, but it takes closer to three hours to cook all the gelatin out of the bones. What chicken stock you don't use, you can freeze for later use. Cool the pot with ice in the sink so you're not putting hot liquid into the freezer, then portion it out into plastic containers (if you have an issue with plastic, go ahead and use glass, but I've had very bad luck with glass jars in the freezer). If you do use plastic, DON'T microwave the containers when you want to thaw them; run some cool water around the outsides of the containers and the frozen broth will pop right out and you can warm it either in a separate pan or right in the pot with whatever you're cooking.

*** Another edit on making stock: all my usable vegetable scraps go into the freezer. When I have enough for a big stock pot, I make a batch of vegetable broth. It's not what you want to do if the flavor of your stock is really important to you, because it'll be different each time, but there are always some onion and garlic ends, nearly always a parmigiano rind or two, and the rest is serendipitous.

[Cataboo]

Biciclista's more creative than I am...

I just cook a big pot of something and eat it every day for dinner till it's gone.

It probably takes about 4-5 days before I'm really tired of eating the same thing... but by that time it's about finished.

[letsride89]

wow girl, you are VERY creative...do you do this?? i might try it one week! thank you!!!

[Becky]

We do a lot of casseroles in our house. It's just me and DH, but I'll often double a recipe. That way, I have lots of leftovers, or even a whole second pan to freeze. I made a double batch of the Moosewood Restaurant's Black Bean Chilaquile last night. Cheap, filling, and that will feed us an assortment of lunches and dinners for a few days (even with DH's appetite!).

Anything in the crockpot is popular too. Chili, stew, roasts....

Veggie omelets are another easy, healthy dinner for those "we didn't plan anything" nights.

[Biciclista]

Sorry, i wasn't sure how you'd take what i wrote.
I really love to cook and so does DH; but i'm the one who does the most cooking. The hard part for me is buying enough stuff so that i don't have to go back to the store every day! So when there's just one of me, it seems easier because the food lasts longer. On the other hand, I remember way back when - in the 1970's - some lonely nights when I ate melted mozzarella cheese on toast for my dinner with a carrot.

[ny biker]

From the perspective of someone who can't cook worth a darn:

Pasta

Giant baked potato (cooked in the microwave, or a I guess you could cook it in the oven in advance and refrigerate until you're ready to eat it?) topped with vegetables, cheese, whatever you like

Cereal

Omelette (or eggs your favorite way) with toast, english muffin, etc.

A giant salad. I generally add some kind of beans for protein. Hard boiled eggs would work for that, too.

Some frozen prepared foods are not too bad for you, so it's handy to have some in the freezer for days you really don't have time/energy. I like some of the Amy's Organic stuff, and occasionally I'll have a Weight Watchers pasta meal with added frozen vegetables.


Think carefully about the quantity of fresh fruits and vegetables that you buy. If you're not sure you will eat them before they go bad, don't buy them. Frozen vegetables are better than rotten fresh vegetables.

[ny biker]

Sorry, i wasn't sure how you'd take what i wrote.
I really love to cook and so does DH; but i'm the one who does the most cooking. The hard part for me is buying enough stuff so that i don't have to go back to the store every day! So when there's just one of me, it seems easier because the food lasts longer. On the other hand, I remember way back when - in the 1970's - some lonely nights when I ate melted mozzarella cheese on toast for my dinner with a carrot.

Melted cheese on toast does not necessarily equal a lonely night.

[gnat23]

I'm a huge fan of this cookbook:
http://www.bodyartcookbook.com/

The premise is that one night you "precook" a few things, like maybe some chicken breasts and ground beef, potatoes and quinoa.

Then, most of the meals are "assembling" into a frypan or microwavable container. Less than 10 minutes from decision to eating for a single meal, and most meals are 250-300ish cals, protein, healthy carbs, etc. Examples: Beef + oriental veg + seasonings for a stirfry. Or beef + beans + tomato + seasonings for a quick chili. Or beef + tomatoe + "pizza veg" and seasonings for a pizza-like mush.

Gives me the flexibility to rotate meals, quick so I'm not slaving over the stove or waiting too long to eat. :)

-- gnat!

[Cataboo]

I keep around a reasonable amount of frozen stuff - if I make soup, I will usually freeze some. So I've got lots of spinach soup, eggplant soup, and butternut squash soup in the freezer currently. Those can be thawed whenever.

I have a bunch of frozen wild salmon in the freezer, frozen raw shrimp. Both defrost relatively quickly. If I go to the grocery store and chicken or pork are on sale, I take some cook it - and slice the rest up and freeze it to use later.

If I have a week where I know I'm going to be home and cooking regularly and I don't have any food from my mother (she likes to cook big batches of food and give it to my siblings & I ... )...

I'll go to costco, get a big bag of spinach (5 lb), a thing of mushrooms, bell peppers, cucumbers, pineapple, mango, kiwis, carrots. i usually'll get hummus and their ciabata bread. When I get home, about half the ciabata bread gets frozen. All of the fruits & veggies above - I make a big salad that I eat for lunch. Maybe half a ciabata with hummus & cucumbers.

While I've got fresh pineapple & mango, I usually will make a pineapple mango salsa with ginger out of it, then cook the salmon in olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper... put the salsa on top of it. Couscous cooks very quickly, so I usually have a box of that around. Also have a rice maker, so there's always a pot of rice in the fridge... if not, then I eat couscous 'cause it cooks in 5 mins.

The bell peppers & mushrooms make a nice pasta, I pretty much always keep tomato sauce and pasta in the cabinets (well, if you shop at costco & you're one person... it's not hard to keep that stuff around shopping like once a month or two) So I might have a couple of days of those.

Or shrimp can always be stir fried with stuff, and I usually have rice noodles to add to that. (also cook quickly)

But anyways, after a week or so my 5 lb bag of spinach is at the point where i don't wanna pick through the bag looking for nice leaves to make my salad, at that point... all of the spinach and whatever vegetables that I haven't finished from my costco run go into a big pot and I make a batch of spinach soup... So the 2nd week I'm having spinach soup for lunch with half a piece of ciabata (the frozen stuff thaws well...)


The other thing I like making is a big pot of curry, if you like spicy - basically you get a can of curry paste and a can of coconut milk (local asian store)... and cook whatever meat & veggies you want in it for a long time... I usually have thai basil growing to add to this. I usually do potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, onions, pork, and if I've been on a costco run, bell peppers & mushrooms go in... Put a little bit of rice in it when eating.

[Biciclista]

great ideas Catriona.
Eggplant soup??? what is in it? how do you make it i mean.

[Cataboo]

great ideas Catriona.
Eggplant soup??? what is in it? how do you make it i mean.

I do a curried creamy eggplant soup.

Mostly when I make soup lately, I just throw everything in and use whatever's in the house... Instead of chicken stock, I usually mix milk & water and use boullion cubes... I use the milk instead of adding cream. I tend to put in whole cumin, coriander, and black pepper seeds, but I like things spicy. They cook into the soup, and then when I use my little blender stick thing to liquify everything, they get chopped up and cook in longer...

There's a little farm stand that I often pass on my bike rides, that whatever's ripe I will take a few of and that usually gets incorporated into some soup or meal... hence why my back hurt so much last week biking around with 2 butternut squashes in it.

But my eggplant soup is something like this:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Roasted-Eggplant-Aubergine-Soup-4897
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2008/04/curried-eggplant-soup.html

[shootingstar]

For supper tonight, since it's just me before dearie comes home from Quebec much later tonight:

Brown rice --used an electric rice cooker. So simple, flip on cooker switch.

1 corn on the cob-- just plain and sweet. No need for butter. (Don't have any at home.)

Tomato stir-fried with black soy bean garlic sauce, mushrooms, onion, red pepper, fresh cilantro and ginger. (a sweet-slight salty combo if you aren't familiar with this popular Asian style dish). For tonight I used:

*1 large tomato
*half red or orange pepper (you could use green pepper)
*3-4 mushrooms
* 1/2 tsp. finely minced ginger root
*half white onion
*1 tsp. of Chinese black soy bean garlic paste sauce (Can get it from the grocery store. I jar lasts for many months in fridge for 1 person.)
etc.

Pretty brainless to prepare. Tomato dish took less than 15 min. to cook. Cook it so you can still see lumps of tomato when you serve to eat.

[Zen]

I just cook a big pot of something and eat it every day for dinner till it's gone.




I'm with you.
At least you made soup.
I've been buying a $5.00 rotisserie chicken at the grocery. That lasts about 5 days.
Some kind of veg, plus taters or rice and i'm happy.

[Cataboo]

I'm with you.
At least you made soup.
I've been buying a $5.00 rotisserie chicken at the grocery. That lasts about 5 days.
Some kind of veg, plus taters or rice and i'm happy.

Hey, I gave you some. Are you poisoned?

[Zen]

Not yet but if I don't post something somewhere tomorrow call the state police.

[tulip]

When I became single, my then-husband gave me a book that is just great. Nevermind that it's kind of weird in a sweet way that he gave me the book since our marriage was ending, but whatever.

It's called "Going Solo In the Kitchen." It's great.

[tribogota]

ENDLESS QUESADILLAS, fast and yummy and endless variations.
Tortilla, Cheese, and whatever else might be around, shredded chicken, shredded beef, olives, greens, whatever is in the fridge. Ummm, have been eating quesadillas a couple of nights a week for at least 20 years....
A neat little trick is to throw the quesadilla directly onto gas burner, it should bubble up, then flip over, a little brown on the other side, THEN put in the pan, and throw the cheese and other stuff in.... no need for butter or oil, now it is yummy and crispy on the outside

[azfiddle]

A couple of quick easy meals:

Quesadillas - corn tortillas with melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa and whatever else like cucumber, red/green bell pepper, olives, avocado. Always seems satisfying to me and hits all the food groups.

Pita bread or English muffin pizzas with a salad.

[shootingstar]

If you have a rice cooker and cook rice, you can cook some food directly into the rice. So your pieces of cooked meat have bits of rice stuck to it. So what..

Variation #1: When rice is 5-10 min. from being done, break an egg into it. You can if you wish stir egg into rice. Cover lid. And continue cooking process. Steam of cooking rice will cook the egg.

Variation #2: Marinate fistful of thin small slices of beef or chicken with just a tsp. or tblsp. of soy sauce, dusting of flour or cornstarch, tsp. of oil. Can just marinate for 10 min. or less.

When rice begins to bubble in rice cooker, throw in the marinated meat directly into the bubbling rice and stir meat directly into rice. Cover with lid. Do not lift lid. Must let steam of cooking rice to cook meat.

Marinade can be adjusted with different things --with other seasonings. Whatever. Yea, the rice absorbs whatever liquids and cooks it. Might change the colour of the rice. But who cares.

[Zen]

A rice cooker is an appliance.

I do not like extra appliances.

That's why Mrs. Butterworth invented Minute Rice. You can still use broth instead of water and throw in already cooked meat & vegetables.

It turns out kind of like that KFC thing where they throw chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, cheese and gravy all into one bowl :D

[malkin]

...my dinner with a carrot...

I'll bet the conversation was more accessible than in My Dinner with Andre.

I'm quite a fan of anything in a tortilla.