thoughts on this...

[Sarlon]

so my new years resolution I determined that I need to start eating better but most reciepes out there this day are aimed at familys not single people.

I've been scouring the internet for receipes for single people and can't hardly find enough to plan even a week without to much repitition. I have no major food allergies (can't have artifical sugars like splenda and aspertame), and there is not alot of foods I don't like.

I was thinking for starting a food blog, to share recipes for other single people like me. not in it to make money, just to consolidate thousands of pages, to simple healthy meals for single people.

they can be as simple or as complicated as you want. Me...I'm a certified chef, I can cook most things, given a reciepe and enough time.

[taurinejunkie]

Maybe I'm missing something (not a good cook at all here), but couldn't you simply divide the suggested amounts in a recipe by the number of portions it gives, and have yourself one?

[Sarlon]

some reciepes don't reduce that well....

eggs, cheese, milk, flour, pasta....

some rouxs' are hard to reduce since they have to be in direct proportion equal parts.

[ArcticChicken]

Maybe I'm missing something (not a good cook at all here), but couldn't you simply divide the suggested amounts in a recipe by the number of portions it gives, and have yourself one?

Some things really don't divide well, or can't be purchased in single serving amounts. Or are difficult to cook in single servings. A good single serving recipe can suggest workarounds for that sort of thing.

[Sarlon]

heres a pretty decent single serve brownie reciepe...

Single serving chocolate brownie

Ingredients
1 TBSP whole wheat flour
1 TBSP sugar (do not substitute)
1 TBSP unsweetened cocoa
a pinch of baking soda
a pinch of salt
1 TBSP of low fat vanilla yogurt, add more if needed to blend the mixture

Directions
mix it all up, pop it in the microwave for just over a minute, enjoy

[Fire_on_High]

That sounds interesting!

[Merriweather]

Any chance of finding a small second hand freezer cheap? People always think of freezers as something large families have, but they're absolutely wonderful for singles & couples. It's been just me and hubby for years now, and up til about five years ago, there were constant stretches of up to six or eight months at a time where it was just me, when he was on deployments in the Navy.
I freeze a lot - added bonus is I cook less, LOL. Practically anything in a crockpot can be frozen in individual portions, cook once and have it once a week for a couple of months. Soups, stews, even casseroles can be cooked then cut down into smaller portions, frozen, then microwaved when needed. And besides being able to cook big recipes of stuff once then have it several times, you can also take advantage of sales, & buy "normal" stuff. Like cooking a whole turkey, ham or roast, then freezing portions for use in recipes. Freezing bread is great too, without a freezer I'd never get thru a whole loaf before having to toss out the rest of it. I just keep only a partial loaf thawed at any time. Over the years I've had to stick my freezer in odd places, but I love having one.

[Sarlon]

I do typically keep a well stocked freezer, bulk chicken breasts, and steaks and ground beef boght on sale, then put into individual portions and frozen works well.

I have a decent sized freezer attached to my normal fridge (one of its many selling points for me). however lack of space forbids even a small standing freezer in my kitchen.

[bhskittykatt]

Somewhere, we have a cookbook that has 1-2 serving recipes. Heh, we don't use it that often.

It's just Hubs and me, so we usually will just cook individual chicken or fish filets and have veggies on the side. Though, I'm going vegetarian for Lent, so lately it's been things like vegetarian chili and peanut noodle pasta and such. Those are all easy things to make either small or large servings of, depending on what you need.

I use Tupperware containers to store leftovers, and try to incorporate those into my cooking shortly after. For example, if I cut up an onion and use part of it in an omelet in the morning, I'll use the rest of it later that same day or the next day in some chili or a sandwich or something.

[Kittish]

Just a thought- I know some recipes don't cut down easily, but why not use them as a starting point to develop single serving versions?

For recipes requiring eggs, you could lightly beat an egg, divide it into 3 or 4 equal amounts in an ice tray, and freeze. That gives you a good start on dividing down a recipe calling for one or two eggs where you can't readily substitute anything else or leave it out without adversely affecting the result. Just be consistent on how you divide the egg for freezing and adjust everything else accordingly.

Things like lasagne shouldn't be too difficult, just use a single can of tomato sauce as your starting point for the sauce, cook 2 or 3 noodles and one portion of whatever meat you want to use, find a small dish to assemble it in, and go from there.

For gravies and roux, start with one or two teaspoons of flour, half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of whatever fat you're using and a cup of milk or broth, then experiment to get the thickness and texture you want. For alfredo and cheese type sauces, start with a quarter cup or half cup of milk, cream, or half and half and add a quarter cup of whatever cheese you're using (loose, not packed).

For scalloped potatoes, just use one potato sliced thin in a small dish and use a proportionately smaller amount of flour, milk, butter, and cheese. Just be sure not to use the gigantic baking potatoes, those are NOT a single serving.

If you bake your own breads, simply make a full recipe, and shape it into 3 or 4 small loaves. Then wrap and freeze the ones you won't be using within the next few days.

One of the things I did when I lived alone was frequently make two servings of whatever I cooked, especially when I made pasta, and have the second portion for lunch the next day. During the winter, I'd often start a 'kitchen sink' soup, and keep that going for a week or so (until I was starting to get sick of soup), then freeze whatever I had left in single portion sizes. 16 oz plastic sour cream containers are beautiful for soup portions.

How about a small chest type freezer, not necessarily kept in the kitchen? Then use the chest freezer for your bulk food and portioned cooked stuff, and just transfer a week's worth at a time to the smaller freezer in the kitchen? When we can afford to do so, I have plans to get a chest freezer for the boyfriend and I, so I can cook large dishes in advance and freeze them; our freezer just doesn't have room for the month's worth of meats I keep on hand, frozen vegetables, several loaves of bread, several pounds of butter and cheeses, coffee, plus pre-cooked food for us.

[Merriweather]

How about a small chest type freezer, not necessarily kept in the kitchen? Then use the chest freezer for your bulk food and portioned cooked stuff, and just transfer a week's worth at a time to the smaller freezer in the kitchen? When we can afford to do so, I have plans to get a chest freezer for the boyfriend and I, so I can cook large dishes in advance and freeze them; our freezer just doesn't have room for the month's worth of meats I keep on hand, frozen vegetables, several loaves of bread, several pounds of butter and cheeses, coffee, plus pre-cooked food for us.

I once had a little chest freezer about the size of a dishwasher. I covered the top with some stick on stuff, and used it as an extra counter workspace. I knew one person who kept a small upright freezer in their spare bedroom. And at one apartment I lived in, all units had a storage shed on their balconies, with a light and electrical plug - a lot of people kept their freezers in those. Oh, and when I lived in some very old (substandard) military housing once, one with the tiniest kitchen in existance, several people resorted to putting a freezer in the entry hall, tossing a colourful throw over it and putting a flower arrangement on top, LOL.

[Fire_on_High]

We have a small chest freezer; the top gets used as storage space on it. Any sort of baked goods in a bulky or rigid container that don't need to be in the fridge goes there...pies, message cookies, boxes of cookies or turnovers, etc. It's one of the few places strictly offlimits to the cats, since their inability to refrain from leaving arse-prints on squishy baked foods was why we began using it to begin with.

[wolfie]

It's one of the few places strictly offlimits to the cats, since their inability to refrain from leaving arse-prints on squishy baked foods was why we began using it to begin with.

I've heard of "dog in the manger" being used to refer to someone who can't use something denying access to someone who can (dog sitting on the hay, so the cattle and horses can't get to it), but this is (pardon my French) "Cat in the 'pour manger'" (the English word "manger" derives from French (or possibly Latin), in that it's the place that livestock eats out of).