cooking for one

[verbicide]

I think I've nattered on about this before, but I generally hate cooking for myself. The end result is that I often only eat well when I'm entertaining. And for too long now, I've been grabbing take out and eating a whole host of crap.

So, recently I came to the decision (again) to try and eat right and take my lunches to work. Both to save money and to get more than the occasional vegetable down me. Some of the challenges include that I'm a little picky about leftovers and I get bored easily. So the whole 'make a casserole and eat it all week' doesn't work as well for me, though I've tried that route a few times. It just leads to me feeling petulant and ordering pizza. Other challenges include finding recipes that are for just one or two. The key seems to be better planning and a little repetition with some variable (like, the vegetable).

Goals are to eat more fruits and veggies, save money, and be careful about wasting leftovers.



Last night Pete came over for our standard Monday night hangout. I was a little extra-wired because I was making us dinner and I needed to put together some food for my company potluck (which was today) and I'd decided insanely to make two things--champagne-marinated grapes and a spicy sausage and spinach penne.

So, dinner was leftover pea soup. Salad with bells and whistles. And four-cheese ravioli from the Farmer's Market with a quick and spicy tomato-basil sauce. We finished with strawberry shortcake.

I keep tangenting. But, again...I feel like my cooking skills are developing in small but sure ways. I used to be so incredibly rigid about following a recipe, terrified to make the slightest change. I knew I wanted a quick pasta sauce and I wanted something spicy to complement the ravioli, so instead of looking something up, I just made my own pasta sauce. I know this isn't a big deal, like ...I don't know, pasta sauce is pretty basic; but it was exciting for me to trust my instincts and use my taste to guide the recipe and actually come out with something edible. Anyhow, I was happy with it.

Tonight, I had the rest of the ravioli and sauce with a pan-sauteed chicken breast. I sauteed some spinach in the residual broth. What's exciting about eating alone is that you can eat things in whatever random way you like. The ravioli heated up first, so I ate that standing up in the kitchen. I sauteed the spinach while the chicken rested, and then ate those together with the remainder of the pasta sauce on my plate.

It was damn exciting.

I've saved the other chicken breast for tomorrow. I think I'll be eating that with roasted asparagus and the leftover penne pasta from the potluck. Oh, and the herbed goat cheese I bought.

Comments

[mixed-up-media.livejournal.com]

The ability to invent meals on the fly without a recipe is the bestest thing in the whole wide world! :)

Sidebernie and I cook for two, and even so, we run into the same kinds of problems you do: we make large amounts and get sick of the leftovers; we make small amounts and then run out of food and time; etc.

We've sort of settled on a combination of occasionally making large amounts and occasionally resorting to a short list of fast go-to recipes. Even then, it doesn't always work, but we sort of kind of manage not to constantly eat crap.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

It's always so awesome to talk to other people in the same situation. We should share some recipes! :)

And that sounds like a pretty decent solution --after all, I'm usually pretty okay with a pan of lasagna. I wish I had the patience to freeze things and trot them out later, but it's something I seem to be completely incapable of!

[mixed-up-media.livejournal.com]

We really should! :)

I know what you mean. We only ever manage to freeze things if we have some *really* good incentive (e.g., my recent surgery). Otherwise it just never seems to happen!