Lean Cuisine, Campbell’s Chunky, Cup Noodles, fruit/salad and “skip it.”
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, who should be the first to go?
If you find yourself struggling with the above scenario everyday, chance is you are 100% lazy, 90% on a diet, 75% broke and can’t afford to eat “real” food and last but not least, 50% living alone.
Having to cook for one and one only is no rocket science, but you definitely got to have the persistence of an astronaut to succeed.
Just for the information of anyone who’s lucky enough to not need to worry about cooking, here are some reasons why we singletons suffer so much from cooking for one:
REASON ONE
We are in America, a country where in 4 years’ time, more than three quarters of its people will be overweight. Even though we may be the remaining 25% who’s able to keep ourselves size 8 or below in 2015, the majority of the country is still oversized and that includes food. When you are living on your own, you really don’t need a 8 pounds bag of orange or a whole gallon of milk. And yet you give in and hypnotize yourself into believing you can finish everything before expiration and pay full price for things you’re just going to consume half of. Don’t even think about Costco.
REASON TWO
Oversized food brings forward another problem – variety. After the self-hypnotization, most attempt to realize their fantasy by having (let’s use ham as an example here) ham sandwich, salad with ham, ham and cup noodles, ham bagel, etc, everyday of the week. In short, they try to “ham” everything they have in their fridge, until they decide to finally give up and give in to McDonald’s and Taco Bell for a change.
REASON THREE
Living alone nearly always promise a small kitchen and never enough storage and work space. When you finally get into the mood of cooking a nice meal for yourself, you can almost be sure to not find everything you need and end up creating a huge mess which you’ll have no one but an exhausted, post-cooking self to clean up. The price of making an occasional fancy risotto can be so huge it’s intimidating.
You see, cooking for one can be annoying at times. However much we’d like for some scientist to invent a pill that supplies us with all the nutrients we’d need and spare ourselves the hassle of cooking, it’s not going to happen, at least not for now.
Ways to make life easier when cooking for one:
– I could have easily copy and paste some recipes ideas here but I guess you can just google it and find a ton so we shall skip that part.
– Single person cooker – get one, or not. The concept is good but will it work well? Let’s just say I am skeptical. Again, google it and judge for yourself.
– Do go to Costco, but get the right stuff. Pick up things that have a longer shelf life, like pasta sauce and canned food. Try to avoid fresh produce. If you want to get vegetable, get brussel sprouts, they last longer and are easier to clean.
– When you get meat, divide them once you get home and store them separately. DO NOT get lazy, this step is a must-do if you want to keep them for a long time without stinking your place.
– A little trick of mine, always store yoghurt, milk and cereal at home. Yoghurt works as breakfast and an all-day snack when you are craving for “just baked” chocolate chip cookies. Cereal can be more than just breakfast food. When you are too busy to cook, a big bowl of cereal will do the job leaving you full and less guilty than when you choose to skip the meal. Add bananas for a better result.
– Always keep TV dinner in your fridge. They may not be all that healthy, but at least better than skipping the meal. When you are starving and have three papers to turn in the next day, the last thing you want to do is to cook and clean up.