Food for One

An interesting topic on Head Dump brought up some discussion about cooking simply and easily, while breaking the vicious instant noodle menu template. The main problem is that cooking for one person isn't really economical -- the cost of your ingredients often exceeds the cost of going out for a quick meal. Especially if you're cooking Chinese food. So then most of us resort to instant and processed frozen and canned foods, but most of these instant foods are high in carbs and high in sodium. (Take a look at your can of beef/chicken soup.)

Thankfully, there are ways around this. I mean, you're better off buying something like the rotisserie chicken at Costco, which will easily feed you for a few days with a variety of meat: dark meats to eat on their own, white meats to heat up (nuke) over your ready-made salads.

Salads are very convenient, and dirt cheap at Costco; slightly more at Safeway. (Buy the jet-washed stuff to remove final excuses not to eat your veggies.) Plus, you can use it with any meat into a sandwich with little work.

And I love buying those country-mix frozen veggies (peas, carrots, beans, corn), which microwave quickly in a bowl of water with a tiny sprinkle of salt and optional sliver of butter. Two minutes, drain the water out, and you've got a veggie side on the table!

What I find works is "strategically" buying groceries. I buy a few things that I have to eat that day or the next before they'll be not-so-appetizing; raw seafood, for example, are best eaten soon. I buy a few things that will last nicely for a few more days; sometimes steaks are good for this, and fresh ripe fruit. And then some things can last a little bit longer (ie. 4+ days) like deli meats (when packaged right) and fruit that aren't quite ripe and some of the bready stuff.

I find that if you pre-cut or pre-slice some staple ingredients and freeze them, cooking is made infinitely easier. I usually pre-julienne my ginger, slice up green onions, pre-dice regular onions, and pre-proportion the pesto sauce (in an ice tray) to freeze them -- then all stored in freezer-grade ziplock bags. So whenever I need some of those, it's not another task to get them ready -- just reach in and grab whatever you need! (If you freeze and store it right, you can avoid freezer burn on it.

And then always keep a small selection of decently healthy frozen foods (TV dinners or nuker snacks) to tide you over in case you're really in a bind. (Snack bars or trail mix nuts work too.) Then you're ready to go.

Damn, now I'm hungry.