Why were we never prepared for this? I grew up helping prepare family meals, which were always for four. Even if all of us weren't at dinner we cooked for the whole family. Now...cooking for one? What is the point of cooking for just one person? How do I shop for myself? How do I put together a grocery list of necessities (especially since I don't drink milk and cannot possibly go through a dozen eggs before the expiration date). How do I cook for myself, have everything I need, and not hog all the room in our very small refridgerator? (Those side-by-side refridgerators just don't have enough shelf space in my opinion.) How do I plan to cook in advance when I don't know how much energy I will have on any given day or if I will even have an appetite? I'm down to about one and a half meals a day simply because I am not hungry and I don't know what to eat when I am!
You wiser people who may read my blog, lead me! Give me advice! Tell me what to do!
8 comments:
It's hard isn't it? It's not much easier to cook for 2 either! That's why I do the leftover game :) I make enough for 4-5 people then just get two or more meals out of it.
I'm not a huge fan of soup, but it freezes really well so it's easy to make a batch and freeze it to eat off. Plus, if you store it flat in ziplocks, it takes up very little room in the freezer.
Although it's a little more $$ in the long run, you can always buy half gallons/quarts of milk that you'll use up. Keep some frozen burritos or something small like that in the freezer/fridge for nights you don't have much energy but NEED to eat something! They're not the most amazing tasting things, but heck, sometimes nourishment is nourishment :)Maybe see if your roomies want to trade off cooking? You cook one night and have leftovers, then another night they cook, etc. I did that with my old roomies when I lived in an apt and it worked great. Good luck, girl! You gotta eat!
BTW - Eggs are safe to eat past the sell by date! They keep in the fridge for 4-5+ weeks and are totally safe :)
"Robin and Josh" has said two things which I have done in the past, and I found they worked.
1) Left-overs. Just, be careful with this one. Sometimes these go bad (I once had a colony of fruit flies die in my left-overs), and sometimes you get royally sick of the same thing for a week.
2) See if you can trade off cooking with your housemates. This can work very well if you have gastronomically-open-minded housies.
I will try the leftover thing, but my problem is the limited freezer space. Our busy nights always seem to coincide but we have discussed making one night a "family dinner." Thank you for the tips! I've thought about just getting the horizon organic milk that doesn't expire for weeks (I did that last semester and I still ended up throwing it out). I have muffins to make!
Chicken spaghetti is another easy freeze meal...I used to make it all the time - it reheats like you just made the batch fresh, and it's just plain tasty. Let me know if you need/want my recipe.
Robin and Josh's idea about the little microwave meals was a good one too - Green Giant has done a great job of making little individual microwavable veggie dishes, and they are really tasty and affordable! And, that was a great point about the eggs...if you are unsure if they are a little past their prime you can always put them in a bowl of water: if they float at all you should probably just toss them.
PLEASE EAT, lovely!
Miss Willow: Yes indeed! I would very much like the recipe. Remember because I share one of those side-by-side fridges with three other girls (who like their frozen food) space for leftovers is limited.
And I'm TRYING to eat, but sometimes my appetite is so suppressed that my gag reflex kicks in at the very sight of food, at the very thought of ingesting it.
Non-refidgerated food might then be your best bet, but those can be hard to come by. Most need at least a few refridgerated ingredients (milk, butter) and aren't all that healthy (macaroni and cheese). But you might nonetheless want to look down this route, and you might also want to think about a minifridge for your own room, though I realize that is a large initial purchase. (It would be make up for itself though if it prevented you from being food at restaurants/cafeterias).
Also, if your housemates don't want to or can't trade dinners, what about friends who live elsewhere?
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