Articles
Cooking for One Made Easier
When you are shopping, cooking and eating for one, it is easy to give in to convenience meals and take away foods. Yes, they may be easier, but they are also less healthy than a good old home cooked meal. If the thought of cooking up a storm just for yourself is difficult, read on to see how you can make cooking for one easy, and tempting!
The trick is to be prepared, shop wisely and pre-prepare meals that will last multiple days or that can be frozen for later use. Plan meals that can be a healthy dinner and be converted to a healthy lunch the following day.
Decide on a shopping day. Doing one large shop saves you the time and effort of going to the shop each night, prevents impulse buying of take away and frozen meals and gives you more time to cook each night. The night before you shop, write a rough menu plan for Monday to Friday at least. From this, write your shopping list and stick to it!
Vary your meals to ensure a variety of protein, vegetables and staples. This will give you a wide variety of nutrients and also prevent boredom, which often leads to a re-lapse of bad habits.
The following meals are great ideas when cooking for one;
Asian stir fries with rice
For convenience, use the pre-cooked 2 minute rice pouches. Refrigerate some leftovers for the next night or a smaller portion for lunch the next day.
Spaghetti Bolognese
Pack it full of frozen peas, corn, diced carrot & capsicum. Make only enough pasta for one serve and freeze leftover Bolognese sauce in one serve portions for later use.
For more meal ideas and a sample menu and shopping list see the article ‘Eating for One’.
Added to site on : Sunday, 25 March 2012