One thing that I find difficult when cooking for one is buying food in the proper amount and knowing what to buy. It's taken me years to come up with a system that is shoddy at best and usually requires some creative cooking at the end of the week that resembles an Iron Chef competition or at the very least Ready, Set, Cook! (which probably most people haven't seen, but it was a real show, I promise, and that was when my FoodTV obsession started back in high school when I'd take naps on the couch after track practice while listening to the competitors on said show whip up meals from random ingredients found in a brown paper shopping bag in only 30 minutes).
Needless to say, I am not a huge fan of grocery shopping. My mom writes her grocery list in the order in which the aisles appear in the store so she can get through it quickly and efficiently. I write my grocery list on the back of my paycheck stub and then leave it at home.
But, unless you want to be stuck making yourself Fiesta Couscous on a regular basis (couscous prepared with taco seasonings, leftover frozen corn, and a can of diced tomatoes), you better start planning ahead. Since I had a goal of cleaning my apartment today, I needed a way to procrastinate and so I decided to plan my meals for next week. I made a basic game plan, looked through my close-to-empty cabinets, and scratched out a list on my refrigerator post-it pad that was bought specifically for this purpose. It is fairly vague, but that's sort of how I roll, especially when shopping in the city. You never know exactly what you are going to find, so it is important to be flexible.
One thing I do a lot when cooking just for me, is use a cooked dish over and over again in different ways throughout the week. This week, I am going to roast up a variety of vegetables (probably zucchini, peppers of all colors, carrots, olives, yellow or butternut squash) and use them in a few different recipes throughout the week. This is one of my favorite ways to prepare vegetables, because I can cook them up on a Sunday and then use them all week by just adding them to a dish, the final flourish that pulls it all together. Otherwise, I find I have to buy small amounts of vegetables and in the end there is always a bag of green beans going slowly bad in my crisper because I forgot to cook them.
I've posted my grocery list to the left, as it stands right now, and I will begin to cook tomorrow.
*I saw that in an online personal ad awhile back and thought it was cute and could be reused here even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in context.
Needless to say, I am not a huge fan of grocery shopping. My mom writes her grocery list in the order in which the aisles appear in the store so she can get through it quickly and efficiently. I write my grocery list on the back of my paycheck stub and then leave it at home.
But, unless you want to be stuck making yourself Fiesta Couscous on a regular basis (couscous prepared with taco seasonings, leftover frozen corn, and a can of diced tomatoes), you better start planning ahead. Since I had a goal of cleaning my apartment today, I needed a way to procrastinate and so I decided to plan my meals for next week. I made a basic game plan, looked through my close-to-empty cabinets, and scratched out a list on my refrigerator post-it pad that was bought specifically for this purpose. It is fairly vague, but that's sort of how I roll, especially when shopping in the city. You never know exactly what you are going to find, so it is important to be flexible.
One thing I do a lot when cooking just for me, is use a cooked dish over and over again in different ways throughout the week. This week, I am going to roast up a variety of vegetables (probably zucchini, peppers of all colors, carrots, olives, yellow or butternut squash) and use them in a few different recipes throughout the week. This is one of my favorite ways to prepare vegetables, because I can cook them up on a Sunday and then use them all week by just adding them to a dish, the final flourish that pulls it all together. Otherwise, I find I have to buy small amounts of vegetables and in the end there is always a bag of green beans going slowly bad in my crisper because I forgot to cook them.
I've posted my grocery list to the left, as it stands right now, and I will begin to cook tomorrow.
*I saw that in an online personal ad awhile back and thought it was cute and could be reused here even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in context.
If you're thinking eggs...We've found the "all whites" better than egg beaters. They're individual cups of 2 egg whites each. Add that to one real egg, and make a solid fritata or omelette for dinner...it's a staple at our house.
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