Cooking for one

You may want to try looking through some of the Hungry Girl cookbooks. She does use quite a bit of processed foods and catches some flak on the boards because of it but she has a lot of single serving recipes. I think about half of them are just plain weird but I like quite a few of them and make them regularly. I tend to substitute "light" ingredients for fat-free and adjust the calories accordingly.

It's kind of annoying, but I just visit the market more often. Luckily, it's halfway between my work and my home, so I'll purposely walk home (don't have a car) and get a mile walk in and veggies for 1-2 days. But if you don't like going to the store all the time, that won't work for you.

And I KNOW the cashiers must think I'm crazy!

I know you don't like freezing produce but have you tried the steam fresh bags of veggies? As a graduate student with limited time, I find the Birds Eye Steam Fresh bags of veggies to be REALLY delicious, quick, and healthy when I need something on the go. If i'm really strapped for time I could eat the whole bag of steamed broccoli in one sitting, though usually I'll just do half for dinner and then half for lunch the next day.

I've become big on just cooking a big dinner "for two" one night and then eating the leftovers for lunch or dinner the following day. Also, we have a really affordable store called Sprouts where I live and I go once a week to get just enough fruits and veggies for the week. I usually make a big thing of salad for lunches (red leaf or romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.) and get some other things for the week...they don't go bad before I can eat them.

I've become great at cooking a meal one night and using the left overs for another recipe the next. Like I'll cook ratatouille one night, and use the left overs to make a pasta sauce for example. I also tend to go grocery shopping a bit more, but I find it actually saves money 'cause I'm buying with a purpose and in small amounts so things don't go bad and get thrown out. My new best friend is a hand held food saver...LOVE it!! Really helps with fruits and veggies to keep fresher longer. It's good for freezing things to, because it helps avoid freezer burn.

My boyfriend often travels for work so I am often left cooking for one. The best way for me to do this is to write out meal plans. Call me OCD, but I have an excel doc with every food item in my house, I delete from it as I make my meal plan and add to it when I shop.

I try to set up the plan so that I need a lot of the same ingredients for different meals, like I'll have a roast chicken for dinner and then use the leftover chicken to make chicken salad for lunch the next day (I'm super thrifty so then I also boil the carcass with my veggie scraps to make stock, which I freeze in pint containers). WIth that roast chicken I might have roast carrots and potatoes, which I will use in soup the next night for dinner.

I also have my titanium camping kettle/pot that I use to make single serving snack things, like one serving of popcorn or one thing of oatmeal, I find having the smaller pot keeps me from making more than I should eat at one time. Also, I can eat out of it and have only one dish to wash after.

I write meal plans out on a three or four day basis and shop accordingly for my fresh fruits and veggies. I also have a decent stock of frozen fruits and veggies for in a pinch or if something went bad sooner than I expected. If I notice something is going bad before it's too far gone, I either use it that day or freeze it for stock - I just keep a 2 gallon ziplock in the freezer and fill it with all my veg scraps/things that are about to go and when it gets full I make stock. I turn fruit into jams or compotes that store better, sometimes I freeze them but usually I just work whatever I made into my meal plan.