[roo79]

Does anyone have any EASY recipes for a single person? I'm an awful cook and tend to eat easy to grab processed, tv dinners or food that comes out a window.

Also does anyone here have or has had high cholesterol and know how to eat right to lower it?

Thanks!

[Rosinante]

I'm just eating one of my favourite's now -

Store shredded veggies fried in 1 tsp peanut oil
with 3 oz cooked chicken
about 6 flakes of chili
a shake of ground ginger
ground black pepper
finished off with 1/2 TBSP of soy sauce
250 calories

I pile it into a little Chinese bowl. I know it sounds silly, but if I put it in my normal ceral bowls, it looks tiny, and I feel hungry. Because it's overflowing a much smaller bowl, my brain things whoopee!

[stellarosa27]

I HAD high cholesterol, but not anymore.

I drastically cut down the amount of red meat I ate and drastically increased my fruit and vegetable intake. I also stopped eating white breads. I didn't cut carbs, I just have whole grain bread where i would have had white bread before.

I live alone and I have a really busy schedule, so I tend to use my slow cooker and freeze a lot of things.

Here are two recipes that I made from the left over Thanksgiving turkey, but you could sub in some canned, shredded chicken!

1) Turkey Chili

- Shredded Turkey
- 1 large can tomato puree
- 1 large can diced tomatoes
- 1 small can black beans
- 1 small can kidney beans
- 1 chopped onion
- red pepper
- black pepper
- chili powder
- ground cumin


Throw it all into the crock pot and set it for 10 hours (lowest temperature setting) and BAM....Amazing...


2) Turkey Soup

- Shredded turkey
- 1 large box low-sodium chicken stock
- Equal part water to the chicken stock
- 1 package baby spinach
- 1 diced onion
- 3 diced carrots
- 3 stalks of celery (cut)
- Rosemary (cut)
- black pepper, parsley, basil, oregano, sage, thyme, marjoram

Throw all into crock pot and set for 4 hours (highest temperature setting). I did stop mine after 2.5 hours though - it was done and I wanted to go to bed.

[JenMusic]

I think one of the best, easiest things about cooking for one is that I only have to please myself.

I don't really cook with recipes, but I do have a semi-standard formula that I follow for meals:
- a lean protein (chicken, eggs/egg whites, turkey, wild salmon once or twice a week)
- a measured amount of carbs (whole grain or as unprocessed as possible, although I do eat low-cal wheat bread)
- as many veggies as sound good together
- some type of good fat (avocado, olive oil, nuts - it's not a "good" fat, but I do eat reduced fat dairy/cheese)

Then I decide my cooking method. I usually sautee or stir-fry. I just throw everything into a pan with some garlic and cook til done. SOmetimes I roast veggies (there are recipes here for that if you search).

I like to cook, but for one person, on a daily basis, my goal is to go from start of meal to eating in 20 minutes or less. The less I have to plan and prep, the better, unless it's a special occasion.

[darway]

The first stage is to develop a taste for things that can be eaten with no preparation. Bananas, apples, carrots, unsalted peanuts and almonds, grapes, mini tomatoes.

The next stage is to buy pre-cut bags of mixed food. Develop a taste for various mixed vegetables that can be added on top of those microwave dinners. Try and use up some of the stomach room that would be taken up with dessert, otherwise.

After a while ... you get to the stage of preparing your own soups, salads, and cole slaws. Almost anything you need can be bought pre-cut and frozen.

But if you want to include some fresh stuff, begin by preparing small items that can be sliced and easily mixed into meals. Look for tube-shaped squash, sweet potatoes, zuccini. Okra, celery, and asparagus and other long vegetables can also be cut - with the remainder easily wrapped and saved for later.

Sometimes you can't quite keep up, but you'll learn after a while that vegetables don't need to be "pretty" to work in soups. Vegetables are cheap anyway, if you end up throwing some out because they aged on you before you could finish.

I consider it part of the challenge to eat them before this happens. It's a good feeling to realize you need to go to the store b/c you've eaten all the "good food" in the house - and end up standing in line with an armful of veggies while other people have chips, candy and soda in their carts!

[spetty]

When I'm eating alone I generally make 1 chicken thigh and veggies:

Chicken
spread 1 tsp canola oil on the chicken
broil chicken around 10min. (I put tinfoil on the pan first for easy clean up)
turn over chicken every 3-5 min.
the last time you turn the chicken over spread 1/2 tbsp Hoisin sauce over it and let cook for another 2 - 3 min.

Veggies
My favorite are asparagus. I just bring some water to a boil, add the asparagus for 2 min. pull them out and sprinkle with a little lemon juice and call it a meal.

[Munchy]

I usually make an entire dish, portion it into number of servings, and freeze the individual servings. It's just as easy to cook for 6 as it is to cook for 1, but now I have five more "freezer meals" that have the high quality ingredients and don't have the preservatives and sodium that the store bought frozen meals have.