Some Tips on Cooking for One

Most of the recipes I've shared on this blog are meant for one person. I moved here to Cincinnati by myself back in August, and even though I live in a house full of roommates we mostly cook for ourselves. But, on Sunday we'll have a new roommate: Paul. Which means I'll be doing a lot more cooking for two!

But, I don't want to forget all the helpful things I learned while cooking just for myself. One of the reasons I really started to focus this blog on recipes is because I found a serious lack of "cooking for one" resources. Like a lot of solo diners, I cooked too much at first. And then I tried to hack four- and six-serving recipes down to one serving.

Finally, I realized I had to change the way I was thinking about food and cooking. "Serves one" doesn't have to mean "frozen" or "take-out" or "boring" or "complicated ingredient divisions" or even "eat-the-same-thing-five-days-in-a-row-because-you-made-too-much." You can still cook and eat fresh, delicious food--it just may take some adjustments if you're used to cooking for a bigger crowd. So, here are some tips and thoughts.

1.  Cook what you really want. One of the greatest parts of cooking just for yourself is that you can eat exactly what appeals to you. No joke, one night my dinner consisted of two scrambled eggs, a piece of toast, and a side of peas. Because that's exactly what I felt like eating--so I did. The flip side of this is that you have to/get to learn how to make what you really want!

Exactly how and why the sweet potato fry recipe came to be.

2.  Try new things. Being on my own has allowed me to try new foods and test out recipes without worrying if other people will like what I buy or make. Some things are duds, while others--pomegranates, Swiss chard, chicken and bread soup--become staples of my pantry and repertoire. Other examples:

Savory oatmeal: culinary fail.

Ricotta gnocchi: culinary epic win!

3.  Cook just enough. Cooking for one can be a great way to cut down on how much you eat. If you tend to overeat a certain food (ahem, pasta) just measure out one serving, cook that one serving, and eat it. You're less likely to go back for seconds if it's not sitting on the stove already made!

4.  Or, cook more than enough. It's hard to cut a recipe for four down to a recipe for one. It's a bit easier to cut it in half to a recipe for two, though. I often make two servings of whatever I'm having for dinner, then box up half of it right away and save it for lunch the next day.

5.  Re-imagine leftovers. Let's say you took the advice in Number 4 and made extra food, but now that food just doesn't look so exciting. Come up with ways of eating it differently. Leftover risotto can be mixed with an egg and fried in olive oil as a risotto cake. Cooked pasta, rice, couscous, or quinoa can bulk up a soup or become the basis for a cold salad. Cooled polenta can be fried or baked. Cooked veggies can become an omelet filling, pasta mix-in, sandwich topping, quesadilla filling...you get the picture.

Risotto cake: mix leftover risotto with beaten egg and pan fry in olive oil.

Another one of my best re-imaginings (sadly photo-less) was mixing leftover shredded chicken with mashed avocado, garlic, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to create a "chicken salad" which I wrapped in a wheat tortilla and packed for lunch. The possibilities are endless.

6.  Use your freezer. Sometimes you just need to make more than one or two servings--and that's ok. Stick it in a freezer bag or container, label it, and pop it in. Personally I'm a lot more likely to reach for a homemade calzone or cup of chili than a Lean Cuisine when I'm digging around in the freezer. Plus, the homemade meal is usually cheaper than stocking up on frozen entrees.

 The freezer is also great for baked goods like cookies and muffins; bake up a batch, eat one straight from the oven, and save the rest for later. For muffins and breads, I recommend a 30-second zap in the microwave followed by a visit to the toaster oven--your food will warm through, and you'll revive the crispy-crusty-toasty exterior.

I ate one of these fresh ciabatta rolls and stashed the rest in the
freezer. Now, whenever I have a craving for crusty, delicious bread,
I can have some!

7.  Along with Number 6, portion your food. You don't have to use up a whole pound of ground beef in two days just because you were dying for a hamburger. Instead, open the package when you get home from the store, divide it into an appropriate number of portions, wrap it, bag it, and freeze it. I do this with ground beef, bacon, breads, and just about anything else that's freeze-able. Also works for things you don't need to freeze, like snack foods and other things that come in large packages.

8.  Think about your nutrition every once in a while. It might be tempting to eat Ramen noodles or mac and cheese or whatever for every meal, but eventually a one-note diet will catch up with you. I try to combine a couple of food groups at each meal. Breakfast is usually a grain (oatmeal or cereal), fruit, and dairy (yogurt or milk). Lunch is vegetables, some form of protein, a grain and/or dairy. And dinner is where I try to round it all out.

All five food groups: toast (grain), asparagus (veggies),
banana (fruit), egg (protein), and Parmesan cheese (dairy).

There are many days when I decide what to make for dinner based on what I've eaten for breakfast and lunch. If I had a muffin and pizza, I'll probably compensate with a salad or veggie soup for dinner. But if I've been good all day, I might go for that mac and cheese.

9.  Decide what to splurge on, and where you can compromise. I don't have a problem buying generic cereal or store-brand pasta, and I buy my produce based on what's in season and therefore cheapest. However, there are some items I let myself spend a little more on.

An example: milk. I like to have it around for coffee and cereal, and for a while I was buying the store brand. The problem was that a quart of milk wasn't quite enough for a whole week, and a half-gallon ALWAYS went bad before I could finish it. One of my housemates tipped me off to a solution: buy organic. A half-gallon of organic milk is twice as much as the store brand, but it lasts twice as long after it's opened--so I can finish my milk every time instead of always throwing away the last cup or so.

10.  Find resources by people who think--and cook--like you do. Maybe you're a vegetarian. Maybe you're trying to eat low carb. Maybe you never want to spend more than 30 minutes in the kitchen preparing a meal. Whatever it is, seek out websites, blogs, cookbooks, cooking shows, etc. that have what you're looking for. Even if the resources you find aren't for single chefs, they can still be great places to look for ideas when you're stuck.

I love cooking from scratch and occasionally like to challenge myself with a complex dish, so I like chefs who use classic techniques that I can learn from. So I can chiffonade basil and know what it means to deglaze a pan. Look around, experiment, and see what works for you.

I don't know how many readers of this blog are single cooks--but if you are, I hope some of these tips are helpful.

Macaroni & Cheese

The "cheese" to my macaroni.
Pun fully intended.

This was a great weekend.

In terms of school, I did practically nothing. But in terms of relaxation, I accomplished a lot. And it all started when this guy on the left pulled into town on Thursday.

Paul and I will have been dating for two years on December 29th. It's been a great two years for both of us, and I'm looking forward to celebrating in a few weeks. Having a long distance relationship is tough though, and we have to plan carefully to make sure we can spend time together.

This was one of the rare weekends when Paul had a chance to visit. We hit some highlights of Cincinnati--Findlay Market, the IKEA in West Chester, the Blind Lemon in Mount Adams, Skyline Chili!--but I also dragged him out to an end-of-quarter department party. I have to go to most of these events as a "single" person, so it's nice to have a significant other to bring along when I can!

The party happened to be a potluck dinner, so we made macaroni and cheese to share. I got this recipe from my Betty Crocker: So Simple cookbook--and while I was skeptical at first, it actually is pretty simple to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. And it was a hit!

The ravaged bowl of mac 'n cheese.

Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients:

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni (7oz, or about half a box)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Scant 1/2 tsp yellow mustard (or 1/4 tsp ground mustard if you have it)
2 cups milk (I used skim)
2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar (or the cheese of your choice)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook and drain macaroni as directed on package.
   
2. Meanwhile, in a three-quart sauce pan, melt the butter over low heat. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard. Cook over low heat until mixture is smooth and bubbly.
   
3. Remove from heat and stir in the milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. (This step always seems to take a very long time, so be patient! The sauce will get very thick just before it boils.) Boil and stir one minute.
   
4. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese until melted.
   
5. Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce and stir to combine. Pour into an ungreased two-quart casserole dish.
   
6. If desired, melt two tablespoons of butter or margarine and combine with 1/4 cup breadcrumbs. Sprinkle over the macaroni and cheese.
   
7. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until bubbly.

A Culinary Mystery: Case Closed

Earlier this year, my dad started talking about these..."things" that my great-grandmother from Italy used to make. He described them as being something like pretzels in a round loop shape. We asked my grandmother and great aunt about them, but no one seemed to remember them or what they were called. After digging through some old recipes and performing several Google searches for "Italian pretzels," we more or less gave up.

And then in May, I got the chance to go to Italy for a week as part of an art seminar I took my last semester at Mount Union. We traveled to Siena, Florence, and Rome on a huge red double-decker bus. That meant we stood out as tourists wherever we parked, and it also meant that we spent quite a few hours on the Italian turnpike. On one of those journeys, we stopped at a rest stop and I saw these:

Right shape, preztel-like...these were the mysterious "things"!

Well, they weren't. I bought them, packed them up carefully, and almost missed a connecting flight home because I declared them at customs...and they weren't the right "things."

"These are crunchy," my dad said. "What I'm thinking of is more like a soft pretzel. Or a bagel."

As it turns out, Google is much more obliging when you search for "Italian bagel." Within a few minutes, I had a handful of recipes for something called "ciambella," (plural "ciambelle") which, as far as I can tell means "ring-shaped." It seems they are actually considered cookies, but they have the soft, doughy insides and shiny exterior of a bagel or a soft pretzel. Since solving the mystery, my dad and I have made them several times (most recently, today).

Ciambelle Recipe

Ingredients

5 cups all-purpose flour
1 packet yeast
1 scant cup warm water
3 tsp oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp anise seeds (optional--this gives them a licorice taste)
1/2 cup white wine (we used a white zinfandel)
Pinch of salt

Steps

1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water.
2. Put the flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Add the oil, sugar, seeds, salt, wine, and yeast mixture by pouring them into the well. Gather the flour into the well with hands or a spoon until a soft dough forms. (You may need to turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead it to make it come together.) Add water or flour as needed.
3. Shape the dough into a ball, cover it with a dish towel, and put it somewhere warm for an hour to rise. 
4. When the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured surface. Cut off pieces of dough and roll them out into long strips. Form the strips into loops and press down on the joint. (Larger ciambelle will be softer, smaller ones will be more crisp.)
   

   

   Ciambelle dough formed into loops.

5. Meanwhile, fill a large pot with water and bring it to a boil on the stove; preheat the oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit.
6. When the water boils, drop several ciambelle into the pot at a time. When they float, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them on a dish towel to drain.



Ciambelle float when they're done.

7. Place the boiled ciambelle on a cookie sheet. (If desired, brush them with an egg wash of one beaten egg and about a tablespoon of water.) Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until golden (time will vary based on size). Enjoy hot or cool with a glass of wine.

Baked ciambelle. Culinary mystery solved!

Mushroom and Spinach Quiche

Mushroom and spinach quiche!

Lately, I've been having a craving for quiche. I saw some posts on Facebook about the International Dinner coming up at Mount Union, and it made me remember the really amazing mushroom quiche they had there last year representing French cuisine. Perhaps, in some small way, the craving was my expression of homesickness for my alma mater.

Anyway, I've never made a quiche before but I thought this would be a good time to try it out. I had a lot of mozzarella cheese left over from making pizza a few weekends ago and a few other odds and ends lying around. It was easier than I expected and pretty delicious. I think next time I'd use  a mix of mozzarella and cheddar or something similar to give it more flavor.

The recipe I (somewhat loosely) used for my quiche came from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 15th edition, an insanely large cookbook that seems to have just about everything in it. (It's a great book to have!) Their recipe started with a pie crust--either buy one or make it yourself. Since I've never made a pie crust before, I opted to use Bisquick's recipe. It wasn't quite enough to cover the pan, so I think next time I'd make a batch and a half.

Bisquick Pie Crust

The baked Bisquick crust.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup Bisquick mix
2-3 tbsp boiling water

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Combine butter and Bisquick in a bowl (I used a fork for this). Add water (start with 2 tbsp) and mix vigorously until dough forms. Flour your hands and press the dough into a 9-inch pie dish.
3. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden. 

And now, for the quiche. I'm giving you the recipe as I made it, which is again, somewhat different from the cookbook.

Mushroom and Spinach Quiche

The uncooked quiche.

Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped
1 container of sliced mushrooms
3 cups loosely packed, coarsely chopped fresh spinach
1 tbsp vegetable oil
5 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
Dash ground nutmeg (optional)
6 ounces shredded cheese
1 tbsp all-purpose flour

Steps

1. Bake your crust, and turn down the oven temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cook the onion and mushrooms in vegetable oil until tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in the spinach and turn off the heat, allowing it to wilt just slightly.
3. Crack the eggs into a glass measuring cup and lightly beat with a fork. You want 1/2 cup of total liquid per egg, so add milk (or half-and-half or light cream) until you have 2 1/2 cups of eggs and milk. Pour into a large mixing bowl.
4. Combine cheese and flour in a small bowl (it's easiest to just use your hands for this). Add to the egg mixture and mix well. Add the mushroom mixture and mix well. Pour into the pie shell.
5. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes before slicing. Serves 6-8.

Ta-dah! Delicious quiche.

First Pizza of the Quarter

 
One thing you will learn if you spend much time around me is that I love food. I'm not one of those people who is adept at describing smells and tastes and hints and overtones, but I love trying new foods and trying to cook them. And while this isn't going to be a cooking blog, I do intend to post some of my recipes here periodically. So, for my first "real" blog post, I thought I'd share with you my recipe for white pizza. But before we can get to the deliciousness of the pizza, you'll need the dough. Here is the recipe that I use, but feel free to use your own or the store bought kind.

Ingredients:

1 cup warm water
1 packet active dry yeast
Pinch of sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
3-4 cups flour

Steps:

1. Heat water to about 115 degrees Fahrenheit. I microwave it for about a minute to get it the right temperature. You should be able to stick your fingers in it and hold them there for a few seconds.
2. Add the yeast to the water along with a large pinch of sugar and give it a stir. Let it sit for at least 5 minutes, or until it foams. I like to do this step in my mixing bowl (less cleanup later).
3. Add the olive oil, salt, and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture in a mixing bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon until blended. Continue to add flour (about 1/3 to 1/2 cup at a time) until the dough isn't sticking to the bowl.
4. Flour a work surface like a counter top or cutting board and turn the dough out onto it. Flour your hands and knead the dough for 2 or 3 minutes, adding flour as needed. Then test it by poking it gently with your thumb--if the dough bounces back, you're done with this step. Oil the mixing bowl and roll the dough around inside to coat it. Then cover it and let it sit for at least 1/2 an hour, until it has doubled in size.
5. Punch out the air in the dough and turn it out on your work surface again. At this point, you can divide the dough into however many pieces you want. You can make about 3 medium pizzas with this recipe, or 6 personal pizzas or calzones (I used 1/3 of the dough for the pizza in the picture). Form each piece into a ball and cover with a towel. (If you want to freeze the dough, this is the time to do it.) Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it, stretch it, toss it, or do whatever you have to to get it into the shape you want. Coat a cookie sheet or pizza pan with nonstick cooking spray and put your dough on it.
7. Add toppings and then pop it in the oven for about ten minutes or so. Let cool (if you can), cut, and enjoy!
8. If you want to make calzones, add your toppings to half of a dough round. Fold the other half over top, pinch the edges or press with the tines of a fork to seal, and brush with olive oil or beaten egg before baking.

 So that's it for the pizza. Oh wait, you want to know about the one in the picture? Well, that's a whole other story...

I basically made up this version of white pizza. I wanted pizza but I had no sauce or pepperoni or other traditional toppings. But I did have some olive oil, some spices, some mozzarella, and a couple of lovely tomatoes. And the results were delicious. So, while you're waiting for your dough to rise, you can get ready to make the white pizza toppings. For one pizza:

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
Spices
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2 tomatoes, sliced

Steps:

1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a saute pan. Add the garlic and cook for about two minutes. Add your spices. I used crushed red pepper, dried basil, and an Italian seasoning blend. Cook for another minute or two. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. When your dough is ready to go, drizzle the oil on top and spread it around with the back of a spoon.
3. Cover the pizza with mozzarella and Parmesan. 
4. Arrange the tomato slices on top. Top with a little more cheese and a sprinkle of basil. Bake and enjoy.

And voila! The pizza was really delicious. You can tell because I had already started eating it before I thought to take the picture! The only problem was that it didn't rise much so the crust was very thin. This could have been a problem with the yeast or just my impatience in not letting it rise as long as it needed to. Either way, it was delicious.

Pizza is one of my favorite things to cook, partly for the reason that it is so very forgiving. Yes, I would have liked a thicker crust, but it turned out pretty awesome anyway. And you can throw whatever toppings you want on it. (Seriously, it's like the best food ever.)

I also sincerely enjoy the process of making it. The mixing and the kneading and the stretching and all of that. It is cathartic. I'm at a stage in my life known as "Poor Graduate Student" where I'm supposed to eat Kraft Mac & Cheese and Ramen noodles for every meal. And although I enjoy both of those things (in moderation of course), I like being able to prepare something from scratch. I like having that connection to my food, and there's a sense of pride that comes from making it yourself. Lucky for me, I have now 4 more balls of dough in the freezer so this pizza is only the first of many.

Now, who's hungry?