Cooking for One or Two Time Saving Tips

From: Beth R. Jarvis
Newsgroup: rec.food.cooking
Date: 10-31-96

Here are some of the things I do to save time in meal preparation.

First, I brown fresh hamburger and freeze it. When I need to get supper on in a hurry, I dump browned hamburger into spaghetti sauce for a fast spaghetti dinner. Browned hamburger also speeds up prepartion of tacos, sloppy joes, etc. Otherwise, I'd have to thaw the meat, brown it and go from there.

Another thing I do is put a layer of Saran wrap between slices of boneless ham, pork chops or hamburger patties before I freeze them. When I want to fix any of the above, I pop loose what I need (with a knife), thaw if necessary and proceed. I can buy chops in family packs or buy a whole ham and not have to eat it for a week. Remember, eternity was described as two people and a ham. Boneless hams have those funny end pieces that are sort of crimped up. I dice them up and bag them in 1 cup increments. I use them for split pea or lentil soup.

When I cook dried beans, I dole those into 1 cup containers for later use in any dish calling for beans, such as taco salad.

Extra cabbage gets sliced into 1/2-inch wide pieces, steamed and frozen in 1 cup containers. I pop one of those into chicken or beef soups.

From: Nancy Alexander
Newsgroup: rec.food.cooking
Date: 11-1-96

When my daughter was young, I cooked pancakes on the weekend, made extras and frooze them on a cookie sheet. Then I just put them in a plastic bag, and could take out 2-3 as I needed them for her breakfast. Save prep. time as well as clean up.

I often cut up extra onions, bell peppers, or celery and freeze to use later in recipes. This also saves money since you don't waste food.

From: Stanley Horwitz
Newsgroup: alt.cooking-chat
Date: 6-15-99

When cooking just for myself, I do not follow recipes. Since I live very close to an excellent grocery store, I tend to go there on the way home from work when I know I will be cooking dinner that night. I just buy things such as lamb chops, steak, chicken, or whatever. I usually just broil or saute whatever meat I have in a bit of soy sauce or barbecue sauce and serve with whatever vegies I picked up from the grocery store.

For example, one of my favorite meals is to take two of those shoulder lamb chops and splash soys sauce, some dried herbs such as parsley, garlic powder, and ground pepper on them, pop them under a broiler and serve with a baked potato and some fresh peas and mushrooms that have been nuked. The entire meal takes me about fiften minutes to cook, its inexpensive, it tastes great, and its easy to clean up from.

From: mfenton
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.frugal-living
Date: 4-28-98

Some of my freezer faves for one are:

- Meatloaf made in idividual servings with gravy poured on top before freezing. Just whip up some mashed potatoes and a veg, nuke the loaf - dinner!

- Spagetti sauce frozen in 1 cup margarine containers (1 perfect serving)

- Fry up a pound of ground turkey with onions and mushrooms, add some frozen corn and a can of turkey gravy (or homemade). Freeze in ziplocs. This is good poured over mashed potatoes or make up some stuffing and put it on top in a little casserole and bake.