Cooking for 1 - what's your advice for portion control/leftovers.

I was never good at cooking for one, so I ate for 2 or 3!

Now I'm finding it hard to plan meals - specifically what do with all my ingredients. 

A zucchini? I'd be eating it for a month. Even things like an onion or green pepper. For example I'd make eggs and hashbrowns and add 1/2 onion, bell pepper, jalapenos, maybe a tomato and/or mushrooms (cheese of course and maybe some bacon or sausage). Now if I add just a bell pepper to one or two eggs it would last for maybe 6 meals. Can you store 1/2 a banana? can you buy grape tomatoes in a smaller container than a pint? What would I do with a cantaloupe? Those are the types of food/cooking questions I'm struggling with cooking for 1 3oz stomach and would greatly appreciate any wisdom you can share. 

Do you have any tips for cooking for one? Storing leftovers? A cookbook that or website for small/single servings you recommend? I've been trying to look up info on how long food will keep in the fridge and what freezes well. I used to eat everything and am clueless when it comes to this strange land of leftovers and storage (and eating the same thing 3 days in a row so I don't have to throw it out due to spoilage).

Most foods freeze well.  I've got some sliced up zucchini and peppers in the freezer now, as well as strawberries that I've been working on since May.  Weekends I do my cooking and portion everything out before storing.  I made pulled pork and filled about 25 ziplock bags with 2oz portions and tossed them in the freezer, and I just pull one out a couple times a week to take to work for lunch.  (I think I paid about $10 for the pork roast I used) Definitely get ziplock bags and a food scale, then you can just cook normal amounts and save the leftovers in meal-size portions.

All the chopped veggies can be frozen and just break off what you need.  I cantaloupe, most melons, can be balled and frozen in single serving sizes.  I would make a full size meal and measure into single serving in little zip lock/rubber made containers and freeze.  That way I could just pull out what I wanted to pick from the selections frozen.

GREAT QUESTION! 

I am pre-op, hoping to have surgery in a week or two. But I still love at home (also hopefully not for long) regardless it's just me. Now on my pre-op diet, I make something, and I portion it out for future meals, but then I end up eating the same thing for lunch and dinner for days in a row.  Ugh, boring! I wonder too what things can be frozen and how you deal with ALL those leftovers. 

What I've found is it really doesn't bother me to be boring.  I'm not eating to eat or taste or enjoy, I'm just eating because I need some protein.  Once I started to think like that, I realized that THIS TIME I'm going to succeed.  

Every once in a while I'll make something (or go out for something) purely for the enjoyment factor, but I don't make it a regular thing anymore.  

I don't know if others are this way, but I know this is how I am.  

First..... I developed Cafe Frisco based on single servings.

I was soooooo tired of looking up recipes that made a meal for 4 normies or 16 VSG meals.

That said, you need to think in terms of uses..... 1st. use, 2nd use and maybe even a third use.

First use..... Salmon dinner

Second use...... Leftover Salmon for Fritatta

 

First use ground chicken.......Italian one night

Second use ground chicken...... Mexican

Third use ground chicken..... American Burger

Fourth use ground chicken...... Thai

Thanks Frisco,

I'm on the right track with turning protein into different meals, or at least I want to do that. I'm learning when I buy ground turkey, do I cook 1/2 and cook the rest next day or do I cook it all and refrigerate/freeze leftovers. I don't like freezing my meat before I cook it. 

What I don't understand is the veggie part - I think I can solve that by shopping better, using the bulk bins vs prepackaged.

For example in your amazingly delicious pictures there is

meal 1 -  1 small ball of mozz, 1 slice of tomato.

meal 2 -  shredded lettuce, (the cheese keeps well).

meal 3 - a mushroom (can shop in a bulk bin), a slice of onion, a slice of tomato (working in from 1st meal), 1/2 dozen green beans (bulk bin again)

meal 4 - part of a cucumber (can buy a small one)

And getting through the herbs while still fresh. I'll keep working at buying smaller quantities and finding ways to fit in the left over tomato or onion or cucumber. Those are the fun things that have low calories, add texture and color, and the things I'm having the hard time using up before they go bad. I guess it feels weird to shop for 1 tomato, or the small onion - I'm so used to buying an extra one, or the biggest one. 

I've checked out the Cafe Frisco many times - thanks for creating it!

Throw away is going to happen.

I was, like most of us brought up to not waste food because there were people in Africa starving.

Gotta get over it..... that is part of the recovery and maybe just one of the habits that is hardest to break.

Even writing this reminds myself that it's OK to stop eating and trow the rest away.

Better in the garbage than in my body if it's to much food.

All you can do is do what your doing and figure the best way to go with the least amount of waste...... but a certain amount of waste is going to happen and it's OK

 

Psssstt........ want a secret...... salad bar !!!

I do this often when I'm near a good salad bar.

Here is a Cafe Frisco posting called Salad Bar Stir Fry.

frisco