One is the Hungriest Number: Eating Healthy For One
Cooking can seem like such a daunting, thankless job when you are the only one to cook for, but with some careful planning and some time saving tips, you can eat healthy, versatile meals that will not make you feel like a lonely hermit, but rather an urbane single.
First, any meal that you would cook for a crowd can be adapted for the single person. Take a free day and create full, delicious and healthy meals. Allow them to cool and then separate them out into individual serving containers. Store them, labeled and dated in the freezer and make sure that you rotate so that nothing goes to waste. Before you leave for work in the morning, take something out to defrost and when you come home you will be moments away from a delicious, healthy, homemade meal. You could pop your meal into the microwave while you are changing into your "at home" clothes and then eat in perfect comfort.
If you do not have the freezer space, or do not want to spend an afternoon making up the meals that could feed your for weeks at a time, you could adapt recipes from their usual four serving size down to four. It might take some experimentation to get spice amounts right, but that is part of the fun of cooking, after all. One of the easiest one person recipes is this one for orange glazed chicken: take one skinless, boneless chicken breast and lay it in a cooking dish. Drizzle it with extra virgin olive oil and spike the meat with a few cloves of garlic. Bake until it is cooked thoroughly. During the final five or six minutes juice a medium size orange into a sauce pan. Over low to medium heat cook the juice until it nearly boils. Whisk in a tablespoon or so of a really good white wine or orange liqueur (for intense citrus flavor) and then cook until it reduces by half. (This concentrates the flavors so make sure that the wine is a good one. If you would not pour it into a glass and drink it, do not use it to cook with either.) Also, if you do not cook with alcohol for whatever reason, you can substitute the same amount of water. Pull the chicken out of the oven, and remove it to the plate, but do not slice it yet. Give it a few moments to rest which will allow the juices to flow back throughout. Pour the warm glaze over the top, add a nice green salad and you have a fabulous meal.
Of course, a good healthy meal should include a dessert, and this one is no exception.
One of my favorites is this: melt 1-2 ounces of white chocolate in a double boiler over very low heat, or very carefully in a microwave, being careful not to allow it to burn. Allow the melted chocolate to cool slightly, but not to re-harden. Stir in 1/4-1/2 of a cup of heavy cream ( relax, you won't be eating this every single day.) Stir the mixture very well and then pour over the fruits of your choice. For the glazed chicken meal, try segments of orange and sliced strawberries. Oh, yum.
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