How To Plan and Prepare Meals for One Person - Creating an Easy Weekly Menu
91Cooking for One Is a Challenge
Cooking for just yourself is always a challenge, whether you are starting out on your own and setting up your first kitchen, or you are moving on to a smaller household where you'll be cooking just for you every day. How can you eat nutritiously, yet economically? How can you avoid spoilage and waste? How can you make sure you always have a wholesome meal at your finger tips when unexpected company arrives? Perhaps most important, how can you do this easily, and with pleasure?
The answer? Meal planning using simple foods.
I'm going to show you how to create a weekly menu of foods you really want to eat, using one of my own easy weekly menu plans as an example.
Let's Get Started
Pick a day of the week to put time aside for planning. You will need more time in the beginning than you will after several weeks go by and the planning task is a habit.
What Do You Like to Eat?
First and most important, think about what you like to eat. For each kind of meal-breakfast, lunch, and dinner-ask these questions. Do I like cereal, eggs, or pancakes to start the day? And what about lunch, do I prefer a sandwich or soup, or is noon the time of day for my heavy meal? As for dinner, what appeals to me for the last meal of the day? When writing down your favorite foods, rejoice that you are the only one you need to please. Knowing that you will be eating the foods you really like is a big motivator in creating your menu and following through with the shopping and the preparation.
Pay attention to your body's needs. Your food requirements and restrictions belong uniquely to you, and you know what's best. When I make food choices, I tend to follow my family's style of cooking, a style I believe contributes to the good health and longevity my family members enjoy.
Think simple. Create a menu of foods that are easy to prepare and serve. My goal, always, is to cook only one or two days a week. On the other days, all I want to do is take home-cooked food out of the freezer or fridge, heat it up, assemble a fresh garden salad, sit down, and eat. I don't want to be making five little delicacies that have to come together in a finale of perfect presentation.
Let's Create the Menu
Now that you've jotted down what you like, it's time to build a menu.
This sample menu is based on my food preferences. I make sure that I have a nutritious proportion of fruits, vegetables, breads and cereals, dairy, and meat protein.
An Easy Weekly Menu
I color-coded the menu so that you can see how the simple foods I prepare and eat are distributed through the week. I'm now going to build my shopping list so that I have the kinds of foods I want and in the right quantity.
To the Grocery Store
This one-week grocery list assumes that I have staples in my home such as mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, honey, butter, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, sugar, rice, soy sauce, and a selection of herbs. If you don't have these staples and you want to try my menu, you'll have to add them to your grocery list.
"Fresh" is Important
Fresh foods need to dominate the menu. Ideally, fresh means picked off the vine, pulled from the earth, caught from the sea, butchered down the block, and brought to the table and consumed. Most of us don't live in that kind of a world. So let's include "fresh frozen" in the definition, because vegetables, fruits, and meat products that are prepared properly for freezing retain almost all their nutritional value. When I create my menu, I focus on choosing fresh over canned, and canned over processed.
- Eggs: ½ dozen
- Soy milk: 1 quart
- Yogurt: 3 8-ounce containers
- Sour cream: 1 8-ounce container
- Liverwurst: 10 ounces, sliced
- Roasting chicken: whole, 4-5 pounds
- Pork chops: 4
- Frozen broccoli: 1 10-ounce bag
- Frozen sugar snap peas: 2 10-ounce bags
- Salad dressing: Your choice, or make my Russian dressing
Fresh Essentials
- Lea & Perrin's White Wine Chicken Marinade
- Apple sauce: 1 small jar
- Granola: 1 box, or make your own with this granola recipe
- Dried yellow split peas: 1 pound
- Crackers: 1 box
- Egg noodles: 1 1-pound package
- Hearty bread: 1 large loaf, sliced
- Oranges: 3
- Bananas: 3
- Grapes: ½ pound
Who Doesn't Love Apple Pie?
- Lettuce: 1 head iceberg
- Cucumber: 1 large
- Carrots: 1 pound
- Celery: 1 large bunch
- Green bell pepper: 1 large
- Red bell pepper: 1 large
- Red radishes: 1 bunch
- White onion: 1 large
- Red onion: 1 medium
- Fresh ginger: A piece about the length and width of your hand
- Sweet potato: 1 very large
- Baking potato: 2
- Apple pie: 1 small from the bakery
Marinate and Freeze the Pork Chops
Place each pork chop in a separate zip-lock bag and add a tablespoon or two of the Lea & Perrin's White Wine Chicken Marinade. Press the air out of the bag, making sure each chop is coated on both sides with the marinade. Seal and freeze.
Sunday: The Big Prep Day
You are going to roast and divide chicken, marinate and freeze pork chops, wash and cut fresh salad ingredients, hard boil two eggs, and wash and cook the large sweet potato. While the chicken is roasting, prepare the other items. When all is said and done, it will take about two hours to prepare almost all the food for the week.
The Salad Ingredients and The Grapes
Wash and break apart the lettuce. Wash and pare, slice, dice, or grate the items for the garden salads. Be sure to clean all the carrots, grating or dicing half for salads and finely dicing the other half for the yellow pea soup to be made on Tuesday. Dice half the celery for salad, and just chunk up the other half for the soup. If the celery leaves are in good shape, reserve them for the soup as well. Let all the vegetables dry a bit before storing each in a separate air-tight container or plastic bag in the fridge.
Wash the grapes, let them drain in a colander, transfer them to a shallow bowl, and put them in the refrigerator just like that. Don't cover or seal them.
When ready for a salad, just reach into the fridge, pull out the desired ingredients, including some grapes, and enjoy the salad bar!
The Chicken
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Remove the chicken from its wrapper and wash inside and out.
- Place the chicken in a large roasting pan, breast side up, and sprinkle liberally with fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, thyme, marjoram, basil, oregano, and tarragon.
- Splash on about ¼ cup of Lea & Perrin's White Wine Chicken Marinade.
- Cover and put in the pre-heated oven for 60 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and baste well with the juices from the pan.
- Turn the oven down to 325 degrees F.
- Put the cover back on and return the chicken to the oven for 20 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and baste again.
- Return the chicken to the oven, this time without the cover, for another 20 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and baste again, put the cover back on, turn the oven off, and let the chicken sit in the oven with the door closed for another 20 minutes.
- At the end of the two hours, the chicken should be very tender, the skin a golden color and not too crispy, the leg joints should be very loose, and the chicken may even fall apart. But that's OK, that means there will be less carving for you to do!
- Transfer the chicken to a large platter.
- Pour off the pan drippings into a glass bowl or measuring cup, cover, and refrigerate.
- Carve the chicken, making sure you have one or two large breast slices for the sandwich you will make on Tuesday. Divide the meat into whatever portions look right for you and wrap them separately. You will use one package for tonight's meal, one on Monday night, one on Wednesday night, and the rest you will put in the freezer for another time.
- Refrigerate the bones. You will use them later to make the yellow pea soup.
The Sweet Potato
Prepare and cook the sweet potato about 20 minutes before dinner. Scrub the potato with a vegetable brush under running water. After washing, pierce the potato in 6 or 8 places with a fork. Place the potato on a microwave-safe plate and microwave on high for 9 to 10 minutes, or use the potato setting on the microwave and enter 2 for the number of potatoes. The potato is done when it is soft to the touch. Remove from the microwave, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and set aside.
Dinner
By now, you should be hungry and maybe even a little tired. It's time to pour a glass of wine (if you like), and pull dinner together.
Follow the cooking instructions on the bag of frozen sugar snap peas. They can be steamed or microwaved. Cook them all.
Cut the cooked sweet potato in half (see the side bar to the right). Wrap one portion tightly and refrigerate for tomorrow's dinner.
Now warm a dinner plate in the oven (use the lowest setting on the oven and put the plate on the highest rack). When the plate is warm, arrange the chicken, sweet potato, and half the sugar snaps, and eat! Cover the remaining sugar snaps and refrigerate for tomorrow.
Later, if you are still awake, treat yourself to a piece of apple pie.
A Beautiful Boiled Egg Breakfast Sandwich
Monday: The Do Nothing Day
You've earned some serious time-off from the kitchen. The only thing you have to do today is reach into the refrigerator and pantry, and use the microwave.
In the morning, make a boiled egg breakfast sandwich. For lunch, open a container of yogurt and design a salad from the salad bar. For dinner, arrange chicken, sweet potato, and sugar snaps on a microwave-safe plate and heat.
Don't forget the apple pie!
Before you go to bed, take a pork chop out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator for tomorrow's dinner.
Pan-fried Pork Chop
Make sure the chop you took out the night before is thawed completely. If it is not, keep it sealed in its freezer bag and place in a pan of cool water for a half-our or so.
Place a frying pan on the stove over low-medium heat and add a teaspoon or two of olive oil. Heat until the oil is hot (let a drop of water fall from your finger into the oil; if the water "pops", the oil is hot).
Remove the thawed chop and place it in the pan. Keep the marinade in the bag. Cook the chop at low-medium heat for four minutes, turn, add the rest of the marinade to the pan, top the chop with a heaping tablespoon or two of apple sauce, cover the pan, and cook for four more minutes.
Tuesday: The Soup and Pork Chop Day
The soup will cook for about 3 hours altogether. But don't panic thinking you are going to spend another night slaving over the chopping, dicing, and cooking. Almost none of this time is prep time, because you prepared all the soup ingredients on Sunday.
The most important part of making this soup is the timing...you want the soup to cool down before you put it in the fridge for the night or package it for freezer storage. In the winter, when the weather is very cold, I take the pot outside and put it on a table underneath the porch roof to cool down.
Plan on cooking and eating your pan-fried pork chop dinner while the soup is cooking.
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The Soup
- In a large soup pot, place the refrigerated chicken bones, the refrigerated juices from Sunday's chicken (remove the fat that formed on the top of the jelled juice), the soup-half of the celery you prepared Sunday, a large white onion peeled and cut into quarters, and a washed and quartered white potato. Add water to cover. Turn the heat on high. When the liquid comes to a boil, turn the heat down to let it simmer, and cover loosely. Check now and again to make sure water still covers the solid foods in the pot. Cook for about 2 hours.
Yellow Pea Soup Tips
For vegetarians: Replace the chicken and vegetable stock with 6 cups of vegetable stock.
For smoked meat lovers: Make a from-scratch stock using about 8 cups of water, one or two smoked ham hocks, a whole quartered onion, a whole quartered potato, and a bunch of celery.
- Meanwhile, peel and dice 4 cloves of garlic and a piece of ginger. You want about a tablespoon of each. Combine, cover, and set aside.
- Pour the yellow peas into a colander and rinse under cool running water, picking through them to remove any residue or any peas that are not yellow. Set aside to drain.
Make your pan-fried pork chop dinner according to the menu for tonight, arrange your plate, and eat!
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- After the soup pot has cooked for about 2 hours, strain it through a colander. Discard the solids and keep the rich stock.
- Return the stock to the pot and add water, if necessary, to reach about 6 cups in volume.
- Turn the heat on high, add the yellow peas and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to keep the peas at a gentle simmer, and stir every 15 minutes for 45 minutes.
- Add the minced garlic and ginger, the carrots you diced for this soup on Sunday, and ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.
- Return to a simmer and stir occasionally until the peas are tender and the soup thickens. If the peas are not yet tender, and the soup is becoming too thick, add a little boiling water. Be careful not to let the peas stick to the bottom of the pot.
- When done, cover and remove from heat. Place in a cool area. If it is cold out and you have a protected porch, then you have the perfect environment for cooling.
Once the soup cools, package it in individual containers. Leave two containers in the fridge for Wednesday and Thursday, and freeze the rest.
Quick Stir Fry
Dice up 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and mince up a tablespoon of ginger. Combine in a small bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of prepared mustard, a tablespoon of vinegar, and ¼ cup of water. Stir and set aside.
Put two tablespoons of olive oil in a fry pan over medium heat. Do the "water drip off the finger" test to see if the oil is hot.
When the oil is hot, add the vegetables and chicken, up the heat to high, and stir continuously for about 2 minutes. Add the sauce, stir a half-minute more, and remove from the heat.
Serve over cooked rice or egg noodles.
Wednesday: The Stir Fry Day
Breakfast and lunch were a snap today, weren't they?
For dinner, you are going to use a package of chicken from the fridge, a half package each of frozen broccoli and snow peas, and some red onion, red and green bell pepper, and carrots from your salad bar.
About a half hour before you want to eat, take the frozen veggies out of the freezer and spread them on a kitchen towel to thaw and dry a little. Cook either rice or egg noodles according to package directions. Turn the oven on to warm your dinner plate, and place the plate in the oven.
Take a small bowl, slice a banana, peel and pull apart an orange, halve some grapes, add them all to the bowl, and make the quick stir fry.
Thursday: Crusty Garlic Bread
Don't forget, today's lunch includes apple pie!
When you are ready for dinner, microwave some soup, arrange a salad, and take some of that good hearty bread, spread it with a little butter or olive oil, sprinkle with garlic powder, basil, oregano, and grated cheese (if you like) and put it in the toaster oven.
Friday: Nothing New Today
And don't forget the apple pie!
Cinnamon Eggs with Noodles
Boil a heaping handful of egg noodles. When they are done "al dente", drain and set aside. Crack 3 eggs into a mixing bowl. Add ¼ cup of water or milk and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Whip a bit. Add the drained noodles.
Add 2 tablespoons of butter to a 10-inch fry pan, heat on low-medium until the butter is just short of bubbling. Pour the noodle and egg mixture into the hot pan. Turn the heat to low. After about 5 minutes, you will see a bubbling and drying where the egg mixture meets the inside of the pan. Turn the mixture and cook only a minute or two more. Turn out onto a dish and serve with sugar snap peas.
Saturday: An Easy, Enjoyable Dinner
Cinnamon eggs with noodles is a dish I dearly love. My aunt Ronnie showed me how to make this treat years ago. I always celebrate this dish with love for my aunt.
You Are Prepared!
Your efforts this week gave you a supply of chicken, pork chops, and magnificent soup in the freezer. You are prepared for unexpected guests. If company doesn't arrive, your next week's menu planning and meal preparation will be even easier!
You can find five practical tips for cooking for one here.
More Easy Weekly Menus
By popular request, we will be publishing more Easy Weekly Menus designed for cooking and eating for one.
Here's our latest in the series: Meals for One - An Easy Weekly Menu Featuring Autumn and Winter Foods.
If you would like to be emailed when we publish our Easy Weekly Menus, just drop me a note using the "Contact Sally's Trove" link at the upper right-hand side of this page.
Recipes appearing in Sally’s Trove articles are original, having been created and tested in our family kitchens, unless otherwise noted.
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Thanks for the good words, FlyingPanther. I think the ideal way to prepare all of this food for one person is to have two people do it! So much easier, so much more fun. You do all the chopping, I do all the bossing! :)
Very, very nice and useful hub! I like photos, text, ingredients and especially, I love food... Cinnamon Eggs??? That's something brand new for me, even though, one of the most favourite spices of mine is cinnamon, mostly in sweet forms. Should I try it or not? Of course, I fully trust you and I am going to test it. Thanks!
Brilliant as usual. Love the menu box.
Donna
Solar, please let us know how you like the cinnamon egg dish. My aunt Ronnie told me that the origin of this dish is middle-Eastern, but I'll bet the original had a few more savory and spicey ingredients. This version is very mild. When you make yours, you might want to add a little salt to the noodle and egg mix before cooking. I don't cook with salt, and usually forget to mention that salt is optional, especially when a dish is as mild as this one.
Thank you so much for all the good words! :)
Donna, thank you so much for the compliment!
Did you notice that you can click on the menu box and you get a pop up window with the image full size? I just learned that hub trick today. :)
wow Sally, I am sooo impressed. This shows so much work and you made it so easy for us! Great pics and menu LOVE IT. This will work for two....yeaaaa you!...Marisue
Yes it will work for two, marisue. You just won't have any leftovers, and if the kids show up, you'll have to go out to eat!
Thanks for the great words! :)
this is so user-friendly...all thought out..well done...I can tell lots of work went into this I keep re-reading it. !!! excellent...that's where you've been lately!!
marisue, you got it, exactly...user friendly. Not to hash out the writing process here, but Hovalis's request for a hub featuring easy weekly menu plans for singles, with recipes, was a challenge I couldn't ignore. I've been cooking this way for a long time, following on the heels of my mother, who has been cooking for herself for thirty years.
When I thought about what I do each week, the information I generated was expansive. The work involved doesn't feel very expansive to me, but to write it out is another story. This hub is about 1/2 its original length.
It took me a long time to whittle it down, organize and lay it out, and find images and pictures to support what I was trying to get across. (You'll notice there are no Amazon listings...enough was enough!) Still, I think it's kind of long for a hub. That you say it's user friendly means a lot to me. I really want people to use it and enjoy it.
Nope. I'm not doing a book on it, unless you ghost write it!
Thank you always for your wonderful comments.
Just one more thought...the purpose of this hub is to get you, dear readers, to create a menu that centers around the foods you really like. When you make that first, hand-written, brainstorming list, let it guide everything you do from then on. Just follow the KISS principle at all times!
I like the idea of taking stock of what is in your kitchen before planning menus and buying food. Thanks for sharing this great hub.
You are so welcome, SweetiePie. Thanks so much for stopping by and adding your thoughts. :)
This is such an excellent hub. I abhor planning out my menus and usually end up grabbing stuff in a hurry at the end of the day. My poor husband is by himself right now, so I will send him the link to this hub. He just doesn't have the time to plan meals. And I want to try the cinnamon eggs and noodles, sounds interesting.
well I really am impressed...I read a lot and been writing forEVER, and I can tell you, this is like something you'd see written on Food Network only better. Ina Garten and Paula Deen eat your heart out! thumbs up x a zillion!
WOW! Echoing Marisue, now I see where you've been. This is simply perfect! And, fellow hubbers, I can testify to the fact that not only will you be eating healthy, if you have a few extra pounds you're carrying around, they will be gone in no time!
Pssst,,,is there room in this menu for a banana split? LOL,,,just kidding :)
Amazing hub! I really appreciate the time and effort you put in to this, and I'm so proud of you!
love, Patty
Super hub Sally! I too find it hard to downsize my cooking from large crowds to little meals. Sometimes I forget myself and then I'm stuck eating the same old thing for days on end...(The dessert doesn't usually last that long though hehehe)
Love the great set up regards Zsuzsy
Angela, that's exactly right. With this kind of planning, you don't have to be grabbing at a dinner at the end of a day. Yes, try the cinnamon eggs. They are as much a comfort food as a part of a planned evening meal.
Thanks for your good words!
Sally, this is just great! There's so much information and tips crammed into this hub. I really like the menu plan with the grid. I'd never thought of doing that. It makes the planning so much easier.
I need to read this hub again more slowly. I just love the idea of cinnamon eggs. It's a completely new recipe for me.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this hub answering my request.
marisue, for you to put me in the same space as Paula, well, I'm very honored. I do think she and I could talk food. And thank you for all the thumbs' up!
Patty Trish, you changed your pic! Is this Sasha?
I don't know if you will lose weight. However, you will not gain. It's all a matter of eating what you love in the right proportions. So, of course, there's room for a banana split. In fact, when I wrote out the brainstorming list, I originally had chocolate on there. But I removed it, because I'd rather have the apple pie. You just need to pick your priorities. :)
Zsuzsy, I'm with you about the dessert. Always, it will be gone long before anything else is. I just didn't put that confession into the hub!
It is very hard to downsize. It's so easy to just eat the same thing day after day. I'm right with you. I've done it myself.
Thank you always for your wonderful comments.
Hovalis, your request was a big challenge. A welcome one. I've been cooking for one for a long time. It comes naturally to me now, but it didn't in the beginning.
About the cinnamon eggs...there have been so many comments here about that dish. I hope all of you cook it up and let us all know what you think!
Thank you so much for your comments, and for your wonderful request!
Best regards, ST.
The reason I put in the request was because of what Zsuzsy was talking about. I find that I buy food and never eat it, or that I end up eating the same thing day in and day out, because I don't have the energy or the imagination to think up something different. For some reason when I think of planning ahead I freeze. Your method is so simple and easy I think anyone could do it, which is just fantastic. The great thing about it is that it can be used for one person, or for a family.
Hovalis, you have given me a new insight into the challenges of cooking for one. I do so share with you and Zsuzsy the frustration of eating the same thing day in and day out, and buying food that never gets eaten. I have been there.
There are times when I still fall into that pattern, but not like I did in the past. With time and practice, it gets easier, I assure you.
My refrigerator is mostly bare. Although, I always have fresh vegetables in the bins, and I always have frozen foods. My pantry is mostly bare as well. Except for the staples. If I should buy a dozen cans of diced tomatoes, well, I will use them up before they expire. This didn't always used to be. It took time, patience, and practice, and a genuine love of food and how food comes together, whether it's for a number of people or for youself.
I have a wonderful friend who loves food but doesn't care if she eats it. In fact, she is a big proponent of a food pill. Just take it once a day so you don't starve and you don't have to worry about what to eat. In a way, I'm in her camp. I love good food, but I don't want it to be the focus of my life. So give me good stuff to eat, take away the hassle, and I can go on with other things. Thus the menu planning.
What a can of worms!
Thank you so much for your provocative question and your insights.
Wow just the writing this up would have taken quite a while. I could not possibly plan ahead. because I have lazy times and think oh well...mmm and then its too late to get out of the freezer. You know what I mean. I just do not plan ahead.
We eat for two but it would still work. Although I would prefer to cook a meal and freeze half and have some cold like you suggest for lunch. But have a rest in between so not eating same meal two days in a row. But think this is a brilliant way of planning. How did you do the meal planner was it in excell or is that asking for your secrets. Great hub... must try those eggs tooo
This is great! I've longed for a menu plan that I would actually use with meals I would actually eat, and as I scanned the menu grid, I realized I'd eat everything on it! Thanks Sally!
Hi Sally,,,,
No, the pic is FATSO Krissy (my NY rescue), curled up in the sink. Sasha is my oldest, black/white, then there's Cindy, youngest and long hair gray/white. I had wanted to put Sasha up but couldn't find her pic, so that will have to wait.
Oh, right, I did notice the apple pie. Guess I could make it ala mode :)
Patty
Fantastic hub! It all sounds delicious. The graphics are great! Thanks for a really, really complete and fabulous answer.
You have done it again Sally. It is Sunday am, I just finished a wonderful bowl of plain oatmeal with skim milk and a fruit cup. I open my email and you just had to bring up Aunt Ronnie's Cinnamon eggs with noodles. Those are three of my favorite things all in the same dish. I now join you in the celebration of the love for your aunt. However, I somehow don't feel as satisfied with my oatmeal anymore.
You put such good and valuable stuff in your hubs and I really enjoy them. Thanks for sharing and caring. NEIL
Eileen, about planning ahead. I know what you mean. It does take a certain discipline to do this kind of planning and carry it out as well. I find the planning to be the fun and easy part, the carrying-out the tough part. I admit that there are some days I say, oh the heck with it, and order out Chinese.
About not wanting to eat the same thing two days in a row, you hit the nail on the head there! That's what this menu is for, for you to modify according to your preferences. I never mind eating the same thing for dinner two days in a row, mostly because it's so easy to pull together the second day's dinner, but that's me.
No secret about the drawing tool I used for the menu. That was VISIO 2003 Standard.
Thank you so much for your comments!
Gimar, I am so glad this menu suits you! Thank you for your good words, and welcome to HubPages!
Hi Sally, great hub. Thanks for linking to my granola one. Cheers!
Wow, you make it look sooo easy!
Excellent work...It's quite an embarrsaing subject, buying ready made meals for one and cooking for one...I know someone who always cooks for one now, so this will be very useful. for him...It's not me!!... Honest!!:O
Fantastic hub! I'm still developing my 'menu', but my needs are slightly different. My husband and I have 3 (and soon 4) small children and frequent houseguests with very specific dietary requirements. Thank you for your extremely well thought out and presented hub. I prep all of my veg upon purchasing (or try to at least) - this DOES save time throughout the week when I don't feel like spending hours in the kitchen!
pg, thanks so much for your awesome comments! Looks like you and I are big fans of roasted chicken and chicken stir fry. :)
Neil, it's always so nice to hear from you. I love making these hubs about food, because I know how fond of food you are, and you always write the nicest comments. And this one I will share with Aunt Ronnie. She will be so pleased! Now about oatmeal vs cinnamon eggs with noodles, no they don't compare, not even for an instant. However, I dearly love oatmeal cooked on the stove and served with a little sugar, salt, and butter. There are weeks when every morning is an oatmeal morning. Have you tried a little cinnamon and sugar or sugar substitute on that oatmeal?
Irene, thanks so much for your comments. What I love about your granola recipe is that it calls for less sugar and oil than most, and in a better proportion. :)
compu-smart, you make an interesting point...when I go grocery shopping, I sometimes buy a frozen dinner entree or two, but I always hide them under the fresh meats and produce! Thanks for the nice comments, and I hope your "friend" enjoys working with this menu plan. :)
Ischofield, I am so glad that you commented about preparing the veggies when you buy them. I know that I am much more likely to eat well when all that prep is done at once and I don't have to think about it or do it when I'm hungry and just want to eat.
I like what you said about "still developing" your "menu". It really is a process. It takes thought and time to arrive at a menu that is not only tasty and nutritionally sound but also implementable without ripping your hair out.
Best wishes to upcoming baby #4!
You have placed our kitchen to rights, I do the chopping and Val does the bossing.
We cooked for 7. In fact next Thursday we have 10 for lunch.
We always make more even though we cook for two. As soon as the extra is cool it goes into the deep freeze.
It will not get eaten for at least a week, by us. Sons keep coming in and it is handy to take a an extra meal out the the deep freeze
Great hub thank you
I found your hub to be just wonderful. It is well thought out and very user friendly. I'm new to the hub game so yours was the first one I saw that peaked my interest. Thanks so much. Good plan and good information. I'm going to try to follow your idea and make a plan for me. Thanks again and keep up the good work.
MrM, that's the spirit! Please tell Val that you are welcome in my kitchen any time, and would Val please come to help with the bossing.
Thank you so much for your comments, which show the purpose of this hub...planning is an individual affair, and one of the best things about planning is having extra when you need it.
Cheers to you!
Donnie, welcome to HubPages!
I am so glad that my hub is of interest to you. You are right on the mark: use this hub to make a plan that works for you.
Looking forward to seeing more of your hubs.
Best regards, ST.
Wow good diet plan.Even i am on dieting to loss excessive weight.....Will share my diet plan here on hubpages soon..http://www.tinyurl.com/5exfo6
I have problems with cooking. Maybe it's an excuse but I don't think I have the talent in cooking. If I were alone, I will buy ready meals and pop them into microwave. Otherwise, I will buy frozen pizzas or takeaways.
Raky, thank you for your comments. I look forward to seeing your diet plan here on HubPages.
myi4u, I still have problems with cooking, too! Sometimes it takes a long time to get good at it. Cooking meat still scares me. That's my biggest challenge, meat. So maybe you can try to be patient, learn one small thing about cooking at a time, and have fun with it. The very first meal I ever prepared for myself was a salad. I had been to Spain, had a salad I never had in my life before, came home and tried to duplicate it. What I made was pretty good, although it was not exactly the same as the one I had in Spain. That experience taught me a lesson. I can make things up and they can taste pretty good! However, not all experiences are this rewarding. Sometimes what I make is a big-time screw-up.
I dream that I go to the grocery store and buy ready meals and food pills (see my comment above about my good friend who would live on food pills). And those are nice dreams.
Thanks so much for your comment. You expressed my dreams so well!
Regards, ST.
What a terrific hub! Practical, informative, and stylish.
Thanks, bluerabbit. Your comment made me smile. My mother used to call ME practical, informative, and stylish. Maybe you really do write what you are? ROTFLMAO!
maybe you can soon make a hhub about prepariing meals for two..wink wink
funnebone, you crack me up. wink wink back atcha.
I did omit the romance and the wine and the candles part, didn't I? (Well, how romantic can you be when you cook for yourself, although there's a point worth investigating here.) Let's see what I can do for you. Hmmmm, how to sustain this plan for a week, adding the romantic flair, for a gentleman wooing a lady. (That's my old fashioned take.)
Who does the dishes?
"Who does the dishes?" Sally, you know the answer to that... the person who wants to sneak the last bites of goodness out of the cooking pot does the dishes!
I am, as always, uber-impressed by your organization, attention to detail, and passion for your subject. You are my inspiration. Love you!
annemaeve, that is exactly why I love it when you come to dinner...you do the dishes! Thank you so much for your sweet words. Love you more. ;)
I agree with annemaeve, every college student should learn this, so they will be ready to tackle the foods properly. Otherwise end up eating too much fast and frozen foods. Well done Sally.
Wise words, cgull. Not to mention the fact that planning becomes very easy and fun, especially if you are a young person who likes to play around with techie tools like PowerPoint, VISIO, Excel, or other drawing programs to make the chart. It's expressive! Thanks for your comment.
Wow, you are very ambitious. I'm married, so I do cook for my husband, but his biggest meal is lunch which I pack for him to take to work. He usually gets his own breakfast and for dinner I fix him a vegetable or salad with chicken, beef or turkey. Easy peasy. This is what I eat: Breakfast, spelt flour toast with raw honey and raw almond butter, piece of fruit. Lunch, piece of fruit and turkey sandwich on spelt bread. Dinner, huge salad with spinach and lots of raw vegetables. Not as interesting as your menu.
Karen, I LOVE your "easy peasy". Sounds like you and your husband are eating very well indeed. And you make a good point. Once you get into a routine that everybody's happy with, menu planning becomes a snap.
Rock on!
very nice hub, thumbs up here, I like the way you plan your menu out in advance, this does make things a lot simplar. Thank you for the kind words you left me as well. drummer boy
I love all your practical, easy to follow tips. I just got married, and my husband doesnt agree with me that eating cereal and milk or bread and cottage cheese qualifies as dinner. Although i can cook quite well, i simply dont have time at the end of the day. I like your planning ahead tips. Will try to implement!
Drummer boy, thanks for stopping by and leaving the good words.
Annette, I happen to like milk and cereal for dinner. In fact, it's a great end-of-day meal to have, especially if you've had a heavy lunch. Hope you find some of the tips useful!
Love the menu-building, Sally! I'm going to definitely try the matrix. Lucky my boyfriend isn't fussy about food, so wish me luck. Oh, and I'm going to give the Cinnamon Eggs a try. Sounds like a groovy dish -and I have no idea where that 'groovy' came from. LOL. Guess I just got too excited reading your hub :D
Sophie, excitement is good. I got excited seeing your profile pic with all the shoes. What a great photo. Me personally, I don't care about shoes on my feet, except if they are comfortable. However, I very much appreciate them as an art form.
About your boyfriend, lucky you. So suit yourself and he'll eat it. Sounds like a good partnership to me.
Groovy is good...shades of the 60s.
Thank you for your cool comments!
Read it. Now I'm hungry!
Nice hub
Hey Mark, it's a great compliment that you would feel hungry after reading this hub.
If worse comes to worse, and you don't feel like doing all this stuff, there's always 1-800-DEL-IVER (I hope that's not someone's phone number!).
Thanks for stopping by. Sally.
Cooking for oneself is surely a difficult task. One always feels lazy. But once we know there is also someone else to cook for, the task becomes easy. Anyways really a helpful hub. One thing more I am definitely gonna try your recipes. Thanks a lot.
You are so right about feeling lazy about cooking for yourself, and then someone shows up, and like magic you whip up a beautiful meal in no time and with ease. I think all of us have experienced that difference at one time or another. Company is good motivation. However, I do assure you that if you roast the chicken on this menu, you will be almost equally motivated to prepare at least two more meals for yourself alone from the leftovers, because they are so tasty!
Thank you for your comments, TheCynosure. Regards, ST.
Sally,
The way in which you've presented this article inspires me to work harder on my own hubs. The amount of planning and effort you've put in sets the benchmark for others, such as myself, to aspire to reach. Thank you for this hub.
terenceyap07, thank you so much for your positive comments about the structure of this hub. It is the most complicated hub I've written, and also the one I've most enjoyed putting together. Best regards, Sally.
Awesome tips Sally. I am ready to get started.
Thanks Dottie1! Have a lot of fun with this. It works for one, and with the smallest of changes, it works for many. Your fan, ST.
FANTASTIC! love this article
So glad you like it, Finance Chick 911. Cheers to you (toasting with a nice glass of wine). Please let us know how this plan works for you. ST.
Wow! Fabulous article. Add some simple recipes with no strange ingredients and you'll have a dynamite book.
bluerabbit, your comment cracked me up. You are so right. If I don't complicate things with lemon grass and kimchi, I just might have a best seller with the addition of a few more simple recipes. Simple cooking for good nutrition and planning how to do it don't have to be complicated.
Thanks so much for stopping by and giving me your good words and leaving me with a smile.
Sally
Wow, Sally - this is great! I can't believe I didn't see this sooner. I often cook just for myself, but I usually end up with so much, that I'm either eating it for a week, or it goes in the freezer, where I have to be really diligent to use it up.
Lately, I've been taking portions over to my neighbors, who just love me for that!!
Great work - so detailed and easy to follow. I'm going to print out and use it as one of my new planning tools. Thanks!! ;)
Pam
Pam, I'm so glad you liked this Hub.
There's a balance between cooking for storing and cooking for fresh.
One of my favorite recipes is something called Northern Italian Rice Salad. It's a fresh dish. And it only works when you make it in the gigunda proportions the recipe calls for. Plus, it contains fresh shrimp. So you see, it can't be stored for more than a day or two.
This is the dish I love to make for big parties, and I love to make it even more for good neighbors.
If you and I were neighbors, wouldn't our community love us to death???
Oh, Sally - how I WISH we were neighbors!! That's exactly what I'm talkin' about! I love fresh - and sometimes it means big portions - like soups and stews! Oh, please please, do a hub on your Northern Italian Rice Salad - it sounds wonderful!!
Your friend, Pam
Very thorough article! Love your charts and exhibits!
DarleneMarie, thank you so much for the compliment. Especially about the chart. You know, it's a funny thing, but I love making those kinds of visuals, putting things in order and color-coding them. Must have something to do with those paint-by-number projects that were so popular when I was a kid!
So glad you enjoyed.
Best regards, Sally
I, too, loved the chart, it obviously took time and it's very very helpful; you are GOOD! =))
Pam, since you left your last comment about the rice salad, I've done a little research. Although the recipe is quite old, I think it's still under copyright. So I'm checking that out.
Sally
Miss Marisue, I may be GOOD, but you are the BEST. I love your comments as well as your Hubs. They bring such richness to HubPages. And I think maybe I need to hire you to boost my Hub production!
Charts are helpful, especially for someone like me who learns better by seeing than by listening or reading.
All the best, Sally
I am drawn to color charts, as a teacher I used them and pretended it was for the kids. HA it was for me. I have a particularly "columned" report I do weekly, and as I complete certain sections, I highlight them in Excel, and it's so much easier to see if I've left something off or where to begin next. I love the chart you included here as it is so easy to read and you can enlarge it and print, which i did!! =) My price is right; for you, free!! straight from the heart!! =)) you have gotten my emails, right? I don't trust YAHOO. or yahooty as my aunt used to say way before the internet was thot of....lol
Marisue, your comment about pretending the color charts were for kids made me chuckle...there is something magical about putting color to dry stuff. Maybe it stems from a childhood longing for a fresh new box of crayons with all the tips nice and pointy. Only now we put the color on with a swipe of the mouse. Effective, but it doesn't smell or feel nearly as good.
And thanks for the reminder for others...just click on the chart above and it will appear in a new window in a much larger size. Suitable for printing and framing. :)
Cool thanks! I'm stoked to try this but my hubby is on a strict, Chicken tenders and taquitos diet. =) I'll try this for myself.
Great hub!
Thanks for the good words, Andromeda10. Maybe once hubby gets a whif of some of these delicious menu items he might try a bite or two of something different. In fact, I might just tell him he can't have any, that it's ALL MINE and I'm not going to share. Think that would work? :)
Thats a great idea! I always hate heating up leftover or eat fast food when I get out of work.
mayhmong, you are so right. When you get home from work, you don't want to be playing around with food, and you also don't want to eat stuff that's not good for you, as in fast food. This plan turns leftovers into great meals, without them looking like they are leftovers. Thanks so much for your comment.
Wow...amazing...I can see how much of effort has gone into this hub. And you must be a really good cook. I plan to try out that cinnamon eggs with noodles...sounds very unusual. I spend half the year on my own when hubby is away and just hate cooking for one. Will be taking some tips from this hub of yours.
Thanks for a wonderfully laid out one.
Thank you, dianacharles, for the kind words. I do like to cook, but I actually enjoy the planning part the best. My ideal kitchen would include an assistant to do all the shopping and cooking while I did all the planning and eating!
One of the secrets to enjoying cooking for one is to cook just one or two days a week, but cook as if you are throwing a dinner party. Pretend that a crowd's coming, just make sure you safely freeze and store all the leftovers. :)
What a wonderful hub. I'm going to share it with my ma in law, she barely cooks or eats when we are not there with her.
Cashmere, what a wonderful idea you just added to this Hub. And I'd like to take it a step further...this plan is something we can use to prepare meals for our loved ones who may not be able or motivated to cook for themselves. I would absolutely love it if someone came into my kitchen and prepared a week's worth of food for me!
Thanks so much for your great comment.
Awesome! I live by myself and I plan on cutting & pasting this to a word document to look over and detail. I sure can use the information, I get in a rut after awhile and can always use new ideas. Thanks
marlenebr, thanks so much for reading and commenting. I agree, it is so easy to get in a rut, especially when you live alone. Glad this is helpful.
Oh my gosh girl. This is an awesome hub. Thank you for sharing it!!!!
You are welcome, Jane. I hope the info here and in the companion "Five Tips" Hub helps you meet your challenge. And a challenge it is!
Great hub, Sally, but Saturday morning is my prep time. Sat and Sunday afternoons I'm glued to the tube watching golf tournaments! ;D
The important thing is that you do this kind of prep, too. Unfortunately, so many don't, no matter what day it is. psssst...lots of great dishes can go into the crock pot and sit there all day, happily cooking to the tune of golf with no intervention on your part. :)
Nice Hub. It is very different cooking for one, than it is for two or more. I know that when my daugther goes away for the summer, I tend to not take care of myself as much as I should as far as eating goes. I will skip meals and so forth which I know is a big no no..
Jenn, I know what you mean! When the structure demanded by having a child in the house changes, it's easy to let meal planning and cooking (even eating, as you say) go by the wayside. I think that's why it's so important to frame a meal plan for yourself with the foods you really, really like.
I love to cook, but cooking for one (or two now) has always been a challenge. Doing the prep work on Sunday is a great tip. I also purchased a food saver a year or so ago that has been a huge help, much less food wasted and I always have awesome lunches now!
It all sounds great! You eat much better than I did for the many years I lived alone. You created this hub 20 years to late for me. :| Years of eating mostly soup, pasta and steamed veggies. Now I find out it didn't have to be that way!
Ah, mulberry1, if you had lived with my mother when you were a kid, you'd have this ingrained in the brain matter, just like I do. So simple. Cereal, milk, and fruit for breakfast. Sandwich or yogurt and a salad for lunch. Carb, meat, green veg, salad for dinner, and then a snack (dessert or more cereal) if you want one. It's never too late!
Thanks so much for sharing your 20 years' food experience. But, hey, there's nothing wrong with soup (assuming there's protein in there), pasta, and steamed veggies...where's the fruit? :) It's never too late to make a little change. Instead of focusing on the specifics, focus on the groups, and I don't mean those that make up the current USDA food pyramid. That's a bunch of baloney. Shoot for 4 or 5 servings of fruits and veggies (some of one, some of another), some meat, fish, or fowl protein, some carbs, some dairy, and some sin (apple pie for me).
It's really easy to get hyped up about good fats/bad fats--good carbs/bad carbs--antioxidants, and bypass the things that are really important. All of this cutting-edge information is good, but when you stick to the basics and focus on fresh foods, daily eating becomes a joy, rather than a ho-hum experience, and a matter of good nutrition as well.
Thanks so much for your awesome comment.
Krissi, sorry I missed your comment when you made it two months ago. And now HubPages seems to have deleted it even though I accepted it. Thank you so much for bringing up the point that cooking for the week on one day (Sunday in my case) is a helpful way to approach meal planning.
BTW, your site is awesome and I wish you great success there.
What a useful and helpful hub. Both of us cook for husbands, friends and families (not all at the same time, at least not all of the time). However, there is information in your Hub that will be good for anybody who cooks. Will come back to this one.
Thanks.
2patricias, so glad you find this useful and helpful. Although I love to cook, I don't like being married daily to the chore, and this easy weekly menu means I get the big stuff out of the way on one day. One could certainly use this approach when cooking for any size family. The key is estimating the amount of food you need and then making sure you can either consume it soon enough or store it safely. Thanks so much for your always good words!
Thank you so much for this. I'm currently struggling with depression and not doing well at cooking - and it appears part of the problem has been making decisions about what to cook - so this has helped me immensely. All the meals I've had so far are amazing. Does anyone know of any similar weekly menus anywhere else?
Jacqui, thank you for leaving this most insightful comment. Sometimes, just facing a decision-making process makes it impossible to function. So, when the steps are laid out for us, we can at least get from point A to point B.
I am delighted that this menu has been both useful and appealing to you. I do not know of any similar weekly menus anywhere else, but perhaps my readers do.
Feel free to share your food preferences with me via the "Contact Sally's Trove" link above at the top right of the page. I'd be happy to work with you to create another weekly menu that offers choices other than chicken and liverwurst!
Great post!!! Any chance we can get some other weekly menus?
Carolyn, I'm glad you asked. I just added information to this article that shows you where to find another menu (see "More Easy Weekly Menus" above). Thanks for the good words!
What fantastic and complete information! Voted up and useful! Well-done! ;D
Thanks, Sally TX!
This is an awesome hub! I *LOVE* the color weekly menu you provide, primarily the breakfast and lunch planned for Sundays! Your tips for planning one person meals are priceless Sally's Trove. I will make sure my buddy JoAnna reads this! Great job here, up and awesome and useful.
Cheers~
K9
You are a woman after my own heart...I, too, love the breakfast and lunch planned for Sundays. Do nothing in the kitchen until you have to get to work! We all need a break.
Thanks so much for sharing with JoAnna.
HI,
About two Months ago 8 signed up to receive a selection of recipes periiodicly to be put in a Plastic box sent to me.
I have not heard anything since about your program.
Please contact me and give me an up date on the recipe plan.
Thank you, Betsue@USA.net
Hi Betty,
I think you may have me confused with someone else. I don't offer any sign-up, recipe plan, or program. I do hope you track those folks down!
Best wishes,
Sherri
FlyingPanther 3 years ago
Great work Sally.
I wish I could be in the kitchen to help you out with all of that what a great team we can be!!!!
Love always.
FlyingPanther