What is this website & why am I doing it?
I was in a major, let’s call it cooking slump for five years, and went from having fun cooking for myself, trying new recipes, experimenting making up dishes, the whole works — to not even wanting to make a salad. I was a very good cook, but lost the motivation for it. I was eating poorly and knew that if I kept it up, it would start to damage my health.
Trying to get back to how I cooked in the past wasn’t working. I had spurts of buying a lot of great produce and fresh foods and then… looked in the refrigerator and felt overwhelmed with the thought of preparing it — I let it go to waste — felt guilty — and grabbed junk to eat. I didn’t need the guilt in my head or the junk in my body.
Finally, I realized that the switch needed to be in finding ways to greatly simplify my cooking and make it fun again. It sounds easy and a no-brainer, but this was a huge challenge for me. It’s not an either or situation. It’s not that either you cook full four course meals from scratch or you’re eating take out. I needed to find meals that were very fast, simple and easy to prepare for one — and delicious. Just because I’m not cooking more involved meals, doesn’t mean that I’m willing to give up flavor, or good nutrition. I don’t want to settle for frozen dinners or replace meals with popcorn. I was ready to make cooking fun again — just a different style of cooking!
I have been researching and focusing on this dilemma now for over two years and in the process, became very aware of the habits I had that were working and the ones that weren’t. I thought that when I solve this dilemma of how to better feed myself, I wanted to share it. It’s not only just finding some meals that work for you, it’s knowing how long those carrots are going to keep in your refrigerator; how to store food for it’s longest shelf life (one person doesn’t go through a bottle of canola oil very quickly); cooking methods that don’t dirty a lot of dishes, and on and on. Above all, the process of cooking needs to be enjoyable and the anticipation of cooking something you’re going to enjoy eating is the “carrot at the end of the stick.”
I am so excited to be at the point where I can start to share what I’ve learned!
You could be a latch key kid, a senior citizen, or anywhere in-between. Your situation may be completely different from mine, but I think many of the challenges we face in cooking for one are similar.
I decided to call this website Simple Single Servings, because that says it all for me. Simple — Single Servings!
If you want to eat foods that are —
Delicious
Simple to prepare
Nutritious
Single servings
— you’ve come to the right place!
Please visit often. I’ll be adding information regularly and I’d love to hear about what’s worked and what hasn’t worked for you.