Why not eat it for one night and freeze the rest? I don't live alone, but there are only two of us and something like stew makes several meals worth (especially since I make big batches). So I usually keep enough for one, two, or three meals depending on what the next few days look like, then freeze in one meal packages (two helpings).

Not only can you have something else tonight, but on a night you don't want or have time to cook, thawing that stew is easy!

Ann

I'm with An. I love freezing my planned over. We are 2 but I usually make bigger recipes and freeze another meal even if I keep some out for the next night.

My first thought was the freezer too. Treat yourself to some great meals next week!

Actually my first thought was "I would love some of that stew!"

I hear ya Linda! I do freeze like others mentioned. My challenge is produce...if I buy for the week it seems like something comes up and I don't get through it all before it goes bad. Desserts never seem to be a challenge though...LOL!

David

Linda, I don't know how long you've been living alone, but I did for over 10 years. There is an art to living alone and eating (your own cooking) well. It takes practice and forethought.

The freezer is definitely your friend, for starters. Spag sauce, stews, soups, sauces...all great to have on hand for those nights when you just aren't inspired to cook for yourself.

I became adept at turning leftovers into new dishes. It just takes a bit of thought and imagination. I hate eating the same thing two or three nights in a week, so I learned to change it.

Some leftover spaghetti sauce?? Thin it with beef stock and add some beans and greens...instant Minestrone! Craving roast beef, but don't want to eat 3 pounds of it?? Go ahead, have roast beef one night. Make stir fries, sandwiches and soups with leftovers...I would make extra gravy and freeze a few meal-sized packets of beef & gravy as well.

Soup is a single person's friend. Almost anything can be made into soup, and soup freezes well.

A case in point...your stew...Some beef chunks would likely make good sandwiches, cold or hot. Some chunks of meat and veggies with some beans and hot sauce or enchilada sauce wrapped in a tortilla would be good. Dice some of the beef and veggies, thin the gravy a bit, and you have a soup that you can eat this week, or freeze for when you are interested. Zip lock bags are wonderful for freezing meal sized portions.

I agree with all--the freezer is the saviour. I buy locally raised pastured poultry--big birds, and when I roast one, I eat on it for two nights--usually separated by some other meal in between. Then I freeze the breasts and make stock from the carcass. The breast meat comes out later as fajitas, stirfry, chicken salad, etc. Same with meat loaf--eat for two nights separated by something else, cut the remainder in two, and freeze. Several weeks later, a meat loaf dinner and then enough for a sandwich or two. Same treatment for roasts.

It's very doable, and if you put dates on the stuff in the freezer, you can be sure of using things in a timely manner--and having lots of quick meals.

I hear you Linda, I live alone too. In some ways I'm lucky, my Mother wasn't a great cook and as a kid I preferred eating the same things I liked over and over vs. some of her cooking. In other ways thats bad because my palate, even on the other side of middle aged, prefers that processed food taste though I try to stay away. So I do eat things for 3 meals in a row all the time - though I must say its starting to wear even on me.
The freezer suggestion is of course the answer. But am I the only one that just doesn't seem to like to defrost and eat frozen foods? I've had some chili in there for close to a year - I think about pulling it out all the time but.....its not a taste thing, its a mental thing. So the freezer doesn't work all that well for me and besides my freezer is actually pretty small. And I do have problems with produce too.
I think the best solution would be to share back and forth between other singles, split produce etc. but I haven't found anyone to that with regularly.

I utilize the freezer and vacuum-seal foods in one and two serving amounts ALL the time - that way I can use leftovers for lunches for myself at home, or brown-bag lunches for hubby at work, or for another meal on another night (cook once - eat many times...). I also stick to whole foods.

The salad bar at the grocery store is your friend for produce you don't need in large quantities. I use the salad bar fixings to use for pizza toppings, salads, ingredients (only need 1/4 c. green onions, a few sliced mushrooms or bell peppers, use the ones at the salad bar).

Even with two of us, there's still more than enough food from most recipes for more meals than just one, but we never eat the same thing in the same form two days in a row. The only freezer I have is the refrigerator/freezer and it's utilized for a wide variety of heat-and-eat meals.

I also re-purpose leftovers. Chili for one meal and then frozen in single servings can then be used for a topping on a baked potato another meal, or made into a taco salad yet another - not just chili soup. Roast beef is portioned and used for sandwich meat, bbq beef, slices for another meal...

I divide most recipes into smaller amounts so we're not overwhelmed with a large quantity of anything. I have learned to scale casseroles for two in small 4-1/2x7x1-inch pasta dishes.

Homemade breads are wrapped in pop-up foil sheets to be reheated in the toaster oven later - 2 pieces of cornbread, 2 dinner rolls, 2 muffins, 2 slices of Dill Bread (normally used for a grilled sandwich), etc. Burger and hot dog buns, pecan cinnamon rolls, English Muffins, etc., are wrapped individually.

I base our weekly meal plan on simple, whole foods, not complicated recipes that feed 6 or more.

Monday - BIG meal - something that provides for lunches and leftovers - roast beef, roast chicken, etc...

Tuesday - Leftovers from Monday

Wednesday - Stir-fry - which may include chopped veggies used on Monday or Tuesday, as well as meat from the previous two days, or chopped bits of meat from the freezer.

Thursday - International (we often have Mexican or Italian meals) I boil 70-strands of pasta and use 1 cup of frozen spaghetti sauce for 2-servings of spaghetti. Because I freeze the spaghetti sauce in portions, I only make it a few times a year. Taco meat (which can be from ground beef, shredded chicken or beef) is frozen in serving sizes and can be made into tacos, sanchos, tostados, quesadillas, taco salad...

Friday - Vegetarian (good way to clean out the refrigerator crisper drawer)

Saturday - Soup and/or Sandwich

Sunday - Homemade Pizza or a hearty salad

-Grainlady

Thanks for the ideas...I do have a freezer full of little dabs of this and that...a single stuffed pepper, individually wrapped steaks and burgers and chicken breasts.
But, there was no indiviaual pices of meat in thiss tew...it all more or less fell apart, it's chuck...and I don't like leftover potatoes...
I could add a can of rotel and remove the potato and call it something to put over rice...but that would make at least 2 servings of that!
And I have a freezer full of soup....about 10 containers of about a quart each.
Yeah...I do toss a lot of greens!
Linda C
But there's still one serving left!

Cook less food? I know that sounds obvious and stupid, but it's one of the challenges I have even though I cook for more than one. My problem is that if I cook enough to figure on leftovers, we just eat more than we should and then there's not enough available the next time. I have a thing about reheating several different dishes and just pick and choose - not a fan. As a result, that which I don't end up throwing out a few days later gets frozen and thrown out a few months later.

I lived alone for 13 years. Since I don't like most things leftover I cut my recipes way back. If it was something I didn't mind leftover I would freeze a portion. I also gave a lot to my friends or had them over to eat with me.

Do you have a "singleton" friend? Trade off leftovers! If she/he has too much of one dish, and you are over-supplied with another, you both win when you swap a meal or two. It also works if you freeze and then swap (just be sure to label everything--mystery meat is best left to college days). The same with produce that you can't eat up before it goes a bit off--three oranges are better than a bag of a dozen!

I live alone about half of the time, because DH travels a lot for business (week-long trips normally). It's not the same as living alone all of the time, and so I do cook for 2 and plan leftovers etc...but when he's gone, my dinners are some kind of meat or fish (a pork chop, a chicken breast, chicken thighs, small steak, stuffed sole, scallops, swordfish...) a starch (rice pilaf, pasta, baked potato, baked sweet potato, winter squash) and veggies (steamed broccoli, carrots, cauliflower; sauted spinach; sauted broccolini, roasted or steamed asparagus; stirfried veggies, etc). Or a big salad with a side of grilled meat or fish. A jar of chutney, some cheese & crackers, some olives with a glass of wine before a light meal makes me feel like I'm treating myself.

I save the more combinatory recipes for when he's home or when we have company. I like to eat. I like to cook. But I don't cook anything complex for myself alone. I understand your complaint and dilemma.

seagrass

You could do I what I do (not that I recommend it). I have something different every night of the week. I cook, put the leftovers in the fridge, and don't touch them again until I can't tell what they were to begin with. Then they go in the trash. I NEVER have to eat the same thing over again. Works great!

Hopefully my new vacuum sealer will help me save some waste.

I think the vacuum sealer is the only way to freeze things and ever want to eat them again. Seriously, I've pulled stuff out of the freezer one year later, and it tastes as fresh as the day I made it.

The easiest way to deal with left-overs for us is to package them in one-two servings, so there aren't any leftovers once the package comes out of the freezer. I do a lot of ''banking'' of meals just for the freezer for the times I don't want to cook. Dibs and dabs hardly ever get used for me, so freezing food that way doesn't work in my household. Instead, I find I'll use it if it's more a complete meal, which is ready to defrost and reheat, or even go from the freezer into the oven. (I start those meals from a cold oven and use a pyrex type of glass dish. Actually it's all Fire King to be more specific, but they work great in this instance. I freeze, then vacuum seal the whole thing, dish and all. I have many, just for this purpose.)

I always try to have an ''intention'' for things I freeze; marking the package for its intended purpose, so I won't have to figure it out. I also mark temperature and time, so it's easy to deal with.

No matter what you think about vacuum sealing (too expensive, too much trouble, etc.), it's the one appliance that gets the most use in my kitchen, and Paid For Itself the first month I used it. I think they are tailor-made for small households. No more stale chips (ever), and lettuce fresh from the garden lasts two weeks. I bought the last one at Tuesday Morning for fifty bucks, and can tell you I don't throw any food out any more. You do have to leave it out in order to use it conveniently though.

Well I was invited out for supper......so that stew will sit another day....
I sure hope she doesn'ts erve beef stew!
Linda C

Linda, with only two here, I have the same problem. Get a FoodSaver and freeze, send some to the neighbors. Some else mentioned the trading and it works! I started with another couple so now every so often, when I make too much, I call her. She has started returning my containers filled with her good meals.

David, buy some of the Debbie Meyer Green Bags. Truly, they work! I am making a salad of red leaf tonight that i bought 9 days ago. Still perfect.

And Linda, you could always drive east and drop off the leftovers at my house....

Alone most of my life. Lucky for me I like leftovers.

Rather then have supper have a scotch. About the third scotch you will reheat that stew and chow like it was brand new!

Then there is theme and variation. Put the stew in the fridge and have something else. Tomorrow or the next day that stew will be okay again. Maybe you could bake it in a pie shell and trick yourself into thinking it stew in a pie shell?

Two bowls of turkey chili left yet... mmm good. Boiled the pot yesterday so it wouldn't go bad before I got to it.

Lunch for work always makes leftovers go away for me. Something about packing it in a bag and only having 20 minutes to eat it makes it delicious.

: )
lyra

Peppi, I need to get my hands on some of those bags. I've read about them here for years but still don't have any....that and one of those vacuum sealers. I'm asking Santa...

David

I apologize as I have not read the entire thread yet but I hear ya Linda (through my Mom). She is exactly the same way as far as living alone. She wants different tastes and eat exciting food but if she were to do that, it would be too much and she would be eating it for days. She wants it just for one night.

On top of that, she is NOT a fan of frozen food. I have tried and tried to cook things with her that can be frozen quite well and put into individual portions, but she is not happy with that. She likes FRESH. She was born and raised on a farm and my brother and I were raised that way also through her. When she buys a steak, she wants to cook it that night. She does not want to buy a steak and put it in the freezer. I LMAO over this because she was raised on a farm and is this way. She says she is spoiled now (and she is because we have incredible grocery stores with everything here) but still...

I understand where she is coming from. She doesn't like eating alone. I'm no help I know, but I do understand what you are talking about. I need to get you and my Mom together because you are both great cooks! You'd have a blast together.