If you live alone, do you bother to cook/eat properly?

[Saxalt]

And if so, can I ask what sort of meals you cook?

For the first time in 30 years I've started living on my own this year. I'm struggling to bother cooking properly - even easy stuff. I'd quite happily live off sandwiches or cereal or whatever my current obsession is (at the minute, pistachios and frozen Greek yogurt). But there comes a time (sadly) when you have to be sensible ...

Also, and I don't know how to explain this properly, but I don't feel like I live in the house or use it in the same way as I did when I had family living with me. Things like I won't bother lighting a candle because it's "only me", or putting the tv on because it's "only me". One of my dc came to stay recently and it struck me how he used the house as a home much more than I ever do.

I know I haven't explained that very well or articulated what I mean, but I don't know how to express it!

This is another good inspiration
One pot one portion meals

www.instagram.com/eleanorgwilkinson?igsh=N3JxNXptb2sxMHYw

I sometimes batch cook curry or stir fry then I use it as a lunch or ready meal for next couple of days .

Please do enjoy your house with candles etc even if just you!

One of the things on my grand plan for the summer holidays (teacher here) was to cook nice things for the freezer. I had been really wanting to cook a chicken to make curries etc but couldn’t be arsed. Finally plucked up the energy and motivation. Got a nice large chicken and roasted it. It was at night so I popped it in the garden to cool for a couple of hours - loosely wrapped in foil on a plate and a metal tray. I did scarf all its skin and one wing as couldn’t resist!

I went out a bit later to find it on the ground and SOMETHING had eaten huge chunks off it! I didn’t hear a thing ☹️☹️☹️ Plate was unbroken. So DDog got chicken every meal for over a week and he was very happy… me, rather pissed off and back to lazy and unmotivated!

I have lived alone and I never felt that way. I still enjoyed cooking, eating, making a nice environment to be at home in etc. I like my own company though and have never felt 'just me', more 'thank God it's only me!'

My MIL lives alone and constantly talks about it - every other sentence starts with 'now I'm on my own...' or 'I wouldn't bother for just me.'

I've no problem with different strokes for different folks but when it borders on 'oh just little old me' territory I think it's time to reassess! (Not saying that's you btw).

I tend to eat a lot of eggs - scrambled, fried, omelette. Quick and reasonably healthy.

I eat porridge almost everyday and cook it the night before. Or I prepare overnight oats.

Get a Gousto/ Hello Fresh box delivered with the amount for three meals per week. Have half for dinner, and half heated up for lunch or dinner the next day. It’s a fun way of cooking new things, that are generally v quick and easy, and you won’t have any food waste.

I used green chef on discount which helped me get.back into cooking better meals.

I raid M&S when stuff is on offer, today they had haddock for £1.21, sweetcorn, beans medley for £0.89p and i had their baby leaf salad already so that was my dinner sorted lol easy fish in air fryer, veg in microwave.

I get you Saxalt

After 20 years of being a single parent working fulltime, my two both ‘left’ home the same summer- I was bereft and kept their bedroom doors shut for a month and still thought I could hear them upstairs. My youngest left to go to Uni and my eldest a month before moved in with partner.

I struggled to function normally in the empty house for a long time and still do at times, but a lot of that is not worrying what the house looks like, not worrying about having to cook for anyone else etc. Also my elderly mum a few months after was diagnosed with cancer and that has been a constant worry and struggle and we are near at the end.

I intend when that phase of life finishes to seriously get my shit together, look after myself better, grab life opportunities instead of getting home from work and falling into my post menopausal slump of depression and exhaustion.

it will need a mindset change on my part and effort.

everything will be worth it to not just exist in a state like this though!

best wishes OP

I like food. So I will often dream up something that I can cook myself, so that maybe once every month I have something wonderful, but that seems to take all my creative mojo and from then on it's fairly basic stuff. Salmon and veg, steak and veg, lots of salads, beans on toast, that sort of thing. I tend to invite people round for Sunday lunch so I have lots of roast left overs to eat. But then I love cooking and baking, so if I've got time I will cook.

I don’t live alone but my DP works abroad a lot. When he’s here we do tend to batch cook a bit for ease, so I will eat things from the freezer, but also a lot of M&S things. He’s in Peru this week and next. This week I have had:

Monday - gnocchi and pesto with peas
Tuesday - jacket potato with tuna, salad and coleslaw
Wednesday - chilli from the freezer with microwave rice
Thursday - chicken breast, salad, jacket potato
Friday - M&S veggie lasagne with salad and garlic bread
Today - was out for lunch, so dinner was avocado toast with a poached egg

I eat a lot of bagged salad and frozen veg. I really enjoy cooking and am a pretty good cook, but I don’t like cooking for just me, I’m too lazy. I also tend to eat on my lap on the sofa if I am by myself instead of at the table.

If I don't watch what I eat in turns into a carb and sugar fest and over time this makes me lethargic plus gain weight. That's my necessity for doing it really.

I also try and make it a routine as that helps I.e. I have Tesco Saver Click and Collect. As long as I spend £25 a week which I do.

I keep it pretty simple by eating a lot of the same things - overnight oats and eggs on toast are my go to breakfasts. Lunches are either leftovers, a wrap on nice bread, or a protein/carb salad bowl. Maybe a homemade soup if I've batch cooked one.

Dinners I do a lot of one dish bakes, stir-fry, or something I've batchcooked like a bean stew or bolognaise. Sometimes pasta. Not averse to beans on toast occasionally. I usually roast a whole chicken on a sunday and that sees me through the week.

I work full time so don't have a lot of time for meal planning.

It’s a common issue.,

I think you need to separate whether you are worth caring for (yes you are) from whether you can be arsed to cook (very possibly no you can’t).

If you don’t want to cook, you can eat well from assembly type meals, delis, and some decent quality ready meals. Nowt wrong with that.

Light a bloody candle though, if you want one.

I’m often alone because DH works away. I try to make sure I get in some fruit and veg each day, but other than that, I don’t cook anything like as enthusiastically as I used to when the family still lived at home.

I make a batch of homemade coleslaw about twice a week - lots of red cabbage and carrot- hardly any mayo, and I have a heap of that with everything, plus cucumber, peppers, radish etc. Meals can then be really simple- omelette, baked potato, or a bit of fish or chicken- all done in the air fryer.

Breakfast is frozen berries, a banana, Kefir and oat milk whizzed up in a nutri bullet.

I rarely use the oven- only when I have visitors these days. I just make sure I have something to stick in the air fryer, to go with my coleslaw and bits 😁.

I batch cook. That way all I have to do is defrost something out the freezer and it doesn’t take long to heat through. This is way it means I don’t have to put lots of effort in to cooking after work but still get a decent meal.

I batch cook. Doing lots of salads just now. I like a roast, so will do that and have leftovers - I slso for stock from a chicken carcass.

Need to eat some stuff from the freezer to make space...

cream crackers (gasp) with peanut butter and marmite (not on the same cracker...)

Do it, @WrigglyDonCat - it's like dry roasted peanuts, Marmite and peanut butter together.

I cook differently when it's just for myself. I rarely bother to do the full meat-and-two-veg thing. Instead, I'll just have veg and a bit of carb sometimes, or a portion of chicken wings for dinner. Misogynist soup with lots of different veg for breakfast. Grain bowls.
Not all of it is cooking quite from scratch. I'll use pre prepared things - a tin of chili beans or some frozen sliced gyros meats - but add other ingredients: lots of extra onion and whatever extra veg fit. I'll take some extra spicy Korean Ramen noodles but only use half the noodles, add cubed bell.pepper and courgette and poach an egg in the broth as well.

I am such a foodie and always loved cooking. When I was a student I lived in a house share and would always solo cook for myself. Then I met ex DP and I took up the sole job of cooking for us. We’d eat 3 course meals multiple times a week.

We broke up and he moved out and I don’t think I cooked for a year. The best was probably pasta and pesto if I was lucky. I just could not be arsed and I didn’t see the point in putting in the effort for just me. When I did eat it would be at ridiculous times like 11:30pm when I finally dragged myself to the kitchen because I couldn’t ignore being hungry any longer. I didn’t even order takeout because a takeaway for one felt pointless (I always ate takeaway for one before ex DP!). I found myself sat in silence because I couldn’t be bothered to turn the TV on because it was me. I felt like I was just existing in the house.

I live with new DP now and I do all the cooking again. I don’t know why we don’t think we deserve things like proper meals and a film night just for ourselves. I think it’s easy to neglect the little things sometimes.

Yes I cook for myself… sometimes I prefer it as I can make things exactly as I like them!

I tend to make things like curry, chilli, spag bol, fajhitas, jambalaya, orange chicken, meatballs, pasta bake etc etc etc… and will always batch cook. Sometimes freeze a portion, sometimes have it the next day. It means I fully cook about three times a week, but have a fresh, home cooked meal every night.

I hope you start lighting your candles and things again soon, and start to find the joy from those little things. Soon hopefully you’ll start to love having the place to yourself. Good luck!

I am trying to avoid upfs so I cook a big slow cooker and then flavour it different ways through the week. Also make bread to avoid upfs. Don't have crisps biscuits in the house.

Agree about the candles. I also feel abit 'stiff' in an odd way when alone for several weeks. Having a pet helps so not really lonely.

I’m loving the responses as they are giving me great ideas.

I really relate to your post OP, and to be honest I go through long phases of living on cereal, toast, pesto pasta and takeaway. I have never enjoyed cooking, it’s never something I look forward to so it’s hard to keep up a routine of doing it when I technically don’t have to (ie. There are no kids going hungry if I don’t). As I get older I really need to reason with myself that I need to do it for my health. I hate the thought of suffering some bad effects of a poor diet, especially when I get older and it’s harder/too late to change.

My late DH did all the cooking, and all from scratch. I could and can cook, but didn't find the daily grind interesting, whereas he found it relaxing. After he died, I picked up from where he left off and make proper meals. DD was amazed to find I'm a good cook, she really thought I couldn't. I do everything bar roast and veg - Indian, Chinese, Japanese, chilli, salads. Very few UPFs.

Now I'm older, I pay closer attention to protein in meals. I don't like cakes and biscuits so that bit's easy.

I maintain the veggie beds he started, so plenty of fresh salad greens.

I can imagine what the OP means by the house not being lived in in the same way, though It's not a feeling I've had. I did lots of renovations after DH died, all ones we would have done in time - he was always planing holidays and fuck the renos.

I should take more holidays.

I used to batch cook meals and freeze them. Oh and got a dishwasher. As the combo of living on my own and having to do the dishes made it so I doubly couldn't be arsed cooking.
Another thing I did was get a steamer and slow cooker. Steamer for quick things like veggies and fish, slow cooker again for batch cooking. Used to prep before work and leave it on low. Was ready when I come home from work when I was more likely to be in a can't be arsed cooking mode.

A small slow cooker works for me - I throw things in, go to work, come home - its ready - very low effort for the reward of a lovely home cooked meal. I just made a beef stroganoff yesterday and have enough left to freeze a few portions.
My airfryer also sees some action. I think you need to change your mind set a little - invest in yourself, you are worth looking after.

I don't live alone but recently DH took the two teen boys away for a family stag weekend and I found myself not cooking to the same standards and thinking along the lines of "it's only me". I did think then that if I were ever on my own I'd need to be more careful to cook for myself as carefully as I usually do.