Kedgeree bake

This assumes you've already made a lovely generous kedgeree, and have just defrosted (or pulled out the fridge) about 600ml of it. You're going to mix it up with cheese and egg, pop it in the oven to bake at 180 degrees, and serve it on baby spinach with a good dollop of yoghurt and some veg on the side. This serves between 2 and 4, depending on how hungry you are. Anything left over will reheat very nicely the next day and it's also tasty cold, so will do beautifully for lunch.

Moroccan stew *aka* Beef tagine

Rich, warming, heavy with lighter spice notes, definitely a winter dish - I discovered this recipe last winter, and over the summer dreamed of when the mists would be chill enough (and I well enough) to cook it again. It's one of those dishes that as soon as you discover it, you want to get people round and feed it to them all the time because everyone must taste this. WARNING: You need to spice-rub the meat the night before (or that morning) and it needs three hours in the oven, (after about 10-20 minutes prep time, depending how fast you chop). So if you're not at home in the afternoons, this is a weekend cook, but it makes masses (serves 8, I reckon). It's also part of the cooking-for-one week 2, so line up your 250ml tupperwares to receive! (It freezes like a dream.)

Bacon & blue cheese salad

One of my favourite lunches (and in the cooking-for-one week 2), and as always I'll make a big 'un and then it'll live happily in the fridge for a few days, sealed tight, and for a few days running I'll have fantastically yummy effort-free lunch. This version uses both red onion and spring onions - you can miss out one of them, but you need some onion factor to cut through the bacon and blue cheese.

The Patented Bacon-Pan Cleaning Marrow Method

This is brilliant. You will love me forever. And you will also never have to scrub to the point of ruination a pan in which you have had the audacity to fry bacon, apparently rending null and void all its purported non-stick properties!  Short version: scoop out the bacon and dump in some chopped marrow / courgettes, and leave it on to simmer. Pan is easy to clean PLUS you get a lovely bacony marrow/courgette side dish. WIN!

Wonderful tortilla collation

In this wonderful and magical world, which also happens to exist if you're following my cooking-for-one menu plans, you've already made a magnificent bolognese, and then converted some of that into chilli con carne, and saved a couple of tablespoons of that for tortilla. (You only need 1-2 tablespoons of it per tortilla, I know it sounds like nothing but trust me.) So this is really collation, more than cooking. The quantities here will make 2-3 tortillas. I can usually eat one or one and a half. Will usually eats two and the half I didn't eat.

Perfect Sunday roast for one

White haikus

Cream carpets, huge rooms.

I roam through sunlit stillness.

All this space, for me.

*

Butternut and apple soup

This is one of the cooking-for-one week-2 meals, though it feeds considerably more, depending on the size of your butternut and appetite. (This made enough for six.) I made this on Sunday evening, to eat on Monday, so it could cook while I did the roast.

When I lived in South Africa, butternuts were cheap as potatoes, if not cheaper; they've thankfully started to come down in price in the UK, so it's no longer a very expensive home taste. Many people feel the need to throw curry powder at every squash they see, which I don't like. I'm a massive curry fan, but a) there's no such thing as "curry powder" (or shouldn't be), and b) the butternut is plenty heavy enough already without being weighed down by the spice base-notes that "curry powder" tends to feature. In South Africa, I used to make butternut soup with one crisp apple (Granny Smith), the juice and zest of an orange, and milk instead of water. I discovered really, really tart cooking apples in England. Bramley apples are not tart: they're just floury. But tart apples... One morning, I bought a little bagful on the street from an elderly man , who was selling from his allotment, and walked onto teach, and tried to munch one of the apples. My mouth tried to turn inside out and all my saliva glands squirted at once. It was extraordinarily thrilling. I tried a few more mouthfuls, just to replicate the experience, but couldn't make it through the apple. When I got home, I tried making butternut soup with them, and they were the perfect clear-juice cut-through to the heaviness of the butternut. Perfect!

The generous kedgeree

I learnt to make this kedgeree from the Bhakti Yoga society at university (Hare Krishna society), who offered the magical combination of cooking lessons, a lunchtime meditation space, and free food. They also taught me the basics of cooking with spices: whole spices, then wet spices, then powdered spices. (I'm heading into story time here, so scroll down if you're just after the recipe.)

Menu plan ~ Cooking for one, Week 2

This menu plan assumes you've already done Week 1, so you have some of your meals cooked already. If you haven't, you probably want to start there! Also, you don't have to be cooking for one - if there are more in your household, just multiply by the relevant number. (If you're multiplying by more than 2, you'll need some pretty big pots, mind. Maybe don't make double of the kedgeree and Moroccan stew, as those make loads anyway - both serve at least 8.)

As before, the recipes are wheat-free (provided you buy corn tortilla wraps). This lot isn't veggie, though. The two new meat-based meals are roasted chicken pieces and a Moroccan stew - not sure how those would convert to veggie. If you have any ideas, let me know & I'll put up the alternatives.

Cottage pie

This one's a magical collation - if you're coming from the cooking-for-one meal plan, you already have your magnificent bolognese and a handy portion of mash.

Kirsten's chickpea salad

This one came from Kirsten, in the fabulous shared house on Hythe Bridge Street - for a salad, it doesn't need a huge amount of fresh stuff in the fridge, which is very handy. Again, a pic-free post to get it up for the cooking-for-one meal plan. For now, you will have to imagine it: bright greens, whites, and blacks, with the subtle warmth of chickpeas.

Cottage soup

This is the first soup I learnt to make, when I was 18 years old and living in the nineteenth century, in a wonderful sprawling house in Cheltenham, with the sudden responsibility of running a household and caring for two women - one a temporary invalid, the other just very elderly.  I loved it. I spent almost all my time cooking, I had an apron, we had tea at precisely four o'clock every day and I'd very politely bellow "Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?" at my elderly charge, and all the lamps in the room would be lit, like Arabian nights. The grandfather clock in the upstairs hall gonged the hours. In the afternoons, over the washing up, I sang "Don't go chasing waterfalls..." and occasionally entertained the vicar. You'll hear more about that house, and that time, but for now, the soup.

Beautiful soothing ratatouille

Another regrettably photo-free post (for now) - I'll add one with photos, but want to get it up so very dear friends following the lovingly hand-crafted cooking-for-one menu plan have the recipes! I find it hard to believe that in all the ratatouilles I've made, admired, rejoiced over, I haven't actually photographed them, but maybe that's also the space they occupy. Slow, private, healthful, retreating, high-sensitivity retreat space. From an exhaustion of high-octane over-stimulation, ladle out a bowlful of warm red-green ratatouille, all the flavours perfectly and gently combined, and soothe...

Collating chilli con carne

This is one of the uses for the magnificent bolognese cascade and also one of the steps on the cooking-for-one meal plan. Once you've got your bolognese, the rest of it is really just heating and collating.

Quick 'n dirty frittata

Rapid-fire summary: This is not authentic and Spanish.  It is great, and quick.  Fry onions or not, cooked potatoes if they’re around, fresh chilli or garlic if you will, any available vegetables, and pour over whisked egg.  When it’s almost cooked through, grate cheese on top and stick it under the grill to finish off.  Summer veg – peppers, courgettes, baby spinach – work beautifully.  Served on a bed of baby spinach, it’s gorgeous.  It’s also tasty cold.

Sausage & mash

Another bare-bones post in great haste, to be replaced with a langourous photo-rich post when possible, for people who need the cooking for one menu plan recipes.

Total cooking time: 30-40 minutes
Feeds: 2-3, if you're 1 person you're going to freeze some of it

Big Greek Salad

This is a post in great haste, as actual Real Live People are doing the cooking-for-one menu week plan and need their recipe instructions! I'll replace it with a more photogenic post next time I make a Greek salad.

A big salad can last three days - four if you push it - if you treat it right. That's brilliant because for two or three days lunch is just whipping out Here's One I Made Earlier! This is how to treat it right:

Menu plan ~ Cooking for one, Week 1

A week's cooking plan, with shopping list, so you eat healthy homemade food all week and only cook once a day, and have half of next week's food cooked.