Cooking For One

Last night for dinner I made some of the best vegetables I've ever put in my mouth.  And a little steak, too.  Steak is pretty easy, I made a rub of paprika, salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano and a little chili powder and mixed it all together and seared it off in some butter until it was medium rare.

I like to buy fresh vegetables, but I tend to go overboard sometimes and they start to go bad before I can eat them...so I have to get creative.  That's how I came up with last night's mix.

Melt Your Face Off Veggies

Ingredients:

1 medium yellow squash

1/2 medium long sweet potato

1/2 small yellow onion

2 cups kale

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 cup beef broth

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Warm up oil in a shallow pot (or large skillet you can put a lid on) on medium heat.  Cut onion into pieces about a half an inch.  Slice sweet potato into round pieces between 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick, and then cut those in half.  Saute them with the garlic powder, salt, and pepper, in the oil until the onions become translucent.  While that is sauteing, slice the squash into rounds about 1/4 inch and throw them in the oil.  Let them cook for about 5 minutes, add a little more salt and pepper, and then pour the kale over the mixture.  I know it looks like a lot but it will cook down.  Add half of the beef broth, or about enough until the veggies are almost covered, and the Worcestershire sauce.  Cover and let cook for 15 minutes.  Uncover, add the rest of the beef broth and the soy sauce, cover and let cook for about 5 minutes.  Then turn the heat to high and boil out all of the water, reducing the beef broth until there is basically no liquid left.  Then eat!

I LOOOOVE black olives. The sliced ones are so much more expensive though. WHY?! It makes no sense!! My solution: buy the cans of whole pitted black olives. They are WAY cheaper (around $1) and they keep for a while. Just take out what you want and slice them if you want pieces. It takes 30 seconds. And you get to wear them on your fingers first!

One of my favorite dishes to make, but the recipe I had was meant to feed a damn army.  Lucky for you, I have scaled it down to make it the perfect size!  We will just put this on a bed of lettuce, since I'm trying to make less of myself, but feel free to dress with taco shells or something crunchy.

Shredded Chicken

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast

2/3 cup water

1/2 teaspoon: salt, oregano, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder

Pinch of pepper and cumin seeds

Instructions:

Place all items in a small pot.  Bring water to a boil, let boil for 3 minutes.  Reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes.  Check for an internal temp of 165 before eating.  If there is a lot of water left in the pot, raise heat back to boiling and boil the water out.  Shred with a fork.

For the salad, place on a bed of lettuce of your choosing - I am using kale, spinach and romaine just because that's what I have. Feel free to top with cheese (I am using Colby Jack because, YUM) and any other fun salad items (like black olives and tomatoes).

Enjoy!

Saturday mornings after a night of drinking means you will want a lot of food in the morning.  Or at least I do anyways.  Doesn't mean you have to have cereal!  This morning I made a Veggie Egg Bake.  Kinda like a quiche but without the crust.

Drinking: Coconut water

Veggie Egg Bake

Ingredients:

5 eggs

1/4 cup Mozzarella cheese

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 teaspoon garlic powder

.5 teaspoon basil

.5 teaspoon oregano

1 tablespoon

1/4 cup hash browns

Salt and pepper to taste

Veggies of your choice, I used the following: handful of spinach, handful of kale, 4 sliced grape tomatoes, 2 oz alfalfa sprouts, 2 oz mushrooms

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a pie dish with butter.  Line the bottom of the pie dish with the hash browns and precook them for about 15 - 20 minutes (you want them to be slightly browned).

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs together.  Next add the water and sour cream, whisk that together.  Add the garlic powder, oregano, basil, salt and pepper.  Then mix in your veggies, and cheese.  Stir everything together with a spoon so it is evenly coated with the egg mixture.  Mine looks like this:

When the hash browns are done pre-cooking, pour the egg mixture over them and bake the entire dish for 20 minutes.  You may wish to top with more cheese when finished.  When you're all done it will look like this!  NOMS!

Main course: Chicken stuffed with kale, spinach, cheese and wrapped in bacon

Side dish: Baked zucchini and squash

Drink: Silver tequila, lemon lime club soda, splash of lime

So, I decided I was going to watch my carbs since most of my meals consist of way-too-fucking-many, but I love cheese way too much to be paleo.  If you are, though, just don't use cheese.  This is aaaaalmost paleo.

Side Dish

We are going to make this first so we can pre-cook the bacon.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients: 

1 medium sized squash

1 medium to large sized succhini

Seasonings: Everglades Seasoning, salt, pepper, sesame seeds, dried chives, extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Slide zucchini and squash into little pieces, NO LARGER than 1/2 of an inch.  If you have a mandolin, great!  Use it.  If not then just use a knife.  Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.  If you only have large ones like me, line the whole thing but know that we are going to fold over the extra.  Spray the pan with cooking spray, just a little, so they don't stick to the bottom.  Lay the slices down long ways across the sheet, barely overlapping.  Once they are down, sprinkle with extra virgin olive oil.  If you don't have a drizzle bottle, just stick your thumb in the top and leave only a little bit out to drizzle on top.  Next, sprinkle salt, pepper, Everglades seasoning, sesame seeds and dried chives onto the zucchini and squash in that order.  Do not completely cover, you will want to be able to see the veggies - see the picture below for an idea.  If you've got a whole big pan, fold the unused half over and lightly cover.

Stick it in the oven until it looks like this (about 20 min, doesn't matter if it's preheated):

While that is cooking, lay bacon on the other side of the pan in aluminum foil, or in another pan that you will use later for the chicken.  Just stick it in there for a little while so it precooks and you don't get floppy gross bacon on your chicken - about 15 minutes.

Main Course

Ingredients: 

1 chicken breast

Handful of the following: spinach leaves, kale leaves, some kinda white cheese (I used shredded Mozzarella and Swiss Cheese slices)

2 slices of bacon

Garlic pepper, salt and pepper to taste

Toothpicks

Instructions:

Cut all the fat off that chicken.  It's gross.  Using anything but a butter knife because that will not work.  After you've cut the fat off, slice the chicken in the middle but not quite all the way through, and shimmy the knife CAREFULLY back and forth until you've made a little pocket.  Ta-da!  Easy stuffed chicken without banging it all flat and then rolling it up.

Now that you've made your cut - WASH YOUR HANDS.  Then grab the spinach, kale, and cheese.  You can use sliced cheese, shredded cheese, or both.  I used both because I'm a fatty and I love cheese.  Grab a handful of each.  Make one thin layer of cheese, then cram the spinach and kale in there.  I know it seems like too much, but that's okay we will secure it with toothpicks.  Throw some salt and pepper in there.  Then shove the rest of the cheese on top.  Note: if you are paleo, you can still do this, but substitute cheese for yellow mustard.  I know but it's good, trust me.  Sprinkle the top of the chicken generously with garlic powder.  

Open the oven - that bacon is starting to curl isn't it?  Go ahead and take it out.  Let it cool off some so you don't burn the shit out of yourself.  When it's cooled, lay it on top of the stuffed chicken.  Press those leaves back inside and use toothpicks to secure the bacon AND the chicken.  You may have to rip your bacon pieces in half.  Do this until the bacon has covered the chicken.  Stick it in the oven for 20 - 30 minutes.  When it's about done it should look like this:

Cook the chicken until the bacon is at desired crispiness.  The chicken will be cooked through, but if you see pink in there don't eat it!  No one wants salmonella! AKA 165 degree internal temperature.

Do you have crappy oven mits from The Dollar Store or Wal-Mart?  Have you ever tried to take something out of the oven with an oven mit after washing your hands?  NO?  Well let me save you the mystery - DON'T FUCKING DO IT.  If your oven mits are wet and you try to take something out of the oven, you might as well just grab that shit bare-handed.

Being in my 20 or 30 somethings and a woman, a lot of my friends are single, but none of them cook.  They always praise me for how good I am about cooking and they say they wish they knew how to just cook for one person.  Well you know what?  Now you can.

I will post on here what I am making for dinner, as well as some helpful tips for those of you who are, like me, forever alone and cooking for one.

Just so you know - I do not have a ton of disposable income.  I do not have nice plates.  I am lucky enough to have gotten a few Kitchenaid items for Christmas but the rest of from Wal-Mart or Ross.  So yes, you can do this at home.