You are single and you might feel the pain within your heart. But the pain ultimately comes down to your stomach and then you understand the true consequence of being single. Food, more specifically, cooking and arranging for meals are the biggest issues faced by singles. Normally, singles do not prefer cooking for themselves and they find it very convenient to get meals from restaurants or a mess. Maggi 2-minute noodles comes as a "blessing" to these people as it is a quick solution to satisfy their hunger. But these poor eating habits can put your health at stake and the effects are observed in terms of weight gain or weight loss. Buying foods from outside on a daily basis also burns a hole in your pocket.
Here is how you can make cooking a fun activity with a little bit of preparation and proper planning:
Tips to Remember While Buying Perishables
- Avoid buying fruits and vegetables in the full ripen form because the shelf life of these perishable food items is very low. If you want the vegetables and the fruits to stay fresh for a longer period of time, consider buying the semi-ripen ones. The shelf life would be prolonged.
- Milk in tetra pack has longer shelf life and it is not very wise to buy in bulk quantities because you would face difficulties in the preservation. The problem creeps up to a greater intensity if you don't have a refrigerator to stock the perishable items.
- You should consider healthy snack options. Keep salad items handy so that you can readily munch on a carrot or a cucumber whenever you feel hungry. These are healthy snack options when you draw a comparison with ready-to-cook meals like maggi 2-minute noodles!
- You can have a wholesome breakfast with breakfast cereals. Stock oats and muesli in your kitchen cabinet. These healthy breakfast options have longer shelf lives.
Tips to Choose the Perfect Appliances and Cookware
You, being single, choose to go for the most important cookware and utensils only. So it is very important for you to make the right choices. Here's what you can do:
- Consider investing in a toaster. You can toast bread easily and it takes only a few minutes.
- Consider buying a hand mixer with a jar attachment. This would prove to be helpful in preparing purees, shakes, lassi and other beverages.
- Investment in a refrigerator is very important because you need to preserve the perishable food items. This would prevent spoilage.
- When you are thinking about buying cookware, go for a non-stick pan. You would need minimal amount of oil while cooking in non-stick pans. Washing would also be easier!
- You would need a pressure cooker for fast cooking. You would save time as well as fuel. It requires very little effort to cook Khichdi, daliya or rice in the pressure cooker.
- It is better to buy air-tight or Tupper Ware containers so that you can prevent the spoilage of food items.
Some Easy to Make Food Items
- Cereals, milk and fruits would form a delicious breakfast menu.
- You can also consider toasted bread seasoned with peanut butter/ low fat mayonnaise/jam as a quick fix. A simple sandwich prepared with butter, cucumber and tomato slices is also an easy-to-make option.
- Omelet and toasted bread are delicious, yet quick meal options. You can try out other egg recipes like scrambled eggs, sunny side up and poached eggs.
- Rice and plain pulses (dal) is also not a bad idea. But you can pamper your taste buds with vegetable pulav and kidney beans (rajma) or white gram (chhole) instead of plain rice and pulses (dal) respectively.
- Flattened rice (poha) and bread upma are also light and healthy snacks.
- You can enjoy the tastes of milkshakes, smoothies, fruit shakes and cold coffees.
- Salads are very easy to prepare and the typical items to be included are fruits, shredded veggies and sprouts. Oil, lemon or curd dressings go best with salads and can enhance the taste.
- The easiest way to fill your stomach is by including porridge in your diet. The category comprises of oats, finger millet (ragi), semolina (sooji/rava), and rice.
- Pasta or macaroni are delicious food options and you can club these items with veggies or cubed fruits. To enhance the taste, you can use tomato ketchup, mayonnaise and white sauce.
Cooking Tips to Keep in Mind
- You should make use of oil spray because it brings down oil consumption while preventing the storage areas from being greasy.
- All Indian recipes need some common spices like turmeric, salt, cumin seeds, garam masala, coriander powder, pepper and chilly. You should maintain a stock of these spices so that you can use whenever you need.
- You can buy the ready-to-eat food items and add veggies or cubed fruits. Typical examples would include biryani paste and paneer butter masala paste.
- If you don't have a mixer at home, you can opt for readymade ginger-garlic paste and tomato purees.
With these easy, yet healthy cooking and eating habits, you can bring your life in proper track. If you are working in a city which is not your hometown or if you have relocated to a different place for education purposes, then these tips would exactly suit your needs. Make life big while still being considered as single!
Thanks for great tips........