On cooking

[robbat2]

I enjoy eating spicy food. The full gamut of spicy - from mexican to thai, and all the way in between.
Since I've moved away from my parents, I've been doing 90% of the food preparation (of the remaining 10% it's been more going out than Marissa cooking). That in itself however is not my problem, it's just that the real problem is more noticable because of how often I cook.

At least once a week, I try to cook something with a kick to it. However whenever I've been on my own, cooking spicy stuff for one has turned out to be on the edge of too spicy. On this front, I've got 3 things of leftover spicy food in the freezer - chilli-cilantro beef; lamb tandori; and tonight's thai green curry (beef).

Cooking for one has also been challenging, in that it's significently easier to get the quanties right with larger groups - to cook for one, you need smaller quantities of everything, and it just doesn't work right. Can anybody suggest tricks or tips on this?

Regardless of how many I'm cooking for, I find it takes 1-2 hours to prepare and eat most meals. How do resturants manage to get their prep time down so much (besides having the vegetables ready to throw in).

Hints? Tips? Recipies with quantities for a single person?

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

If I'm cooking for one, it just means two or three portions (sometimes more) go into the refrigerator or freezer, usually the refrigerator. This, in turn, means my cooking time the next day is cut down to a couple of minutes reheating time. But even setting that aside, an hour or two to cook and eat isn't unreasonable. 45 minutes used to be a typical total meal prep time, followed by 30 minutes to eat without bolting it down like a starving wolf.

Of course, I haven't cooked for one in a long time now.