How do empty nesters deal with over cooking?
So, kids are gone, ex and I are no longer together (hence ex i guess lol) and I still find I over cook, I try to use less but it seems if I cook much more than a box of macaroni its too much. Sure I save leftovers, but one can only eat so much leftovers.
How have you dealt with over cooking? Or maybe I'm the only one?
I'm not an empty nester but due to food allergies my wife and I eat different things. I find a good kitchen scale to be a hard requirement. Just take your recipe and scale it down. For pasta, I weigh the entire box, divide by four, weigh out and cook that fourth.
I think you have just single handedly solved world hunger with your pasta weighing method
All credit goes to that dude in the Bible that managed to feed everyone with a single fish, loaf of bread and jug of wine. Not a lot of people realize that Jesus invented hors d'oeuvres. Holy tapas!
I had a pasta box that once said "get a handful of noodles. If it's this big, that's X many people" with a bunch of circles on the back of the box. and I just memorized how it felt in my hand.
Freeze leftovers. If food is too much, put 1-2 meals in a freezer-ready container, put it away. Eat it a few weeks/months later when you’re too lazy to cook.
Measure ingredient amounts. Usually, I don’t bother, but if I don’t want leftovers, it’s necessary.
Some dishes freeze well, so those leftovers can be turned into future meal prep. I liked freezing my chili in silicone muffin tins, then one or two thawed chili pucks was a perfect last-minute meal when I didn't feel like cooking.
I don't really consider food I cook to be leftovers. It's just prepping ahead. That means I don't have to cook tomorrow.
Call it whatever you want, but you can still only eat the same thing for so many meals in a row. Like, after I have had something three times in the same week, I'm not even even enjoying it anymore. Freezing it so I can eat it later when I'm not bored of the flavor is great, but not everything is good after being frozen.
Buy and make smaller portions? Start trading around leftovers with neighbors and friends?
I have been making smaller portions for sure, but giving the leftovers away is a good idea
I like the sharing because it's a good way to keep up social relations with others. "Hey I got some extra food, can I drop off some for you and we'll catch up for a bit?" Plus people will return the favor and drop by with free food.
I had to work on this issue. I used to massively overcook. My house was always the place people just showed up. I had two kids, friends, family, so I was constantly ready to feed an army. Now one is out of the house, the other isn’t home most of the time and husband works evenings. We don’t have company like we used to before Covid, so unannounced guests happen rarely.
I have to be conscious at all times about what I’m cooking. First I had to admit that my perception of how much food I needed was just wrong and could not be trusted. I started using recipes - even for things I know how to make- purely to reference serving sizes. And when all else failed, however much I felt I needed to make, I’d just make half of that
It took some practice but now I make reasonable sized meals and have few leftovers.
Cook less.
Orrrr
Cook more. Just cook for a weeks worth of food and freeze the left overs.
Smaller pans may help because it forces you to cook smaller amounts.
Another possible thing to try is to cook 1 pot dishes
That's what the freezer is for. I still cook for four, because most ingredients are packed in a way that favors making a meal for four people, but that just means there are two helpings that can get into the freezer for another day.
Lunch the next day. I fail to see the problem. It’s a massive time saver. You need to join a meal prep community to fully appreciate it! It’s a time and money saver
Find an elderly friend nearby you can share with?
Or a young friend. Or a friend around the same age.
Or dog, age irrelevant, just no alliums
I start almost every meal sauteing alliums. The dog can eat out of a can.
I'm not an empty nester just live alone but I just make enough for 2/3 meals so I can have days off from cooking. If a recipe serves like 6/8 I cut all the ingredient measurements in half. I don't really do box mac and cheese as a side because it's too much for just me. I suppose you could try making half a box at a time but I don't know how well the powder would keep.
Just start feeding the neighbour teenager. Bottomless pit just waiting for all your spare cooking.
Or, halve the recipes. If you don't cook enough you can always top up with a snack.
I freeze the leftovers, and don't necessarily eat your same leftovers multiple days in a row. So if I cook three days in a row, that's probably enough leftovers to rotate between three for a total of nearly two weeks.
I mostly cook stews and sauces, and cook fresh rice or pasta to go with it, because these foods tend to freeze really well.
I've found smaller portions to be a waste of time. It takes just as long, but you don't get as much out of it.
Yes, the freezer is one key. I'd actually like to get a chest freezer too.
Another trick is re-use. I'll cook a steak, save half for stir fry, ramen, nachos, sandwich, etc. A chicken gets legs and thighs used for dinner, breasts for chicken salad, and bones and bits for soup.
Cans are also great. They serve a dual purpose of emergency-kit food and (since they eventually need to be rotated) super-lazy meals. I generally keep, maybe 20 various cans of chilli, soup, beans, spam, tuna, crab, tomatoes, etc. and make a point of using a couple every month, just to keep things from getting too old.
The real difficulty I run into is making good salads. It takes just as much time to make salad for six as for two. I often just settle for the bagged stuff, but it feels wasteful and uninspired.
Like many people have said: freezer.
We have a box of quart-sizes freezer zip bags. Whenever you make food, immediately separate half of what you made and freeze it. You can always thaw it later when you don't have time or energy to prepare food.
Dairy tends not to freeze well. Most other foods do. You can freeze pasta, rice, and bread easily, so make a bunch to mix in to future dishes, and if you can't get through a full loaf of bread before it spoils, freeze half the loaf as soon as you bring it home.
There are a lot of meal prep tips websites, and it sounds like you are inadvertently meal-prepping. See what tips they have for storing food.
I will be watching this!
But did have to scale up and down several times as my family grew and then shrank and now we are at 4 people in the house, no more bulk buying.
I will say the freezer is your friend, and cook like my grown kids who don't have kids yet (or ever). Bowls. Rice bowls, noodle bowls. Make what you want but keep the parts separate, basically, then combine the leftover stuff with new stuff throughout the week. Use sauces and spices to change the flavor of the foods. Rice cooker will hold cooked rice for several days if you cover it with a damp paper towel and keep it damp, or noodles are quick, buy the package that has them in little serving sized nests or bundles.
And if you can, have dinner parties sometimes, invite people over and cook the way you enjoy, for others.
I suggest finding recipes you like that can either be used as leftovers- roast chicken into chicken sandwiches; or things that can be mostly prepared ahead of time and frozen or held and cooked in portions- lasagna, for example.
I use a meal planning app (Mealime), just fill in the amount of people/servings. Pick a few recipes and you have your grocery list for the week. We eat with 2, so I just set my serving size at 4 people and eat the leftovers every other day.
Have you also found that their serving sizes are way too small or is it just us?
For some meals yes, but most of the time the serving sizes are fine. I use the filtering options so I get more calories from proteins, maybe my recipes are more filling?
Most dishes that I make is for 3 to 4 days, the is a lower limited on some food I what size and when it is cheapest.
Like a basic taco (Norwegian style)
Have more kids
Pay attention to what you eat over a week. Remember you can freeze a lot of food either before and after cooking if you realise you are not going to eat it before it spoils. Buy less.
I'm not an empty nester, just living alone.
I’m having the same issue: ex left a couple years ago but I still had a couple teens to feed. Now both kids are away so it’s just me, and I have no idea how to cook
First battle is to continue cooking. Most of my motivation was to feed them either stuff they liked or new foods for them to try, and that motivation is gone.
Portions. I wasn’t thinking and bought a gyro platter at Costco. I guess that’s my dinners for the week. The guy at Costco was trying to sell me on the executive membership based on how much I’ve spent this year: nope, maybe I shouldn’t even keep the membership
Before Family, I had been in a habit of going to a farmers market, then making a big salad, big pasta salad, and big fruit salad for the week. Just add protein and you have a meal. That might be a good idea to return to
Either plan to cook ahead or learn how much you want in a single portion and measure your ingredients.