Table For One

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

Many moons ago I left small town-California to take my place with other like-minded young people in the coming-of-age ritual know as college. We had come from the four corners of the United States to study towards a degree, yes, but just as important, to learn to live on our own. In some ways we did learn, but when it came to cooking for ourselves, a collegian diet rich in dorm food, midnight pizzas, and Costco-sized packs of Mac-N-Cheese often trumped the desire to make any sort of real food.

Four years flew by and again we scattered across America to take our places among other young urban professionals in a new challenge: the survival of the single life. If we were lucky, that healthy diet of our first few years away from home left us with little more damage than the Freshman 15. Living in our first city apartments, with our first jobs and first real paychecks, at some point it dawned on many of us that there may be life in the kitchen beyond the microwave.

Since that first awakening, I have received at least one inquiry a week from some brave young friend looking for help in managing the often problematic challenge of cooking for one. Budget and time constraints, difficulty finding inspiration, and managing waste are all common excuses for avoiding the kitchen and outsourcing to the local burrito shop come dinner time. But with the average age of marriage now reaching into the late twenties, we can expect many more meals where we will be responsible for feeding primarily ourselves. At some point the excuses must be dealt with, for man (or woman) cannot live on burritos alone.

When it comes to the expense, it is almost always more cost-effective to cook versus going out. With singles, the expense of cooking is mostly related to the waste. However, once one establishes the essentials needed in a pantry, from oils and vinegars to spices and dry goods, with a little weekly meal planning, waste can be almost entirely avoided. Before heading to the grocery store, try to estimate how many meals you expect to eat at home that week. When determining what recipes to cook, choose dishes that make use of similar produce but perhaps use different seasonings or methods of preparation. Personally, it is often the challenge of finding ways to use products I have on hand that I don't want to go to waste that inspires much of my own kitchen creativity.

With the busy schedules of the young and fabulous, the time required to cook can often be a major deterrent. And at the end of the day, who wants to spend 2 hours cooking dinner for just you? There are two ways to deal with this particular obstacle. First, there are an abundance of dishes that can be made in less than the time it takes you to order in dinner and have it show up at your door. Especially since you are only cooking for one, the mere fact of needing to prepare less food means that there is less work involved in getting dinner on the table.

A second option is to spend a good couple hours cooking (which is fun, by the way) on a Sunday afternoon prepping food for the week. This can be as involved as making several full meals to be reheated at a later date. Or it can be as simple as roasting a whole chicken, part of which can be eaten for dinner that same night while the rest can be resurrected in new meals throughout the week. Already cooked chicken can be chopped and rolled in corn tortillas, topped with sauce and cheese and baked in the oven for easy enchiladas. Shredded chicken can be used in countless variations of salads or a quick chicken noodle soup with canned broth, your cupboards' bits of dried pasta and a few frozen vegetables.

With a little imagination and a healthy dose of planning, cooking for one is far less intimidating than it may seem. Not to mention that if at a loss, all you need to think of is the most important part of the equation, and that is YOU. For at the end of the day it is what you want to eat that matters most, a situation that should be enjoyed for as long as it may last.

Serves/Makes: 1

***Dressing***

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1/4 lime, juiced

***Salad***

• 1 cup shredded cooked chicken
• 1/4 cup grated carrot
• 1/4 cup grated radish
• 1 green onion, finely minced, white and green parts
• 1/4 Thai red chile, finely minced, or more to taste
• 1 tablespoon black sesame seeds (or white if black is not available)
• Boston lettuce