Cooking for 2 halved

How to get by without tons of leftovers/effort

As previously mentioned in my last post, my girlfriend was due to be out of town.

This is always something that feels like a major shake up to my schedule, like a kid when the parents are out for the night. I feel kind of confused and paralysed by the sudden amount of choice/free time I have in my life. Should I go out? What TV shows can I watch while she’s away¹, what time should I go to sleep and most importantly what can I have for dinner/lunch while she’s away.

I don’t want to just eat the same thing over and over to pass the time, I don’t want to spend all my time cooking just to eat the meal in 30 seconds and I definitely don’t want to resort back to student life.

So I adopted a multi pronged approach:

First Prong

I ordered two Too Good To Go² bags, one from a bagel shop and another from a M&S service station. My thinking was, it would give me a variety of things and engage my creativity if I needed to make chicken salad from chicken mess. I got some good quality ready meals and sides that I could use to supplement my lunch.

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Second Prong

Try a TikTok ramen dish to see if Gen Z know what they’re talking about.³

As a recent convert to the shroom side, I’m trying to really lean in and discover what I’ve been missing out on so I was really excited to try this dish; the the fact it looked easy/quick was a great side benefit.

The instructions were simple enough, but after a few tastes, I realised cream of anything is usually quite bland to me. Unless I’m sick, I always need to add more. So I started off by adding some black pepper and some old bay seasoning. The thought was, this would add a bit of spice as well as boosting the Unami of the fungi. I personally also always love some egg yolk in my ramen so I also added one egg to increase the richness of the ramen.⁴ After a few more dashes of salt, the soup reached the desired level of richness and flavour. It came out runnier than the TikTok but that was expected because I used a full can rather than half but other than that pretty much the same. Next time you’re in a pinch and can’t decide/can’t be bothered, this ramen dish might be it for you.

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Third Prong:

Actually cook something..the plan was to cook 2 proteins that I could use for whatever I was in the mood for

The first dish was chicken and rice. I put in so much work into the breast, marinating it with yoghurt, cayenne pepper, ground cumin, garam masala, ground coriander. I then put it on the George Foreman grill and served it on some pilau rice. Folks, it was the most boring dish I’ve ever made. I just don’t think I can rock with just breast and rice, there needs to be a sauce or curry base otherwise it feels too dry. So I added some Sriracha (or drenched depending on your perspective) and chowed down.

The second dish is a tofu dish is one I found on the New York Times Cooking App, Bulgogi Tofu by Sam Sifton. It’s a “no recipe” recipe whereby they give you a list of ingredients and loose cooking methods and you’re invited to improvise and experiment. I’ll describe the recipe below for my paid subscribers and share some tips/tricks that I think really boost the flavour. For my free subscribers, this is where we part ways, thank you as always for reading. If you’ve got any tips/comments please comment below and I’ll see y’all on the flip! As a thank you for all the support you all have shown me this far, I’m offering a free trial for my early followers.