Spicy Tomato Soup

½ Tbs. Olive oil

¼ cup Onions or 3/8 of a teaspoon of Onion powder

2 cups Chopped Fresh Tomatoes

¼ Tbs. dried Basil (you can use up to 1 Tbs. depending on your taste

½  tea. Of Sugar

1 ½ tbs. Lemon Juice

½ cups of Orange Juice

½  Tbs of Cilantro

½ Tbs of Parsley (if you don’t have cilantro you can just use 1 Tbs. Parsley)

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Warm oil in a small pot, add onions and cook for 10 mins. Until soft. Add in tomatoes, lemon juice, basil, and sugar and ¼ cups of orange juice. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat and simmer for about 10-12 mins.

2. In a blender or food processer, pour in remaining orange juice, cilantro, parsley, salt, pepper and soup from pot.  Puree until smooth.

3. Pour into a soup mug or bowl.

4. Enjoy!

I have The Ninja Blender which with crush and smooth anything. If you are looking for a great blender, that is the one to get.

Up Next: Completely Homemade Brownies

Ratatouille

This is the same recipe used in the animated movie

1 1/3 tea. of onion powder

1/3 of garlic clove thinly slice (unless you plan on using the rest of the clove tomorrow just go ahead and throw the rest out. Garlic is fairly cheap)

8 tea. of tomato puree. (you can use tomato sauce but you will have a lot left)

1 tea olive oil, divided

1 small eggplant (if your store sells “Italian eggplant” buy it instead, they are much smaller.)

1 small zucchini

1 red bell pepper (for this recipe you want the longest, thinnest one you can find)

Thyme (you can use fresh, dried or powdered)

Salt and pepper

Grated cheese

Parchment paper

1. Preheat over to 375° F

2. Pour Tomato Puree into the bottom of a small casserole dish, spread out the puree so that it completely covers the bottom of the dish. Drop garlic and onions stir in ½ a tea spoon of olive oil into the puree mix. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3. Cut the ends of the eggplant, zucchini and yellow Squash. Slice the veggies short ways, making circles, as thin as possible.

4. cut of the end of the bell pepper and remove the core, leaving you with a with a tube like pepper. Slice thinly, so that it looks like a circle.

5. Atop of the tomato sauce, arrange slices of cut veggies. Staring from the outer edge, working your way to the inside of the baking dish. Overlapping them. Alternation the veggies so that you have a colorful dish. If you have veggies left over that’s okay. You do not have to use all of them! It should look similar to the picture below:

 

6. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over veggies and season them with salt, pepper and thyme,

7. Cover the dish with a piece of parchment paper, you may need to cut it to fit the dish.

8. Bake for 30 mins.

9. Remove paper, sprinkle with cheese.

10. Enjoy!

I served mine over Couscous.

Notes:

You may add ½ lbs. of meat to this. Make sure it is somewhat cooked before adding. You will place it between the sauce and veggies. If you add meat you will need to add about 5-8 more teaspoons of tomato puree.

If you do not know what a casserole dish is, it is a dish made of ceramic or glass that you put in the over. They can be oval or squared/rectangle.

Parchment paper is NOT wax paper. If you don’t have any you can use foil just punch a few small holes in it, to allow steam to escape. 

Up next: Spicy Tomato Soup

Potato-Basil Frittata

1 red potato-peeled and cooked-I just stick them in the microwave to save time.

1/8 tea onion powder

3 egg whites or 2 normal eggs

½ tea dried basil

1/8 tea salt

Dash of cayenne pepper

1. Cut potato into bite size cubes

2. In a small sauce pan, spray with cooking spray, cook potatoes for about 5 mins. stirring occasionally to get the surface browned.

3. In a small bowl mix remain ingredients together. Pour over Potatoes in sauce pan. As the bottom starts to look like its beginning to set, this shouldn’t take long, take your fork and gently lift the edges, so that the top mixture can spill into the bottom, you may have to tilt your pan a little. Do this all around the Frittata. Cook for another minute or so.

4. Flip frittata so that remaining mixture can cook for about a minute.

5. Enjoy!

Up next: Ratatouille

Acadian Chicken Stew with Dumpling

½ lbs Chicken

½ cups of stock

1/3 of an onion

1 tea of olive or canola oil

½ tea flour

1 Potato-peeled and cubed

10 baby carrots- sliced

1/4 tea thyme

¼ tea rosemary

1/6 tea of pepper

Dumplings:

8 tea flour

½ tea baking powder

Dash of Salt

4 tsp of distilled cold water

1. In a small sauce pan, Sauté onions in oil for one minute. Add the flour to the onions and stir for another 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Put stock in a medium size pot bring to a boil. Cut chicken into bite size pieces

3.  Put all Ingredients into the pot and simmer on med.-low for 30 mins.

Dumplings:

1. In a bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add cold water.

2. Drop the mixture into the stew a spoonful at a time. Cover and steam for 7 mins. on low. 

Apple Pie Oatmeal

You can replace the oatmeal with other cooked cereal- Red River, Cream of Wheat, 7 Grain etc.

1/2 cup Uncooked Oats
1 cup Apple Juice  *try to get 100% juice*
1 Apple, cored and diced (peeling optional)
1 tsp Cinnamon
dash Nutmeg  *it is VERY important you only do a dash, nutmeg is very bold in flavor, to much and you wont like what you're eating*
1 Tbs Maple Syrup (optional) *I like it better without*

1. Place Apple Juice in a small pot, bring to boil.
2. Add Oats, turn heat to medium-low and allow to cook for about 3-5mins.
2. Remove from heat. Add in remaining ingredients. Mix well and Enjoy!

Welcome to Cooking for the Single Person!

Hello! Welcome! This blog was created due to after searching for a cookbook for a person living by oneself was very hard to find. The ones I did find were filled with thing I could not eat. I am highly allergic to dairy. So I was resorted to taking recipes and doing the math and having to scale them down, which at times, is time consuming. In the current world, we like to be able to whip up thing in less than an hour, factoring down the recipe is not part of that time. I come from a family of 5. I have been cooking ever since I could safely reach the back knobs to the stove and oven. Cooking for 5, was easily. Cooking for 1, not so much. In the past few years, it was easy to buy the prepackaged things from the store. That all changed last year. I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer and had to be put on a very strict diet for my CAT scan. I was not allowed to eat anything with preservatives. So, as you may assume, I slowly began to realize that I cant have all the prepackage things. I had to go back to the basic, back to healthy foods and cooking all of them!!! I have never cooked so much in my entire single life! So, what will you find in this blog? Recipes on healthy foods, that you can find at your local supermarket and cooking them. Remember me mentioning a dairy allergy? I know what your thinking. And no, they will not all be dairy free. I love Coconut milk and Goat cheese and yogurt to much to leave that out. I will list things normally, i.e. milk, cheese, etc. You may choose what kind to use. I will note on what I use, but you don't have to use them. I will also list substitutions for things if you ever find yourself out of a certain ingredient.  I will try to add a recipe a week. Also, feel free to request recipes. I have a ton! Just because you live alone, doesn't mean you cant make amazing food for one.