Meal Deal

In the 7+ years that I have lived downtown, I cannot seem to find a system for grocery shopping and cooking that works for me. My grocery lists usually consist of snack items--fruits, veggies, bread, eggs, milk, and cereal--but that's really it. I'd really love to cook more, and I have the time to do it, but for some reason it just never seems to work out.

I am single little lady in a city full of great food. Every so often, I will feel the urge to cook a good meal. The problem is, when I cook a meal, I more often than not have so many left overs that I end up eating it for every meal the next couple of days, and will still have left overs. Unfortunately for single people, recipes don't add up to just one serving. Fresh packaged meat, garlic bulbs, bundles of parsley, and blocks or bags of parmesan cheese aren't sold for just one person. Even after I have used some to cook, there is so much of it left that no matter how much has already been cooked, there is still quite a bit left that ends up sitting in the refrigerator and goes bad. Not only do the individual ingredients go bad, but there are so many left overs of the left overs that I have cooked, and that ends up going bad too. (Just like the leftovers of pasta and all the remaining ingredients I've had in my refrigerator from at least a week ago.) So my solutions all these years have been to either just eat snack food or restaurant hop all day.

Lucky for me, the city of Seattle is full of delicious food. Asian, Italian, organic, seafood, it's all so delicious here. I'm sure I have been to enough places that I could Yelp about almost any place. But has it been good for my wallet? In this situation, I might as well just ask, "What's the lesser of the two evils?" Cooking food to only throw a good portion away, not matter how hard I try? Or eat out frequently?

I really may never know the answer as long as I am single. I'm sure one day when there are more mouths to feed, the cooking at home will be much more routine and economical. But for now, I guess I'm going to have to just keep trying to find out. Don't mind if I do!