The Case for Home Cooking: Even—Perhaps Especially—for One
EGG NOODLES AND CABBAGE: FAST AND FRESH
Egg Noodles and Cabbage | Dara O’Brien
By Dara O’Brien
Creative Director, Lake Isle Press
Restaurant dining, take-out orders, meal prep and delivery services, convenience food … so many alternatives beckon us not to cook. So why do we?
Of course, some of us don’t; even the pandemic didn’t change that. But there are those of us who still manage—in spite of packed schedules, exhaustion, stress, little chance to shop, and good old-fashioned laziness—to get cooking.
We cook because it’s relaxing, an act of creation, a way to care for others. Perhaps we cook to be in greater control of what we put in our bodies. Or because it’s less expensive than the alternatives. Or all of the above. Whatever our reasons, we blow past the obstacles and cook even when life makes it easy for us not to.
That’s especially true for solo cooks, who overcome a few extra challenges to wield a skillet. In addition to the fact that nobody’s around to share with or care whether they serve a fresh fish stew or frozen fish sticks, cooking for one presents unique challenges of scale.
Some foods just aren’t packaged with single eaters in mind. Why does my local grocer wrap three zucchinis together with no option to buy just one? What if I don’t want two pounds of grapes? And it always seems to be easier to find a giant roast than a small one.
Plus, how about the way recipes are written? My head has been known to explode when I’m scaling back a recipe for 6-8 to serve one. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if recipes were scaled for a single serving, and you just had to multiply them by the number of people you want to feed?
It’s no wonder that a single cook may be less adventurous than someone who often cooks for others. Case in point: me. I used to cook pretty simple meals for myself, like a sautéed chicken breast, pasta, or a stir-fry. I saved the big or complicated stuff—say, fish tacos with tomatillo salsa verde, pulled pork, salad nicoise, or maybe glazed ham with scalloped potatoes—for a (hopefully) appreciative audience.
That changed since I started blogging in the midst of a pandemic. Suddenly I am cooking adventurous meals just for me. I’ve thrown a steady diet of simplicity out of the window and often cook meals I would never have made for myself alone. I no longer worry about what my guests might like; I’ve introduced myself to cuisines like African, Indian, Latin, Middle Eastern that I wasn’t too familiar with, and might have never cooked from at all. Too many leftovers? There’s always the freezer.
Opening up what I make as a solo cook has changed the way I approach food. Each meal doesn’t need to take hours to prepare or involve water baths, deboning, blooming, or deglazing. But steady experimentation and expanding my cooking beyond the basics opened a floodgate of alternatives to boxed mac and cheese. Take, for example, a simple recipe like this one: Egg Noodles and Cabbage from “Serves One” by Toni Lydecker, published by Lake Isle Press.
The recipe calls for cole slaw mix, but since I had some extra cabbage and carrots on hand, I used them, along with some sliced onion. (I reserve the right to use pre-packaged cole slaw mix some lazy night to come.) Good, but I wanted to make it a little more interesting. To ramp up the flavor without adding another step, I made it again and mixed a quarter teaspoon each of turmeric and garam masala, plus a little pepper jelly, in with the melted butter before adding the cabbage. There you have it; a quick meal for one that’s not a bowl of cereal. And with cole slaw mix it would be about as easy to make as heating a can of soup (if you don’t count having two pots to clean instead of one).
I know that some confirmed non-cooks will continue to keep their shoes in their ovens and sweaters in their kitchen cabinets; that some frequent cooks will yet look on solo cooking as a contradiction in terms; and that some people will never choose to spend time in a kitchen or wash an avoidable pan.
But I agree with what British food writer Nigella Lawson had to say in an online interview (with Helen Rosner) in The New Yorker last spring: “I used to feel that cooking was something you did for other people—for your kids or friends—and cooking for yourself was this rather delicious aberration. Whereas now I feel much more that the real thing is cooking for yourself, and you have to watch that it doesn’t become corrupted when you cook for others. It has to be just you and the pan …”
Amen, Nigella.
My head has been known to explode when I’m scaling back a recipe for 6-8 to serve one. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if recipes were scaled for a single serving, and you just had to multiply them by the number of people you want to feed?
Egg Noodles and Cabbage
Makes 1 Serving| Prep: 5 minutes | Cook: 15 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups cole slaw mix
1 heaping teaspoon salt, plus more for taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 ounces broad egg noodles
PREPARATION
Melt the butter over medium heat in a skillet large enough to hold the cabbage and noodles. Cook the cabbage, stirring occasionally, until the shreds soften and brown around the edges, about 10 minutes (reduce the heat if the cabbage seems in danger of burning). Season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, bring 6 cups of water and 1 heaping teaspoon salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the noodles, stirring to submerge and separate the strands, Cook until al dente, about 4 minutes. Drain, reserving several tablespoons of the cooking water. Add the noodles to the saucepan with the cabbage. Stir until well mixed, adding the water as needed to moisten the pasta.
EGG NOODLES AND CABBAGE RECIPE
from “Serves One” by Toni Lydecker, Lake Isle Press, 2005
Recipes for one that nourish the soul as well as the body that mostly call for only 10 minutes of active prep time. Many featured recipes are all-in-one meals requiring minimal cleanup—main-course salads, simple stir-fries, fresh takes on pizza and pasta, savory soups, and inventive sandwiches.
ALSO FROM SERVES ONE:
PENNE WITH SAVORY BROCCOLI SAUCE RECIPE
RISOTTO WITH SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS AND PEAS RECIPE
SPICY NOODLES WITH PORK RECIPE
OTHER BOOKS BY TONI LYDECKER:
PIATTO UNICO: WHEN ONE COURSE MAKES A FULL ITALIAN MEAL
FEATURING:
HERBED ROAST PORK TENDERLOIN WITH PARSNIP PURÉE
POT ROAST WITH PORCINI AND ROOT VEGETABLES
COUSCOUS CONFETTI SALAD WITH TUNA
SEAFOOD ALA SICILIANA: RECIPES AND STORIES FROM A LIVING TRADITION