Lori (thornton37814) decides to create her own thread in 2024

As a single person, I'm always looking for ways to eat well but without having tons of leftovers (because you get tired of them quickly). I'm specifically looking for recipes that make a couple of servings at most. Does anyone know of good cookbooks for this type of recipe? I wasn't really inspired by the one or two I found at my library.

Related to that, I find that using my air fryer helps me cut down on some things and saves a little time on the cooking end since it is smaller than an oven. Does anyone know of a good air fryer cookbook? (It would be great if it was for smaller numbers of servings too.) I found 5-Ingredient Air Fryer Recipes by Camilla V. Saulsbury at the library, but I haven't been very inspired by it so far.

I wish I could help you, but I don't love the air fryer cookbook I purchased on Amazon. It is smaller portions, something the airfryer excells at, but a lot of the recipes call for prepared food.

>1 thornton37814: I have no idea what to suggest for an air-fryer but I have been doing a lot of experimenting with 1 and two person recipes. First, I commonly take a 4 person recipe and divide it in half. That doesn't always work but it certainly reduces the leftovers. I am trying to pare it down further because I cannot eat much at any one time right now.
I recently had luck with the book Cook What You Have by Christopher Kimball.
I have also been looking at tapas and small plate books- these tend to assume you are cooking for a party but sometimes it is easier to work with because of the small portion size.
I have had a lot of luck with Bento books. Bentos assume you are eating a variety of small portions with rice. They typically provide recipes for 4-6 very small portions that are meant to be frozen individually and then defrosted and served. You might try The Just Bento Cookbook by Makiko Itoh or Effortless Bento: 300 Box Lunch Recipes.
I sympathize with the problem with the library, I live in a community with a small, limited library. Will your library do interlibrary loans?

>1 thornton37814: I'd be inclined to look online or in the library for Mughal curry recipes from North India, and halve the quantities, remembering (1) that these recipes are meant to be fragrant rather than hot, and (2) leftover curry eaten the next day invariably tastes better than first-time-round. Also look for recipes from Kerala; although the main local crop there is pepper, they grow it for sale and recipes work on the principle that every peppercorn in the pot is one they can't make money on. Another great source of fragrant recipes is Indonesia and their descendants at the Cape; here I can recommend My Cape Malay Kitchen, which I believe is available as an e-book.

Hi Lori, good luck with your new cookbookers thread! I'm afraid I can't be of much help as I love left overs as they reduce the work of future dinners and just stick things in the freezer and am so grateful when they return in a week or two. I don't have an air fryer so can't help you there.

>2 MrsLee: Sadly that seems to be the case with a lot of air fryer cookbooks.

>3 catseyegreen: I have managed to come up with ways to reduce a couple of things. I managed to cut down my dressing recipe at Thanksgiving and make only 2 individual casserole dishes instead of a huge quantity. I was just eyeballing stuff though--which is what I do with the recipe anyway--just like mom did. I've also come up with work arounds on some things to come up with the same flavors while changing a cooking style a bit. My success stories tend to be taking fresh ingredients and using those individual casserole dishes in the air fryer.

>4 hfglen: I do love curry, and I have a great recipe that someone from India gave me when I used to live in Cincinnati. She was a graduate student at the university where I was employed. It was easy to get all those spices or even spice mixes and pastes when I lived in Cincinnati. Jungle Jim's had (and still has) foods from around the world.

>5 mdoris: Thanks. Some things don't freeze as well as others, and I really prefer eating fresh when I can. I do freeze a few things and tend to turn those things around in within reasonable time -- or completely forget they are in there if they get pushed too far back. Most of the time they get eaten pretty quickly. I found some chicken tenders with freezer burn the other day that had to be thrown out. They'd gotten pushed back too far at some point.

I don't know how you feel about salads. I like to prep the greens when I get them home from the store (wash, soak in a bowl of water 15 minutes, rinse and if the water is dirty I repeat the process until it's clean, then I shake them dry and let drain in a colander for about half an hour, then wrap in a cotton or paper towel and then in a plastic bag, squeeze the air out of the bag, twist closed and keep in produce drawer. Cut lettuce when you use it). I clean and prep a lot of other veggies as well, then each night, depending on our mood, we have different salads. Sometimes they could have meat (a pork chop, chicken thigh or small steak cooked in your air fryer), tuna, or sometimes grains or beans, or veggies you roast in your air fryer. Cheese, nuts, dried fruits, your imagination is the limit.

I find that lettuces and any other leafy greens keep at least a week this way, and if you don't eat them all in a week you can make soups, casseroles or stir fried rice and freeze in single serving containers. This is how we live in the summer here where it is too hot to cook for the most part.

>7 MrsLee: Just as a footnote, you mentioned lettuce and stir-frying in the same paragraph: Adam Liaw (who I seem to be mentioning quite a bit) says that lettuce is one of his favourite stir-frying vegetables. Example. It also occurs to me that stir-frying is an excellent way to cook single portions.

>7 MrsLee: I have to be careful with lettuce, especially during certain seasons. Sometimes my allergies and lettuce are not a good combination. I do make salads sometimes. I think I just need a little more inspiration at times. I still have some soup frozen, and even though the weather is getting warmer, I'll probably make some more (and freeze leftovers) because I do love a good homemade soup in the evening.

>8 haydninvienna: I have done some stir-fry. I mix it with a little rice or something else. I guess I'm just trying to find something a little different.

>10 thornton37814: Being the cook for a two-person household, I stir-fry quite a bit. The basic idea is: one protein; one vegetable; seasonings. Don't try to do too much at a time — that's how you end up with a stew. I usually cook the protein element first, remove it from wok, cook the vegetable and than re-add the protein and add the seasonings. Rice is the standard accompaniment, of course, but it doesn't have to be. I can't see any reason in principle why a stir-fry couldn't be paired with, say, naan.

>6 thornton37814: Wot? Only one curry recipe? you need at least a couple of dozen to ring the changes! A later thought suggests several other Cape Malay traditional dishes, such as one of the many variations of bredie, and bobotie (you can get to recipes for both and others from the link).

>11 haydninvienna: We like noodles, either rice or wheat or sweet potato, as a change from rice.

I watch Kathy on You Tube for my air fryer. She has cookbooks but I have not bought any.
Empowered Cooks

>14 mnleona: I just looked up "Empowered Cooks" on Amazon. I see she has some laminated sheets with air fryer cook temps times. Those might be handy! I usually either guess or Google something to find it. I've done pretty well so far with intuition or with the Google-suggested temps and times. I might at least order those cards. I'm pretty creative when it comes to putting together ingredients, but the suggested temps and cooking times might help me feel a bit more confident.

>15 thornton37814: I just bought them, thanks for the mention. They were 50% off regular price.