cooking for one

So this post reflects my desperation not to waste the food I bought.  For whatever reason (the heat? you?) I have not had an appetite and have been living on things like cold spinach and tomato salads, to go food (the gumbo was particularly smart and good), and leftover mashed chickpeas twice.

I've also eaten some fruit which seems to be high on my list for things I am drawn to right now.

The following cooking highlights reflect what was done in an hour and took care of all the food that needed cooking.  I wish I had driven instead; but this is done and over even though I am not hungy.

So on with the cooking blog.

So the first thing was to toss the chicken and pork chops in seasoned oil (garlic, basil (the king of spices), paprika, oregeno and something else, sage or thyme, I think).  I forgot the salt and pepper initially but added it before sticking it in the oven. The potatoes were the right size to bake with everything else (400 degrees for 35 minutes)

Halfway through I added this broccoli tossed with a little bit of oil and salt.  The cheese was added afterwards.  I turned all the vegetables and meat over before putting it back in the oven.

These ingredients, the drippings washed (deglazed) from the pain above, grilled and with a tablespoon of flour yielded mushroom gravy.

This is what the gravy looks like.

Meal 1.  I added some butter to the potato just for looks and put the gravy beside the porkchops and not on it just so you could see how well the porkchops browned.  It was delicious, the porkchops might be dry when they are microwaved (the next one); but this was within the acceptable range.  I barely tasted it and I'm not particularly happy that I ate it.

So here is some corn trimmed from the cob after cooking it (in the husk) for 1 minute in a microwave.  The hardest part of the meal was getting the corn into a pot.

These are the vegetable (a rotted green pepper, a jalapeño, carrot, onion and that piece of corn, still steaming in this picture.

So there was a pork chop dinner, and a chicken dinner, and two of the chicken thighs were used with a can of beans to make this "chili," maybe more of a chicken and bean dish that might fill a burrito shell with some fresh lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese; maybe some rice; or it might be eaten with some crackers.

The chicken dish for the moment is cooked just like the chops.  Even though I've been exercising and will be walking later; since I don't have any appetite I still have a chop, broccoli, chicken, potato and roasted onion along with enough mushroom gravy to eat with the chop and chicken and still make some soup should the mood strike me.

With salad it's enough food to last a week, taking an hour to cook and clean up combined.  Or forever if you don't have an appetite.