My boyfriend is currently in China, where he is on tour with his band. And when I cook for just one, it tends to develop into a different kind of meal – I make ‘less of a meal out of it’ than when I cook for two or more people, if you know what I mean.
I simplify a lot of what I do and I tend to eat more raw foods than larger cooked dinners.
A dish that is really great to cook for one person is noodles. It’s really quick and non demanding, but you can still throw in a lot of vegetables and make it really nutritious with not much effort.
Here is a rough guide to Japanese Noodle Soup, the vegetables can be replaced for any other veg you have at hand. Try baby corn and carrot strips, or mangetout and mushrooms and garlic.
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Serves 1
1 thumb size piece of ginger, peeled.
1 stick of lemon grass
½ a bulb of fennel
4-5 florets of broccoli
2 tsp organic miso paste
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 bundle of organic soba noodles
1 large pinch of chili flakes or ½ of a fresh chili
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Bring a large pan of water to the boil, and cook the soba noodles according to the packet, or for 5-7 min. Drain, rinse with fresh cold water and set aside.
Meanwhile, finely chop the fresh chili and ginger, slice the lemon grass in half, and bruise the bottom to release the flavours. Wash and chop the broccoli into small florets, and slice the fennel.
Bring 200ml water to the boil, then add the miso paste, soy sauce, lemon grass, chili and ginger. Simmer for 1 min, then add the remaining vegetables and simmer for a further 3-4 min.