Bachelor meals are a
pain in the arse. I tried to work my way around that
phrase in an attempt to inject some
decency or
diplomacy and will leave you to judge my degree of
success. There is no one there to
compliment your skills, to endure the
arduous task of chopping up the onion, clean up the
mess you’ve made, or stack the
dishwasher.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not all
bad. Apart from the natural benefit of being in
highly pleasurable company, there is no one to complain about the
quality or
quantity of food, to query the value of an hour of
FTV, or to share the ridiculous quantity of food you’ve prepared.
A common
misconception is that this kind of meal is a quick
microwave meal or rapid
fry-up. Even more myths revolve around the
dubious nutritional value of snacks enjoyed in
solitude. Wrong again. I have had some of the most
nutritionally sound,
tasty and
wholesome meals when left to my own devices and
culinary skills. Admittedly, this is something of a
rarity but we can’t dismiss exceptions with a wave of a spotless tea-towel.
Understanding the very basics of
nutrition as well as the basics of
flavour should provide you with the basic
arsenal in this battle against
time,
expanding girth and limited ingredients.
The Golden Rule
One basic rule to keep your
athletic body in
perfect trim is to make sure you have
four basic
food groups rubbing shoulders on your plate. So it’s
carbohydrate for
energy,
protein for
muscle maintenance, a small amount of
fat for more
energy and a host of other reasons, and
roughage or
fibre to keep the digestion system running like
clockwork. Luckily we don’t have to cook four separate items to manage this. If this were the case I’d have died a
slow and lonely death quite a while ago. Consider
chicken breast and
noodles. That’s a whopping dose of
protein and
carbs plus a little bit of
fat yet, sadly, no
roughage. So how about swapping the noodles for
wholemeal bread and popping
grilled chicken breast in between slices of
bread?
Let’s give it a shot.
A
grill pan is your friend. It won’t
talk back,
sulk,
complain, or require any oil to grill meat and veg. Now
fillet the chicken breast and grill that while you prepare four slices of
wholemeal bread, adding some
olive oil (we need a small amount of fat, remember?),
pepper (grind your own,
slacker), and
salt. Now is about the right time to turn the chicken over. Make sure the chicken is
cooked through since raw chicken has been known to play
strange tricks on unsuspecting stomachs. I find that a good initial
sear seals the
flavour, ideally followed by a few minutes on a lower flame to ensure proper cooking. Cutting chicken breast along its length to give a thinner
cross section quickens cooking time and makes for a more
evenly cooked fillet.
So the
basics for your complete meal are there. Adding any more ingredients is up to you,
lettuce and
tomato spring to mind here, however I can’t remember the last time I had any of those running around. Do shop around for
low-calorie dressing and light
mayonnaise, it can add a whole new dimension to your sandwich while keeping the calories down to the ones we really need.
I still haven’t forgotten those
noodles. Here’s a little recipe that I’ve enjoyed a couple of times and uses those ingredients that are useless on their own but join forces to fill your
belly and empty your
freezer. Two of the most
noble endeavours.
Last-ditch-effort-at-emptying-freezer Noodles -
somewhere down the node lies a long-forgotten writeup that still finds its way into my kitchen occasionally