Empty Nesters….Cooking for far less people?

[HeatherC]

Our son (last of 3) has recently moved out and I am finding it so funny on how our cooking has changed. For 30 years I have been cooking for a crowd and now we are down to two. Every meal was always enough to serve at least 7 or 8 people since there were 5 of us and kids and dh used to love to take leftovers for lunch the next day. DH still does, but our meals are sooo much smaller now.

Tonight I made a “mini” meatloaf with 1lb of ground beef. It looked so tiny but was plenty for both of us and dh for lunch tomorrow.

I am finding grocery shopping to be quite an adjustment and still haven’t figured out how to not overbuy. Hard when you have kept a huge stocked pantry and freezers for so long.

Anyone else find it strange to go from cooking for a bunch to one or two? I have to say, I do LOVE how our grocery has bill has dropped!

 

[MIGrandma]

We have two adult children, but I still cook large meals most of the time because we like leftovers

 

[Paulaparm]

Only 2 of us as well. Many times I still cook the whole recipe and freeze half for later. Sometimes I just make half a recipe.

 

[Southernmiss]

We are also still adjusting and it's been more than a year.

Our pantry is still stocked fuller than it should be for 2 people.

I cooked most every night before kids and then when the kids were home- about 30 plus years.

With both of us working, Dh and I find ourselves grabbing food out more and more often which suits us fine as it gives us a variety of food and we often have enough for another meal or 2.

We get tired of leftovers and often freeze portions for later.

 

[NotUrsula]

I find as that we get older we don't want to bother cooking as often, so we are actually making more larger meals that will freeze well. We eat one portion and freeze the rest in single-portion storage bags so that we can have them later as quick warm-ups. Having a variety of homemade frozen dishes available is a lot cheaper than impulse restaurant eating when we just don't feel like cooking.

 

[NAB]

Left overs are something we don’t like except for chili.

We find ourselves sometimes just having cereal or eggs for dinner. Especially if we eat a late lunch. My daughter came home a few weeks ago and looked in our fridge and pantry and asked what do we eat now….lol When the 2 kids were home it was always a protein , side and veg.

I do split our food when I get home. We eat one chicken breast and split it. They are huge these days. Hamburger is down to 1/2 pound bags in the freezer.

 

[TippyThomas]

Since my parents passed and it's just me, I use my vacuum sealer and freeze extras for later.

 

[soccerdad72]

We’ve only had stretches of being empty nesters (for a couple semesters when both our boys were in college), but one is back home with us now that he’s graduated, so we’re three most of the time now.

Whether it’s two of three of us, I usually cook for four people and just pack up leftovers for lunches later in the week. Now that my older son is working, he usually eats dinner with us and then takes whatever is left for lunch the next day.

We still pretty much shop the same way we did when both boys were home.

 

[Simba's Mom]

nerdlegame 1034 3/6

I am finding grocery shopping to be quite an adjustment and still haven’t figured out how to not overbuy. Hard when you have kept a huge stocked pantry and freezers for so long.

Anyone else find it strange to go from cooking for a bunch to one or two? I have to say, I do LOVE how our grocery has bill has dropped!

Although it’s been about 25 years, I still remember. The first time I went grocery shopping and only needed 1 little 1/2 gallon of milk instead of the usual 2 gallons, I cried. It’s a big adjustment

 

[tvguy]

I really don't recall having to make any adjustment. Our oldest moved out 12 years ago. Our youngest moved out 5 years ago, and moved back in for two months in July of this year. She's a vegetarian so even when she was living with us she pretty much prepared her own meals.
My wife is slowly learning that we can buy bigger packages of meat than we need and split them in two. But we have never been big on having a huge stock of food in our freezer. We might have a few quick meal items in the freezer, fish fillets, french fries, cooked hamburger patties, but basically we have about a week to two weeks food in the freezer.
My daughter moved to Germany, and is having to adjust. When she was on her own, she might go to Costco once every 4 to 6 weeks, and the grocery store every two weeks. Now, she is living with a tiny refrigerator with a tiny freezer. People in Germany tend to go to the grocery store every day for that day's meal ingredients. And stores open late, and close early, and are closed entirely on Sunday, so that too has been an adjustment.

 

[disykat]

I freeze a lot of dibs and dabs of things. It takes planning not to waste food.

For example, tonight I made a pizza - something we probably do twice a month. I bought a dough ball at the grocery store. In the freezer I had 1/2 of an 8 oz can of tomato sauce that I made into pizza sauce last time we had pizza, some diced onion and peppers, meat that I divided up the last time (for example a package of pepperoni gets divided into 4, or a pound of sausage gets cooked and divided into 4.) Cheese keeps well, so I had mozzarella.

I usually cook about 4 portions with the idea of dinner and then a lunch. I've gotten so I just buy bags of salad mix, serve 1/2 of it and put the rest in a container for the next day. Too many rotting heads of lettuce.

Meats, I portion into meals sized portions when I get home from grocery shopping and just freeze. Fish I buy individual vacuum sealed packs in the freezer dept. I plan follow up meals using the same ingredients. For example if I buy tortillas for burritos I make enchiladas a day or so later.

It cracks me up that 2 pounds of hamburger makes 8 patties and those and a bag of buns in the freezer make 4 meals for us. However I realized during the pandemic that we LIKE having things like burgers and pizza without going out!

Now that I have lots of company (My mom lives near me and isn't doing well, so lots of family coming) I'm having difficulty going back to cooking for more people!

 

[wannabee]

I find we cook much less often. Maybe 2-3 times a week and eat leftovers the next day. I love it after so many years of cooking every night.

 

[clh2]

I love to make a regular-sized recipe of something on a Sunday, we typically eat that Sunday and Tuesday, and freeze the rest. For the most part, I do not cook an entree on Monday -Thursday, and used previously frozen entrees. Friday is most likely a Frozen Pizza, those leftovers are for Saturday lunch.

So, definitely less cooking during the week, less dishes too!

 

[neverlandsky]

Have 2 adult kids at home. One eats like a bird and the other eats out almost daily. Haven't adjusted well to this. Been making way too much and well the scale is definitely reflecting that by me eating the extra servings and all the leftovers, so food doesn't go to waste. Trying to adjust down. I get why some empty nesters eat out often, easier for portion control and no leftovers. TBH, when we eat out, we do lose weight. Hopefully next year, I can find the balance to all of this and lose the excess weight.

 

[NYCgrrl]

The biggest problem I noticed in cooking for one is oversized pre-packaged goods at the meat counters. Local supermarkets tend to have a one pound minimum for their meats which means re packing and freezing on my end.

 

[slo]

My DH are empty nesters now and have been for a few years. I still cook the same as I did when my daughter was home because I like the leftovers. It’s nice to have one week where I’m cooking a lot, and then the next week where I don’t have to cook a lot because we have the leftovers.

My grocery bill has gone down a decent amount also. I go grocery shopping every week and only buy what I need for the dinners that I have planned. If there’s a great sale on cereal, soda or anything else I will probably buy it, but it’s gotta be a really great sale in order for me to do that. So today, when I go to the store, I have very little to buy since we’ll be having some leftovers next week - it may not even be $75 worth.