As a single person, I know that cooking dinner for one can be difficult. Items in the grocery store are just not made for one person meals. To make matters even worse, if you are eating enough food for two people in one meal you are bound to be single even longer than you'd like. It also seems pretty insane to cook a meal and do dishes when you are only cooking for yourself. This is why I am into th one pot or skillet meals that can get me through dinner without loading up the dishwasher.

I tend to rate meals on the following: Taste, convenience, portion and price. A great easy meal meets all four with high marks. A great meal tastes good, is easy to make and causes little mess, does not leave so much left over that I have to throw any way, but can have some left over for lunch and is a good price for the portion.

If you are into really quick and easy, Bertolli makes really good frozen meals. They are pasta dishes that cook up in less than 10 minutes and they are in the frozen mean section of the grocery store. They are my favorite frozen meals and they get high marks in all four categories. Another very easy frozen meal is pizza. I'm not talking buy the dough and the sauce and everything, I mean get a frozen DiGiorno and throw it in the oven. If you want to add items to it, you can and it is very quick, not messy at all and good for one person.

Another great place for frozendinners that are meant for one person is homebistro.com. They have really, really good means and they are not very expensive. You can order a ton, keep them in the freezer and cook themwhen you don't feel like making anything else. There are different wys to heat them up, and some of them are as easy as boil in the bag. When I want to splurge and feel like I am out for dinner, I heat up a Home Bistro meal.

I have also found that I can use the same staple a few days in a row. For example, if I cook ground beef for a spaghetti sauce, I can save some of it and use it for tacos the next day and then use the taco ground beef with chips and salsa the next. It is a great transition and lets me buy a larger amount of beef. If I have chicken breasts then I can barbeque them in the oven, have that one day, use come cut up pieces over salad the next and also have slices for a sandwich. Notice that the dinner gets easier as the week goes by and you don't spend any more money than the initial grocery shopping. What else could a single girl ask for? Other than a dinner date that is.

I have included a link that I use often, and it is a bunch of recipes that are made for one person. It seems silly, but a recipe that says yields 1 serving is actually hard to find. Leave it to the Food Network to make it easy!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/et_sl_single_person_cooking/0,1972,FOOD_9875,00.html