Eating alone on 120 euros: recipes and the carbonara war

Eating alone for 120 euros a month: recipes and the carbonara war

A man living alone, who avoids fish, barely touches vegetables, and refuses to freeze or reheat anything, asks what the rest of us eat. The answer comes in the form of a recipe: a tray of sliced mushrooms, a carton of cream (or evaporated milk), two tablespoons of cream cheese, garlic, parmesan, and spaghetti. Sauté, thicken, mix, and eat. It is cheap and filling.

And it sets off an inferno.

The carbonara as a battlefield

The problem is not the pasta, it is the name. Anything containing cream ends up being called carbonara, protests the old guard. Defenders of the original recipe remind us that it contains no cream, bacon, or cream cheese. The creamy version is portrayed as a patriotic carbonara for pasta-gluttons, and those who defend it settle the matter by appealing to their own palate. There is no possible consensus between the two factions, nor is there any need: the interested party confesses that he prepares carbonara noodles once a week and plans to expand the recipe with more mushrooms.

The terms of the questioner are what truly order the debate: cooking for one, without huge stews, with food that lasts from one day to the next without becoming disgusting.

Which recipes last from one day to the next without reheating

The most solid answer lies in the potato. Porrusalda, La Rioja-style potatoes, marmitako, or potatoes with ribs perform better than almost anything else: they are made for two or three days, and on the second day they taste better than when freshly made. It is the type of dish that does not require turning the stove back on or going through the microwave.

Chicken breast also comes into play. It is cut into finger-thick slices, seared, reserved, and finished in a sauté of onion, garlic, pepper, and crushed tomatoes. The result remains juicy even three days later in the fridge. In the same sauté, without chicken, eggs can be poached to resolve a different dinner with the same base.

And then there is the broth. A chicken frame, leek, sweet onion, carrot, potato, celery, salt, and two and a half liters of water yield noodles on the first day, a liter for the freezer for another, and a vegetable cream the next. Three meals from a single fire.

Mushrooms, rice, and egg: the most repeated dish

There is a combination that keeps coming back: sautéed mushrooms with garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper, with a splash of white wine while they cook, poured over white rice. With an egg, you have already eaten. It is cheap, fast, and needs no accompaniment. Risotto sneaks into the same list with the promise of serious satiety.

Garlic soups are claimed without shame: two cloves of garlic, shavings of ham with its fat, La Vera paprika added off the heat, bread slices soaked in that frying oil, saffron, boiling water, and a beaten egg inside. Poor man's dinner, they say, but very rich, and you can skip the ham and substitute it with fresh chorizo.

The trump card is frozen or canned vegetables, those that many look down on. Two cans of green beans, one of boiled potatoes, and a garlic sauté resolve a dinner in ten minutes for about 2.50 euros.

How much does it cost to eat well living alone?

Here the exchange gets serious. Some argue that eating with variety, quality, and quantity costs 200 or 250 euros per person per month and that there is no other way, unless one is a stoic. The figure is received with skepticism.

The rebuttal comes with numbers: 120 euros a month for food, including the cat's food, and there is still money left over on a perversos salary. The logic is simple: you do not save out of necessity, you save because you do not spend on junk, and with what costs a bag of potato chips and a bottle of soda, you cook a mushroom fillet.

The rift lies in the nuance: saving out of conviction is not the same as justifying oneself because there is no other option. There the tone hardens, and no one moves a piece.

The war of the anchovies: Cantabrian against l'Escala

Canned goods open another front. One part defends those from the Cantabrian Sea, ready to eat, and reminds us that those from l'Escala must be soaked in water, washed well, deboned, and dressed with oil before being eaten. Another part describes these latter as having soft meat, very salty, with coarse bones, and insists that cheap supermarket anchovies seemed better. The response from the other side is a snub: whoever criticizes knows nothing about canned goods and eats low-quality product. With some Padrón peppers on the side and no leftovers, the dinner is resolved, but peace does not arrive.

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Among the proposals also slip in pork liver —cheap meat, low in fat, and easy to grill over coals in two minutes—, stuffed omelets with almost anything, and an electric resistance grill that does not release smoke and cleans up in a moment for about 30 or 35 euros.

And in the midst of all that, a staggering fact: some spend 300 euros a month eating out two or three days a week and claim that those who cook at home with 120 euros eat badly. The watermelon with mortadella that someone proposes as a cheap dinner does not help to clear things up.