Cooking for one: recipes for divorced cooks

Good food for divorced people is no different from good food for anyone else. What you may find tricky are the practicalities of scaling down the shopping and cooking for one when you have been part of a couple for a long time.

Make a change from the usual hamburger and make a lamb burger with fresh mint, yoghurt and cucumber.  It will be even more scrummy if you can buy your meat in a piece and mince it up at home.

This is the classic dish to make if you have leftover rice hanging about needing to be used.  It is usually made with smoked haddock or cod but fresh salmon can be good too.

Red cabbage is an under rated vegetable but shredded finely makes a good winter salad. Use a free range chicken breast that you have cooked yourself or bits left from a whole roast chicken. 

A generous bowlful of homemade soup makes a satisfying meal with a piece of cheese and some good bread. This soup based on cauliflower rather than potato has a delicate, soothing texture but is quite rich and very sustaining.  Excelent comfort food. 

Fish is good for you, easy to cook and mackerel is also exceptionally good value. Our My Life After Divorce dedicated cookery writer has devised this delicious recipe for divorced cooks everywhere.

A delicious and filling supper dish for the newly divorced man or woman. Slightly sophisticated but not too posh and easy enough for the most inexperienced cook to pull off in less than 20 minutes.

A simple meal for the least experienced divorced cook where the only actual cooking required is boiling a few new potatoes for a supper that can be on the table in twenty minutes.