Devlyn's right that the key to cooking for one is to make good use of your freezer. I usually only entirely cook one meal component at a time and use leftover items with it. For instance I'll cook several meals worth of chicken breast at once-- or a crock pot of beans then divvy them into serving size containers to freeze. I do that with rice as well. When cooled, I spread it into a flat plastic pan, cut into serving size cubes and put the pan in the freezer. Once frozen I bag the chunks.
In fact, lately I've been on a crock cooking kick. I'll do a pot full of pene pasta with tomato sauce, chicken and veggies. The leftovers are frozen in small Pyrex meal-sized casserole dishes with plastic lids. I've even done the same with my chicken-broccoli-mushroom soup. And, of course, I'll do that with Thanksgiving leftovers, too.
