When I was single, I had the "on going pot'. Started out as rice a roni with some hamburger mixed in. The next day, the left overs got mixed with mac and cheese. The next day, maybe some tuna and noodles got mixed in. The fourth day it got mixed with some chili and spaghetti sauce. I don't remember how it tasted, but by the time I got back to the apartment(with many alcoholic beverages consumed) it really didn't matter.
I'm single, but I guess "bachelor" wouldn't be right since I've got kids.
We do lots of quesadillas and lots of noodles. You'd think the repetition would drive them nuts, but they don't care. And I know they'll eat it...so we're good to go.
Try bringing stuff to potlucks when you've got a single burner. So far my two potluck standbies are:
1 Jar Hot Salsa, 1 box Cream Cheese, 1 Bag tortilla chips. Heat salsa and cheese in a pot and mix well. Set pot on table at potluck. Open bag of chips and place in close proximity to pot. Uncover pot and insert spoon.
1 Package frozen Shewpeg corn (or two cans of sweet corn can be substituted), 1 Box Cream Cheese, 1 Can of diced green chiles. Open all containers, place in a pot, heat through, and mix. Done.
Both of the above can be made with as high or as low quality ingredients as the occasion, your wallet, or your diet command. I typically go top-end organic and such, but I've learned that the folks eating it can't always tell and therefore don't appreciate the extra effort ;).
Clem
Some interesting ideas...
A dish I've been making for years: get a pound or two of lean ground beef; brown in a frying pan and drain the fat; add a can a baked beans, a tsp or so of chili powder & a can of tomato paste (not sauce - the thick stuff). Stir everythign together and season to taste (cayenne pepper, tobasco, etc. - I vary it depending on mood) and let simmer on low with occasional stirring for a good 1/2 hour.
For steak, I usually buy a filet mignon, put a slice of butter on top and broil in the oven for about 15 minutes. Add buttered lima beans and mashed potatoes.... Tasty...
Mini Pizzas: sliced English muffins; tbl spoon of spagetti sauce; a bit of shredded cheese and seasoning to taste. Cook in a toaster oven for about 10 minutes or until cheese is brown. Make as many as you like (this is a recipe my g/f found on a "points" Weightwachers site).
"Joy of Cooking" - an old cook book left behind by my parents. Pretty simple stuff and covers almost everything. Cooking isn't hard... just follow the directions to start and you'll learn what you like and where to modify.
Every so often invite a girl over to your place, she'll feel sorry for you, cook you a great big meal and then you tell her 'It's not you, it's me...'. Then live off the leftovers for a week or two, repeat as necessary. 
David, +1 on the food column!
Here's my quick & easy recipe for some killer biscuits & gravy:
Grab a tube of the Pilsbury Grands "Butter Tastin" biscuits, a 1lb pack of Jimmy Dean Maple Cured Sausage, and 2-packs of Jimmy Dean sausage gravy mix. Follow the directions as instructed, except instead of 1-cup of water per gravy pack, I use 1.5-cups of milk & 1/2-cup water total. It gives the gravy a great consistency...about like spackling compound.
Not to brag, but everyone else's biscuits & gravy tastes totally bland after having this.
Potatoes. They last for ages and there are infinite ways to cook them. They're already meal sized. You can eat them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Bake them, microwave them, chop them up and fry them.
I was a huge fan of the ever classic Baked Potato; done with one knife and a microwave. It can be topped with pretty much anything you can find in the house: salsa, canned chili, cheese, sour cream, onions, broccoli, eggs. Whatever.
You can cook it on the same plate or bowl you're going to eat out of and be left with a minimum number of dishes to clean up later.
Chef Boy I Am Hungry from Thrasher
Scarfing Material!! back in the days of newsprinted pages...
do it
Way long ago I read a story about a guy who, as part of the book, had figured out the perfect bachelor eats: Dinty Moore Beef Stew and chopsticks.
Open the can, put it directly on the stove burner until warm then hold with an oven mitt and eat it with chopsticks. Can went in the garbage, it took 30 seconds to wash the chopsticks, no muss no fuss.
I think you guys are confusing "bachelor food" with "healthy food." 
Not a single mention of Doritos anywhere.
Jensenman wrote: Way long ago I read a story about a guy who, as part of the book, had figured out the perfect bachelor eats: Dinty Moore Beef Stew and chopsticks. Open the can, put it directly on the stove burner until warm then hold with an oven mitt and eat it with chopsticks. Can went in the garbage, it took 30 seconds to wash the chopsticks, no muss no fuss.
That's awesome. I'm all about the minimum cleanup time.
One of the more amusing chopstick stories I've heard was about my dad when he was going through survival training at the Air Force Academy. At one point, their instructor told them they had to whittle eating utensils before they could get any food. Everyone was trying to make knives and forks. My dad made a pair of chopsticks and was the first to eat, and the only one to get seconds.
Hot Pockets duh..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9c9lAfXQHs
We used a chopstick to poke a length of polypropylene-esque cord into the cylinder of a subaru so we could get the crank bolt loose...
Um...then we ate some hot pockets or some such...
Beer does make a perfectly satisfying dinner...but only on occasion.
Clem
I think the ultimate answer is: single dish meals that can be made with one knife and one pan out of common staples. The longer they feed you for, the better.
Eggs, potatoes, pastas, and stews that you can add whatever meats and vegies to.
My latest favorite meal to fix is great for impressing females, super easy, very quick, virtually impossible to screw up, and very tasty: seared tuna with polenta and salad. I get the fixin's at Trader Joe's.
You need:
Heat olive oil on a pan on medium. Cut polenta into pucks. Lightly fry the polenta. In a small bowl, marinated the tuna with soy sauce. Rub in some ground pepper and hot sauce. Throw the tuna in the same pan. Sear it so that it's still raw in the center. Open the package of salad.
Serve it up with wine for that woman you want to impress with how good of a chef you are that you have the skill to cook fancy cuisine.
A frozen piece of fish from the market. I just grilled up a thing of cajun catfish and I have enough for two more meals plus the lunch I just had.
A bag of peas. After soaking them and enlarging them, I literally ate those for a good 4 days at lunch and dinner until it was gone. Only thing to add is some sort of sauce.
Soft pretzels. Can't beat it for a lunch on the go.
Pizza has been excluded but no one said anything about tomato pie. I just had a piece of catfish over a piece of tomato pie for lunch.
92dxman wrote: Pizza has been excluded but no one said anything about tomato pie. I just had a piece of catfish over a piece of tomato pie for lunch.
Tomato pie?
My favorite in my broke-ass days was Totinos party pizzas. Often on sale - 5 for $4. I'd generally skip breakfast, buy a $1 McDeez double cheeseburger, and throw a pizza in for dinner. My smart-ass mommy & daddy funded roomate would come home at night after going out for dinner and exclaim "Do I smell a party cookin'?" Yeah. He's still in school.
We still do beans & rice during "tighten the belt" times. Bag o' beans, bag o' rice, and some sasauge. Voila. Lunch & dinner for a week for less than ten bucks.
In reply to CamaroKeith:
Beer bread. The simplest recipe I've ever seen besides "Boil water. Add noodles. Wait till soft enough to eat. Drain and eat."
One bottle beer, two cups of flour, one teaspoon baking powder. Mix with hands. Pinch of salt. Put into well-buttered pan, IIRC 350deg for 45min or something like that.
Guinness gives it a rich nutty flavor.
It's so simple even I can make it!
alex wrote: You know, guys - and I mean no disrespect here, really - an alternative would be to learn to cook.
Isn't that the general idea?
Gotta learn to brake, turn, and go, before we start trying to win at the Nationals?
Here’s a one-pot-wonder that’s cheap, filling, & makes you feel a little more grown up than cup-o-sodium:
I like to use low fat turkey sausage and skinless / boneless breast of chicken as the meat source.
Ramin is what I lived on for the better part of a year while I was saving pennies for my turbo on the miata, (thanks FM it was worth it) but started eating it in the army in the field, we used to make Ramin then combine it with the chicken ala king that came in MRE's (the one that was always left if you were at the end of the food line), then mix in the cheese that came in the MRE. It was filling and pretty good and a good way to make the best of the worst MRE at the time. You could easily add almost anything left in the refrigerator to ramin in a sauce pan, top it with hot sauce and call it a day.
I used to eat out a lot when I was a bachalor, lots of pizza, wings, etc. I also learned how to make a killer steak.
My other eat what you have on hand thing was microwave popcorn with hot sauce, from when that was all I had on hand so I combined them and found it lovely.
Pirates used to make an "on hand" dish called Salamagundi which was basically everything they had in the larder in a pot, and heavily seasoned. This ran the gamut and included Fish, turtle, pork, pickled eggs, barley etc. Give that a try.
Chris Rummel
David S. Wallens wrote: Not to derail things, but I have been kicking around the idea of doing some sort of regular food thing in the magazine--kinda like Chef Boy I Am Hungry from Thrasher. Yes/no?
OMG LOL please. DO IT.
If you can use the same hilarious 80s slang that was in there when I was reading that mag back when I was a kid, so much the better.
I am addicted to that black peppercorn steak marinade. It's got some zap to it, so if you aren't into spice stay away! It works best when oven broiling.
Not a bachelor anymore (happily). 
But when I was (and with kids), "Dad's Quick-&-Dirty Slumgullion" was always a hit.
RX Reven' wrote: Here’s a one-pot-wonder that’s cheap, filling, & makes you feel a little more grown up than cup-o-sodium: I like to use low fat turkey sausage and skinless / boneless breast of chicken as the meat source.
Zatarain's will work if it's all you can get, but THIS is a jambalaya mix. Good stuff-- comes from my home-town in Louisiana. Not exactly easy to find, but worth it. Add in chicken, good spicy sausage, and (if you're feeling rich) shrimp. It'll feed you for a week, and you'll like it.
Wallens said: Not to derail things, but I have been kicking around the idea of doing some sort of regular food thing in the magazine--kinda like Chef Boy I Am Hungry from Thrasher. Yes/no?
In.
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