Cooking For Two

I initially had some trouble being an empty nester, but once both kids were gone for a while, I adjusted well. Hubby and I enjoy our couple time (the time after the kids moved out). That’s one reason among many on why you should marry a friend. The time you spend being a couple may be longer than the time you’re full nesters (kids living at home).

One of the hardest adjustments an empty nester has is cooking for two. All of my recipes are family-sized which isn’t all bad if you like leftovers. We do. We often spend several days eating one cooking session. Some things freeze well; some don’t. Hubby doesn’t mind eating the same thing every day for a week, but I like variety. The way to get variety is to cook more often, but what? Most cooks will tell you it’s not the cooking that’s the chore, it’s thinking up what to fix.

When I worked, we ate out a lot and brought home takeout containers for additional meals. Since I retired, we don’t eat out very much. We don’t buy a lot of canned and ready-to-cook foods because the sodium content is too high. My blood pressure is high enough without additional boosts from too much salt. That leaves home cooking which isn’t all that bad, but may be labor intensive.

Scaling down recipes is easy if you know basic math. As I stated in my book Scraps of Wisdom: All I Needed to Know I Learned in Quilting Class, fractions are our friends. Use them to scale recipes down. Make half a batch of soup, half of a favorite casserole, half a cake, or half a batch of cookies. Cut the ingredients into halves or thirds or enough for one night. Fresh cookies and fresh pizza are always best.

Experiment with new and old recipes. Alter the ingredients slightly and see how it turns out. That’s easy for me since I’m an adventurous dumper (see previous post at https://cskjar.com/2014/12/thoughts-on-cooking/). I like trying new things. If they bomb, I’ve got an adventurous-eating Hubby. a big trashcan, and an attitude of nothing-ventured-nothing-gained.

Next week’s blog will contain a couple of cooking-for-two recipes I’ve developed from things I’ve eaten and seen on the web. If you have recipes, I hope you’ll share them with everyone. Maybe it’ll make it easier to decide what’s for supper.