Cooking for two

Im looking for some good recipes for 2.
I cook all of the time and end up with so many left overs...we do freeze quite a bit for the nights I work late, but I still feel like we have so many leftovers. Its so hard to cook just for 2 people, even when you cut recipes in half. We have a 5 1/2month old son, so he's obviously not eating with us yet....

any ideas???

Re: Cooking for two

Do you have a food saver?

I've found that it's not COOKING for 2 that is the issue.. it's BUYING for 2! I mean - if you get steaks its' fine - but most everything else seems to be packaged for families. I have a family of 4 but I still love the food saver. I get bulk meats, cut them and seperate them into smaller portions. I would adopt the same philosophy if there were only 2 of us.

I'd also pay close attention to the 'morphing dinners' thread. Even if you have leftovers, you can plan an entirely new meal with them so it doesn't FEEL like leftovers. Make a meatloaf - and 2 days later make individual shepherd's pies. A small roast chicken can help create shredded buffalo chicken wraps a couple of days later. It feels less like boring 'leftovers' when you are making something new.

The biggest thing is recipes - most are for '4' or whatever number of people. I tend to look at an ingredient list and then cook by ratio and feel rather than numbers. So if you've got a recipe that calls for a cup of chicken broth and 2 cups of milk - you figure that whatever portion you make it's a 1:2 ratio. And sometimes it doesn't work out so you feel your way through. You want the sauce thicker? Cornstarch or a little seasoned flour. You want a little more heat - add another pinch of red pepper. Too salty? Lemon or tomato can mellow it. Know your spices and taste your food often. As you learn the tricks you'll find that it's pretty easy to convert for 2 or 20!!

Good luck!

Message edited 10/11/2010 7:45:04 AM.

Re: Cooking for two

What kinds of recipes are you making? I find that if you figure out the proteins, the rest will all fit into place.

So figure out how many chicken breasts you and our DH would eat for dinner... then scale down the recipe that way. KWIM? So if the recipe assumes that each person is eating 2 chicken breasts, but you and DH each eat only 1, then maybe you need to 1/4 the recipe instead.

For things like burgers, I usually use 1/2 - 3/4 of a lb of meat for me and DH.

ITA with everything rojerono said! When you buy your proteins, put them into individual 2-serving-size bags and freeze whatever you're not using that day.

Does that help at all?

Re: Cooking for two

Thanks for the tips

Didn't know there was a morphing dinners thread. Will have to check it out. We do a lot of chicken, ground beef, pork chops. Meatloaf we have like once a week or once every other week, we try to do tacos once a week. I like to use my slow cooker a lot too, so when i make soups with that I def. freeze some for another night. THe meatloaf one night and shepherds pie another is a GREAT idea...just throughout a meatloaf that we never finished and feel bad wasting so much food, let alone the cost!

Re: Cooking for two

I thought of the foodsaver right away too. I use it all the time to freeze our leftovers. I love making big casseroles or a slow cooker recipes but hate eating the same thing for a whole week. I freeze just about all the leftovers in the foodsaver and then pull meals out the night before we eat them. Last time I made meatloaf, I made one big one that fed DH and I for two nights and made two small ones that were big enough for just one meal to put in the freezer. They are expensive but sooo worth it.