It can be one of the most annoying things about recipes.
Most recipes make enough food to feed a family of four _ or sometimes six. Or sometimes more.
But what if, as is so often the case, there are only two of you? Or only one?
Two obvious answers come to mind: Make half of the recipe _ or sometimes one-third of the recipe _ or make the full recipe and enjoy delicious leftovers the next day.
But math is hard, and sometimes cutting the recipe in half doesn't work. Sauces, especially, tend to burn or evaporate when you cut back on a recipe's ingredients. Besides, variety is the spice cabinet of life. So this week, we are looking at recipes that are specifically meant for two.
Admittedly, although there are only two of us in my house, when we try a recipe we almost always cook the full amount. We save the rest for leftovers, or, as is too often the case, I just eat the rest of it myself.
So for guidance I turned to "The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook," by America's Test Kitchen. They typically know what they're doing, so I let them work out the details and the proportions.
And they certainly got it right with the first dish I made, Chilled Fresh Tomato Soup. This is the perfect time of year for it: Tomatoes are coming into season and are bold and red and beautifully flavored, and it is hot enough that a chilled soup is a delightful addition to any meal.
Although the soup is served cold, you begin by roasting half of the tomatoes, along with shallots and garlic. The cooked tomatoes are then pureed (along with the shallots and garlic) with fresh tomatoes _ that's what gives the soup its signature fresh taste _ and a smattering of spices.
A dash or two of sherry vinegar provides the proper finishing touch, an extra splash of elegance to an already impressive soup. And don't forget the chopped basil or mint at the end; it's not just a garnish, it provides a culinary counterpoint that brings the entire dish into focus.
I was still thinking about a light meal for the summer, so I next made a salad. But not just any salad. I made a Steak, Mushroom and Blue Cheese Salad.
Let's start on the bottom and work our way up. The first layer consists of baby spinach that has been tossed in a simple homemade vinaigrette and minced capers. On top of that are thin slices of strip steak, cooked a perfect medium rare (or any way you like your steak, as long as it is medium rare). Those layers are topped with mushrooms that have been sauteed in that same vinaigrette, and it is all sprinkled with crumbles of blue cheese.
This entree salad has many things going for it, and among them is the speed with which it is made. If you're good, you can whip out the whole thing, start to finish, in about 10 minutes.
For an easy meal time, I next turned to my slow cooker and made Slow-Cooker Chicken Provencal. This is another dish that is fast to make, and then you let it cook slowly for three or four hours while you go on to other things.
The secret of traditional Chicken Provencal is that it is cooked in a tomato-and-garlic sauce. This version makes it easy with canned tomatoes (and a bit of tomato paste) plus a whole lot of garlic. It uses chicken thighs, which don't dry out during the extended cooking time, and it first removes the skin from them, which cuts way back on the grease.
Once the dish has been thoroughly cooked, it needs a little something extra, a hint of brightness to cut through the meal's earthy flavors. A handful of chopped nicoise olives does the trick. But my local Schnuckbergs doesn't carry nicoise olives, so I just chopped up some kalamata olives. I promise you, no one knew the difference.
My last dish was the one that excited me the most: Simple Drop Biscuits. I love biscuits _ I'm fairly certain I am not alone in that _ but I never get the chance to make them because, as I mentioned, there are only two of us in the house and every recipe I have found seems to make at least a dozen of them.
But this recipe only makes four, the perfect amount for two people, or one if you're stuffing yourself. They are ridiculously easy to make, they bake up fluffy and light and are very buttery.
The recipe includes a neat trick I had never seen before. After combining the dry ingredients, you add a mixture of melted butter and cold buttermilk that have been stirred together until little clumps of butter form. These clumps don't just give the biscuits their buttery taste, they also work to steam the biscuits from the inside and create that wonderful flaky texture.
The biscuits are almost too good to share with just one other person.
