cooking for one.

I always love grocery shopping & cooking for myself when I house sit, so this time I thought I'd document a little bit of it and share some of the dishes I made. {'sides. when you're eating meals by yourself, either you talk to yourself or you take pictures of your food. so I take pictures:p}I love the opportunity it gives me to try some new recipes & LEARN to cook for one or two people! Believe it or not, that is a struggle for me. I can dish up some good meals without too much thought when there are 6-12 people to cook for... but when it comes to cooking for a few, I have a hard time judging how much food to use. Not to mention that it isn't motivating whatsoever to cook a whole meal for ONE person! I do appreciate GOOD & fresh food though {no micro-wave/out of the box meals for me, please} so I'm determined to motivate myself to cook good meals even when I'm the only one there to eat them. Plus, I s'pose someday I'll probably get married & have to cook for two;)

  I also inherited mama's nack for not following recipes. I used to hate it when I was younger... always begging her to just follow the recipe & not change things!! But now I see why she never did! First of all, it's rare that you find recipes meant to serve 12 people or have everything on hand that the recipe calls for and secondly,  it's hard to resist putting your own spin on a dish!

 Though I eat a lot of veggies, I've not had cauliflower in a long time! So when I saw this recipe for cauliflower fritters, I knew I wanted to try it. I decided to substitute some of the cauliflower with freshly chopped zuchinni. I also didn't have fetta on hand (wish I did, it would have made them super creamy & slightly tangy!) or a pomegranate so I used fresh parmesean in the fritters and sour cream/plum jam & cayene pepper as the garnish.
p.s. when I was little I always got 'cauliflower' & 'california' mixed up and had to think really hard before spelling them out
p.p.s. had these leftover TWICE (wasn't so successful at cutting the recipe down to one person) and used leftover hollandaise sauce for the topping. YUM!! Even better than sour cream!

 I'm a sucker for good scones and instead of buying bread at the store, I decided to make a batch for breakfasts and to go with meals. They are essentially biscuits and I'll eat them anytime of the day! My favorite recipe was back at home so I did a google search and decided to try this one. I didn't have buttermilk or plain yogurt on hand so I used sour cream mixed with a little milk. After mixing the dough, I added chopped apples to half and chopped chocolate to the other  half before rolling out & baking. They turned out incredibly moist!

 I didn't use a recipe for this meal  because it's all about the herb seasonings & how you cook the food. I cooked everything together in a saute pan with a little oil,water & fresh lemon juice.

 For the green beans- I steamed them first in the pan before adding the potatoes & chicken & then sprinkled them with a garlic herb seasoning while they sauted.

For the potatoes- I sliced them in half, put them in a covered dish with a little bit of water & steamed them for 2 minutes in the microwave. Then I drained the water and added rosemary, pepper, dill & thyme before tossing them in the pan to saute. 

For the chicken-  I made a parmesean, garlic, pepper & lemon rub and then cooked it until done & tender.

(By the way, did you know that "saute" means to "jump or bounce while cooking"? I just looked it up because I was wondering if it had multiple meanings.)

 You can't go wrong with an orange & some scones for breakfast!

I'm not a terribly big peanut butter fan... but this next recipe would definitely belie that! Peanut Butter Cream Sandwich Cookies. Just wanted to try something a bit different. And they definitely got shared:)

I didn't have marshmallow cream so I made up my own filling/frosting recipe-

1/4 c. cream cheese | 1/4 c. peanut butter | 2 Tbs. milk | 1/2 tsp. cinnamon | 1 c. powdered sugar

 I like to think out of the box when it comes to what veggies go in salads:) This one had fresh green beans, cauliflower, carrots & zuchinni with spinach as the base. I sliced up leftover chicken & warmed it up on the stove before tossing it on top of the veggies. I used a simple vinagrette for the dressing.

{The hot version: skip the spinach & toss the rest of the veggies in a saucepan with an inch or two of water. Sprinkle with salt, pepper & favorite herbs/spices. Steam for several minutes or until tender. Drain, toss with chicken & enjoy!}

I was going for Eggs Benedict with this one... but didn't have an egg poacher. So it's just a dippy egg (fried egg) laying on a bed of fresh spinach topped with homemade hollandaise sauce. Still super yummy though! And it was accompanied by a fruit smoothie.

Have you tried a new recipe lately?! I'd love to know!