Dinner for One

Now that I'm approaching my first full year of living alone in my one bedroom condo, I've found the most common question asked of me is, "What do you usually do for dinner?" Most of the people asking me this live in a house full of kids where finding meals to suit the entire family is important, and probably also difficult. I think they are just trying to reflect on those days, like..."Tell me again what it's like when you don't have to feed anyone else?" My response, usually, is that I sometimes eat out with friends, sometimes grab something from Noodles or Subway, and sometimes I make salad or chicken or spaghetti or something. This is all true...usually. But a more accurate response would often be, "Well, last night I nuked a sweet potato in the microwave for 5 minutes, covered it in spaghetti sauce and ate it." It's really good, I swear. I just have never really been bold enough to tell people the truth. And the few that I have told haven't exactly asked me for my recipe. Don't get me wrong, I do like to cook...stir fry, pasta, stew, you name it. The problem is, anytime I make these things just for myself, I end up with leftovers to last me the whole week. I really liked that chili I made, but it got kind of old on the fourth day.

Since I am a pretty healthy eater, my solution is to find good meals that work for one person. Sometimes that means grazing throughout the evening on grapes, cheese slices, peanut butter on a spoon, carrots and popcorn. Sometimes it means making chicken on the George Foreman at 6pm, making rice a half hour later and having green beans for a midnight snack. And sometimes it means having buffalo wings with a beer at happy hour and then coming home and having a bowl of cereal. Yeah, that's right.

This is not to say that when I do have a family to feed that I am going to serve them my random food preparations...like my special cottage cheese salad. But I am just enjoying this time in my life to do it however I want. So how am I supposed to answer the question, "what do I usually do for dinner?"

We all have our cuisine quirks, right? My mom used to get us to eat broccoli by dipping it in mayonnaise. I thought this was a normal way to eat it for a long time. So, before you judge my sweet potatos and spaghetti sauce, fess up. But, if you do try my recipe, use Prego Garden Combination. Good stuff. Hey, it sounds a lot better than what my brother says my nephew prepares in his post "Making Soup."