Cooking for One

My preference for improvisational cooking without recipes is due in large part to the difficulty of finding recipes geared towards cooking for one and my general lack of desire to adapt those that are designed to make eight main course servings. Hence I turned one marinated and broiled portobello mushroom, two roasted beets and a half a tomato (plus some impromptu bread crumbs made from rye crisps) into this creation here. I called it a stuffed mushroom at first, but "mushroom with stuff piled on top of it" would be more accurate.

Those beets were very tasty but suffered from a problem I'd never before realized could afflict beets: after too long in the refrigerator they get slightly softer and more difficult to peel, even after roasting. Now, you might just say "Then eat them up right away and don't give them the chance to sit in the fridge." That is, however, easier said than done when you're the only person in your household who eats fruits and vegetables (Well, that's being a little less than fair to my roommates. They eat them, they just don't ever buy them or cook them.). I roasted some beets earlier this week and served them over lentils and topped with a chard pesto, but using a whole bunch of them for one meal is too much and I'd rather not have them two nights in a row.

Hence, the problem of cooking for just myself. It's an inconvenience, but I cannot stress enough how much I enjoy it. There may even be (yes, I admit it) a touch of moral superiority in there. Hopefully someone will keep me in check before I build myself an elite fortress.