Beverly
Cooking for one or two is very easy.
No difference from cooking for 3 to 150.
Smaller portions, no leftovers. Being a bachelor all my life, I have learned to cook meals for myself just like I would a party of 12.
Of course meals like lasagne or spaghetti will result in freezing leftovers. Cooking a steak, chicken, fish for one or two is easy.
Just buy 1 or 2 filet migions, 2 chicken breasts or thighs, 1 pork tenderloin.
Bake or grill as usual.
Combine with salad for 1 or 2.  Instead of buying the entire head of romaine or boston bibb, go to the salad bar and just buy spring mix, romaine, spinach.  Then at home add a little brocolli, carrots, tomatoes (only in season of course), or whatever you like in a salad.  Make a homeaid vinaigrette. Combine with one or two potatoes, mashed, boiled or baked.  I don’t eat bread, but you could buy a small sub roll and use that with olive oil and garlic.
This is a standard dinner for me and it has always been good.
Hope you are doing well!

Johnny Flowe

Thanks Johnny! These are all great ideas and I’ll definitely try them. Last night (my first night back since the Buenos Aires adventure) I boiled about 1/2 pound of shrimp in Old Bay seasoning and just made a simple salad and put the cooled shrimp on top. I’m having the leftover shrimp today for lunch with yet another salad. (I have to loose a bit of weight packed on from the trip!)

We have always been a two-eater household and don’t mind leftovers. Just buy less, as Johnny said. And don’t skimp on yourself because it’s “just two.” I also find that frittatas make a great light meal or appetizer for two. I like to use chopped fresh basil and/or parsley, chopped tomatoes (cherry tomatoes are fine) and some Parmesan if you have it.

Beverly,
Johnny has some great suggestions.

You might want to check out CookingforTwo.About.com. For the most part I either cook for me or many, but I’ve scaled a lot of recipes for two along with providing tips and tricks. This is all pretty much straight-forward cooking.

From Betsy, via Facebook:

I don’t cook and it’s causing unrest in the household!

Betsy,
I taught my wife to cook and it caused unrest in our house - we argued about whose turn it was to cook.

So is it better to have one Head Chef and one Sous Chef?!!

Beverly,
Eventually we discovered where our kitchen strengths were relative to each other. For example, if a recipe involved pastry (say a quiche or apple pie) Cindy made it and if it included a sauce, I did it. We still squabbled in the kitchen, but mostly it was gentle and I think it was far more important that we cooked together. We ate a lot of homemade pizza because Cindy made an awesome crust and I made an awesome sauce and we both worked on the other ingredients.

Beverly,

The funny part is once you make the adaptation, when the kids come home - they’ll be in culture shock.  I grew up with a working mother who still managed to throw together a meat, starch and 2-3 vegetables on the table.  When I moved back I was shocked at how she had pared back on how much is prepared.  The notion that we would just be eating salad and bread was unreal to me.  At this time of year, pasta dishes and stir fry appeal far more than salad because in NY it’s cold.  I find that skillet meals more so than casseroles, roasts, etc. lend themselves to creativity, reducing ingredient amounts - and make for a great leftover option.  They also allow me to clean my fridge.  My mother also started doing her own little scrambles (we like breakfast for dinner) where she threw the produce bin in with scrambled eggs and I have to say it’s delicious.

I don’t think it is ever a problem to cook for less people. You either reduce the quantity in ingredients or you reduce the # of dishes on the table.