We’ve been putting this off for as long as we can, but now it’s time: We simply must learn to cook for an Empty Nest. With the kids off at college, we don’t have four people around the table on a regular basis anymore. Leftovers serve as the answer only so much of the time!

Cooking for one or two isn’t always as easy as cutting a recipe in half. Not everything translates, and let’s face it, most supermarket food is packaged for at least four servings.

Sure there are “cooking for two” cookbooks out there, and sometimes they work. But we’ve sort of gotten addicted to our own recipe styles over the years and we find our streamlined approach isn’t usually found in the mainstream. (Salads are among the easiest recipes to adapt and that's true with the Cobb Salad pictured with this post.)

While this might sound like the beginnings of a new “Desperation” cookbook, we’re not quite ready for that just yet! What we are hungry for are some new approaches, some new ideas and some HELP!

So, brace yourself for some experimentation here on Kitchen Scoop over the next few months as we attempt to figure out this next chapter. Most of all, we’d love to hear from others of you who have traversed this terrain with success. Please tell us how you cook for one or two people!