It’s summertime, and this year, my herb garden is exploding. For years I tried to grow herbs, but I had no luck. This year I was determined to make it happen. Why? Because I have become the “chef” in our house. Cooking for only two people can be daunting, but you can learn how to cook for two when the nest is empty!

Let me backtrack a little. My husband, who was the chef in our house, changed jobs and now works no longer from home. He leaves the house at 8 am and doesn’t return until 7 pm. We realized he had no time to make a healthy dinner for us. The future dinners seemed to consist of grilled chicken and salad. Don’t get me wrong, we love this easy and straightforward meal, but every night didn’t sound appealing.

Why Does It Seem So Hard To Cook for 2 People?

Cooking for just two people after years of preparing family meals can indeed be challenging for women over 50 for several reasons:

1. Habit and Routine: Cooking large meals for a family is often a deeply ingrained habit. Shifting to smaller portions can feel unfamiliar and require a significant adjustment in cooking practices and meal planning.

2. Recipe Portions: Most recipes are designed to serve 4-6 people. Adapting these recipes for two can be tricky, especially when it involves dividing difficult ingredients, like a single egg or a can of beans.

3. Food Waste Concerns: When cooking for fewer people, there might be concerns about using ingredients before they go bad, particularly perishables. This can make meal planning more complicated.

4. Emotional Adjustment: Cooking for a family often comes with feelings of nourishment and connection. Transitioning to cooking for fewer people can bring up feelings of loss or change that can be emotionally challenging.

5. Efficiency: When cooking for a larger group, leftovers can easily be repurposed for future meals. But when cooking for two, the effort involved in preparing a meal doesn’t necessarily decrease, but the number of meals it produces does, which may feel less efficient.

Despite these challenges, cooking for two can also present opportunities to explore new recipes, spend less time in the kitchen, and focus on personal dietary preferences and health goals. It can be a journey of rediscovery and creativity in culinary experiences.

How To Cook for 2 When The Nest Is Empty

That’s when I decided to take over the kitchen. I have cooked for us (my two kids and myself) for years, but they were primarily dinners that everybody liked and were family-style. Back then, one was a picky eater, the other didn’t like meat, etc. So we mostly cooked what everybody ate, not only to make it easy but to save money as well. Now that we are empty nesters, it’s the two of us, and we can prepare the meals we like. Can you relate to this?

I decided to make an easy recipe. My friend suggested making Pesto because it’s easy and tasty. When I make meals, I have the ingredients and how to cook a meal in my head and don’t use a recipe. When I learned cooking from my mom, she did it the same way, and I never measured anything because we eyeballed our meal preparation. Somehow the meals always came out great!

Making Pesto was a challenge because I had to follow a recipe. This was scary because it was new and unfamiliar. What was the worst thing that could happen? That it didn’t taste as good as I thought it would?

If you feel that you can’t cook or don’t know how to cook, I am telling you that you can do it. So what if it doesn’t look like the magazine picture, or you make a big mess in the kitchen? You learn something new, and you may even like cooking. Go ahead and try my Pesto pasta recipe. I added some frozen peas and grilled leftover chicken into the mix to add vegetables and protein to our meal.

So now it was time to get the recipe and measuring cups out and make Pesto!

Classic Pesto Pasta
(serves 4)

4 cups of fresh basil leaves
⅓ cup Pine nuts
2 Garlic cloves
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup Olive Oil
¼ cup freshly ground Pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. Coarse salt
One box of Linguine for a vegetation version. Add spiral zucchini

Instructions:
Combine the first four ingredients in a blender. Blend until coarse paste forms. Add the rest of the cheese and the salt plus the oil. Blend until smooth. For this meal, we added frozen peas and leftover chicken for a complete meal.

Quick Tips

1. Watch the portion sizes of your recipes. My first few recipes were too large, and we had a few leftover meals.

2. Cook what you always wanted to try and go for it.

3. Don’t be scared when the recipe is long. Put everything out on the counter that you need for the recipe. Measure, cut, and prepare everything so it’s ready to go when you start cooking.

4. Have a glass of wine ready (not for the meal) to celebrate your cooking efforts.

Are you looking for healthy and simple recipes for any lifestyle? Vegan, simple 5 ingredient meals or high protein meal ideas are just some of the recipe packs we offer. Grab the one that is right for you right here.