Party of two

When "The Office" came back from winter hiatus, Pam tried to foster a happy office environment by starting a New Year's Resolutions chart. Andy, who is routinely spurning by romantic interests, resolves to master cooking for one. After my mental chuckles subsided, I thought to myself, "Damn, too true." The world (at least the world of groceries) seems designed for families of four, and cooking for one or, in my case, two is a challenge.

Last week I made Pineapple Salsa Chicken for dinner (should that be capitalized, as it is the title of a recipe? Who knows) and I had to cut the recipe down from 6 servings to 2. There were problems from the get go, as I didn't have the requisite slow cooker, but I felt confident after googling some conversion times. I wound up using 2 chicken breasts, figuring that there were 2 of us so a breast a piece sounded fair (har har har). Not so. We ate no fewer than 3 separate meals from those 2 pineapple-d salsa-ed chicken breasts, and it could have been more had we not been desperate to finish it off in the third sitting.*

That said, I'm working on it. On Friday we ate our first meal in which nothing needed to be put in Rubbermaids and stuck in the refrigerator. Oddly enough, it was meatloaf. I have a bit of a thing with meatloaf. As a child, I ate it happily, devouring meaty slices on a bi or tri-weekly basis. Then recently I became seriously grossed out about it, and the fact that it was literally a loaf of meat. Just a ball of ground up beef. I am grimacing as I type this, by the way. Anyway, I saw this Nigella recipe online and it came highly reviewed, so I thought I would take a chance.

• 1 lb sausage meat (I went with sweet Italian)
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 C quick-cooking oats, not instant oatmeal
• 1/3 C A.1. steak sauce (or store brand, you know, whatever)
  
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 t Worcestershire sauce
• 1 t kosher salt or 1/2 t table salt

Preheat the oven to 400. Combine all of the above in a bowl, mixing really well with your hands or a fork. Divide the mixture into 12 balls, then shape them into mini loaves. Set the mini meat loaves on a foil-lined baking sheet with a little space between them. Cook for 30 minutes.

I cut the recipe in half, and wound up making four mini meatloaves.

While those were in the oven, I made some roasted corn and a brown rice medley from Trader Joe's to go with it. And, voila! A perfectly portioned meal for two.

The mini loaves were flavorful, moist, and supremely tasty. Steven said that, for whatever reason, there is something much more appealing about eating a mini (heart shaped) loaf than a slice, and I think I agree.

In non food related news, I went to Sally Beauty Supply yesterday. I had run out of base coat and the polishes that I have been wearing lately started to peel after maybe 2 days of wear. Unacceptable. So I purchased Orly Bonder, which is a rather unappealing shade of orange in the bottle but I can assure you it applies clear. My bottle of Seche Vite had also gotten rather thick (such are the perils of using an ultra fast drying top coat) and I noticed a coupon entitling the purchaser of a bottle of Seche Vite to a free China Glaze nail polish. Score. I scanned the racks before narrowing it down to "Secret Peri-winkle," which looks just like you might think, or "Unplugged," a bronzy, rosy, brown shade. Here is what I chose:

It's brighter than it looks in the picture, and I really love it. I have picked up this color dozens of times but always put it back because I felt like I owned something similar. Wrong. I have nothing that sits right in the middle of blue and purple. The ultimate blurple polish. All in all, a very successful trip to the store.

* All complaining aside, the chicken was very delicious and the leftovers made excellent quesadillas.