Dinner Just For Two — A Review

This morning, I forgot one critical thing, I am a wimp. So when I am making a recipe for 6 muffins that calls for 1 small jalapeno I probably should cut that down just a bit. Holy Hanna, those muffins packed a punch for 5:30 am!

The recipe came from Christina Lane’s new cookbook, Dinners Just For Two. Of Christina’s four cookbooks, Dinner Just For 2 is my favorite.

Things I like:

1. There are a large variety of recipes from the fancy Steak and Scalloped Potatoes to the simple, comforting Sloppy Joes with Tater Tots, my personal favorite.

2. Very few of her recipes call for any processed ingredients.

3. The ingredients lists and cooking times are generally not excessive.

4. If you follow Christine’s instructions, the recipes always come out. They are absolutely reliable.

5. There are extensive lists if how to use leftover ingredients. I am starting to think these kind of lists are absolutely vital to a cooking for one or two cookbook.

6. There are actually things I want to eat in this cookbook.

What I didn’t like about this book: Honestly, there isn’t anything I don’t like about this book. I have cooked from it at least one meal every day this week and I am still finding recipes I want to try.

If you’re looking for a cooking for one or two cookbook you will actually use, pick up a copy of Dinner Just For Two.

In the interest of full disclosure, my copy of Dinners Just For 2 was a gift from the author but my opinions are my own. If you have been hanging around here awhile you know my love for Christina Lane and her recipes has run deep for a long time.

Cranberry Bars

This recipe isn’t Whole 30.  This recipe isn’t Paleo.   This recipe is good, old-fashioned baking and it has cranberries.  Win and win again. This week’s recipes are all courtesy of  Christina Lane at Dessert For Two.  You already know how much I love  Dessert For Two.  I have posted many of her recipes over the years.  Christina Lane is my favorite blogger ever.

What you don’t know is if  I had never come  across Dessert For Two there would be no A Solitary Feast.  It was never my intent to start a food/recipe blog when I started adapting recipes for one or two.  My intent was to adapt some recipes for my friend, Steph, who was moving out on her own for the first time and I wanted to encourage Steph to  cook.

When I gave her the recipes, Steph started telling  me I should start a recipe blog.  I kind of blew her off because 1.  I didn’t really know what a blog was.  2,  I didn’t really think anyone outside my circle of friends and, maybe, my mother would be interested in the recipes.  The idea of recipe blogs intrigued me enough I wanted to  check it out, though.

The very first blog I found was Christina Lane’s Dessert For  Two.  I love to bake as much as I love to cook so I tried her recipes right away.  I fell in love.  I have made dozens of her recipes over the years.  As I watched Dessert For Two bloom and grow, I started thinking there might be some place on the internet for my dinner recipes.  Three months later I posted my first recipe on A Solitary Feast.

Christina is not only my cooking and baking inspiration she also inspires me as a person.   In a world that seems to take pleasure in tearing you down, Christina has taken time to build me up and encourage me to step outside of my comfort zone.  In a world full of negative, she is a bright and shining positive.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

From Dessert For Two

6 TBS butter, cold and diced

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 1//2 cups leftover cranberry sauce

1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper.  Leave enough parchment paper hanging over the sides to help remove the bars after baking.  In a medium bowl, add the  flour, sugar and salt.   Add the diced butter to the flour.  Using your fingers,  rub the butter into the flour.  You will know when the butter and flour are mixed well when it sticks together when you lightly squeeze it in your fist.  Spread the flour/butter into the bottom of  the prepared pan. Using  your  hands,  press the  crust mixture evenly into the bottom of the  pan.  You want to press relatively  hard  so the flour/ butter  mixture sticks together to form the crust.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Meanwhile, stir the vanilla into  the  leftover cranberry sauce.  When the crust is done baking, spread the cranberry sauce over the crust.  Bake another 20 minutes or until  the crust is golden brown.  Let cool in the  pan before slicing.

Instapot Mini Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

I got my  Insta Pot Lux 3 quart mini on Sunday.  The first thing I made was Christina Lane’s Insta Pot spaghetti and meat sauce.  As  you know,  I don’t usually use store-bought ingredients in my cooking.  However,  I found a Whole 30 compliant marinara sauce i wanted to try for my next Whole 30 so I thought I would use this recipe to try it.

The quality of the sauce really matters in this recipe. I used Rao’s Roasted Garlic Marinara sauce that I bought at Walmart.  For a store-bought sauce, it wasn’t bad.  The store bought sauce made the hardest part of this  recipe deciding if you stirred the raw noodles enough to prevent them from sticking together

This recipe is enough to feed one very hungry person or two normally hungry people with a salad.

Instapot Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

Small Batch Chicken Broth In A Mini Pressure Cooker (Whole 30)

Calling all mini pressure cooker (3 1/2 quarts or less) owners.  There is finally someone creating pressure cooker recipes just for you.   Christina Lane, of Dessert For Two, is pressure cooking’s newest fan and she is creating small batch recipes for her Instapot mini and sharing them with us.

I really like this recipe because it is almost impossible to find a broth without sugar or soy in it. Why? Why? Why?   The batch makes enough for one reasonably sized batch of soup.

A Small Batch of Chicken Broth In The Pressure Cooker

Christina Lane’s Best Ever Frosted Brownies

I don’t usually publish on Thursday but today we are celebrating!  Last Friday I handed over my Christmas money to my best friend, Steph, and sent her off to buy me a new computer while I finished working.  Steph is my tech guru so I trusted her to get me the best computer she could within the confines of my budget and with the features I wanted.  Steph not only got me a terrific deal, she got me features I didn’t think I could get with my small budget, like a touch screen.

I love my new computer!  It is going to make my life so much easier.  Well, at least it is going to make my blogging life easier.  I have been a blogger without a computer since last March.  How does one blog without a computer? I wrote everything out long hand in a notebook. then on my  one weekday a week off I would go to the library and type, edit, add pictures, proof read and schedule all my posts for the week.  That is great when it isn’t cold, I am organized, or I don’t have something else I have to do on my one weekday off. It’s not so great the rest of the time.  Now I can go back to lying in bed and watching reruns of Chopped, Iron Chef and Iron Chef America while I compose my posts on any day I want to, at any time of day I want to.

To celebrate, I made the brownie recipe from Christina Lane’s new cookbook, Sweet and Simple, to share with you all.I am not going to go into the cookbook because I will be doing a post about it soon.  So enjoy your small batch of frosted brownies while I wipe the frosting off my touch screen.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Brownies

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons white sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup all purpose flour

Frosting

6 TBS unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup cocoa powder

3/4  cup powdered sugar

2 to 3  TBS milk or cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line a 9 inch bread loaf pan with parchment paper.  In a microwave safe bowl, combine the butter, cocoa powder, and sugar.  Microwave at full power for 30 seconds.  Stir the mixture and return it to the microwave for another 30 seconds.  Stir again.  Add one more 30 second pulse if the butter isn’t mostly melted.  Let the mixture cool for 1 minute.  Stir in the vanilla and the salt.  Stir in the egg.  Finally, add the flour and stir vigourously for about 1 minute or 50 strokes. Scrape the mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes.  The top of the brownie surface should appear dry and be starting to crack.  Do  not over bake because you want the inside to be fudgy.  Meanwhile, beat together all of the frosting ingredients, adding milk or cream as needed to make the frosting spreadable.  Frost the brownies once cook and cut in half to serve.