cooking for one pt. 1

While people ate barbecue and roasted their selections of meat in their backyards, I stayed home, watched movies, and did laundry. Even though though the only time I actually left the house was to take the trash out, I still managed to be fairly productive.

I fed the fish, ate two blackberry bars that I completely screwed the recipe up on, played briefly in the garden before it started storming, and made two amazing dishes.

One of them is so simple that it hardly counts as a recipe, but without a recipe, I would never had made it this way. I had one eggplant sitting around from last week's farmer's market. I know last week might not be  the best time to shop for tonight's dinner, but the eggplant was minimally squishy. Still firm where it counted.

I was also home alone; the only person in the kitchen. No, it doesn't happen often, and I like to make something small when it does.

The eggplant is sweet and toasty on the bottom, and the garlic is roasted and perfectly mushy.

I scored the tomatoes and shoved a clove of garlic in the middle one. The tomato juice that dripped down the plate flavored the charred bottom of the eggplant. Yummy!

The garlic came from the great piedmont based Cornerstone Garlic Farm, the best place to get the freshest, largest variety of garlic around. Every year I wait patiently for the scapes, a wonderful late-spring treat. My garden isn't big enough yet to This is an easy, hands-off way to use some vegetables in need of help.

Some people aren't too fond of cooking for one person. I happen to love it! Anything can happen at any moment. Something could not go right or the meal could turn out horrible. There is no one to disappoint  when cooking for one person. Plus, the cook is able to take more risks. Ah, I love cooking solo.