When The Nest Is Empty: How To Cook For 2

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.

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 that there was no time for him 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.

When The Nest Is Empty: How To Cook For 2

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 mostly dinners that everybody liked and were family-style. Back in the day, one was a picky eater, the other didn’t like meat, and the list goes on. 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. 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 that 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 more 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 grated Pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. Coarse salt
1 box Linguine for a vegetation version add spiral zucchini

Instructions:
Combine the first 4 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.

Do you have a recipe that you like to share with us, empty nesters? Respond to this email, and I will share it.

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.

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