cooking for one

Given the proper circumstances, I'm really quite fond of cooking. I'm no gourmet chef, but I manage to produce edible and fairly tasty food most of the time. These days, though, I don't cook from scratch that often partly because I like to have lots of time to do preparation and clean up, but mostly because I don't like cooking for just myself. Theoretically the idea of cooking up a big pot of something so that I'll have leftovers for lunches and suppers during the week is a good idea. After four or five days of eating the same curry or stew for lunch, however, I'm ready to say sayonara (I know, I should probably stick a few portions in the freezer). And lately, it's just been too hot to cook.

Mercifully, the humidity broke last night and the apartment has been fairly cool today. I've been craving a curry, so I took the lower temperatures as an opportunity to do some cooking. I always feel like I need to work more protein into my diet, so I opted for Braised Tofu and Peas in Curried Coconut Milk from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I'd made the recipe once before and was pleased with the results -- combining several of the recipe variations at the end and adding potatoes and garlic. I also threw in some ginger, cinnamon, cayenne, and nutmeg with the curry powder in lieu of the garam masala. Overall, the Braised Tofu and Peas is a relatively quick and simple recipe (as are most of those that I've tried so far from Bittman's great book). Next time though, I'd either parboil or not use new/waxy potatoes, as they didn't really cook to a great consistency. I cooked up a pot of basmati and now my meals are set for the next few days. Yay.



Now I'm trying to decide if it's ill-advised to make a batch of cookies tonight.