Cooking for 2

It seems life is so busy all the time. After work there are children’s school events, homework, dinner and house work to complete. This has been my pattern for nineteen years. Now this year my youngest went off to college. Our busy household now seems quiet and at times even boring. I have found that cooking for 2 is much less time consuming, so my evenings are longer. My husband and I go out to eat more often because we will meet somewhere on our way home from work because there are not two hungry boys waiting to be fed.

When I first started cooking for 2 I had to make huge adjustments. I did not realize how much two boys in their late teens eat. The first meal I put on the table for the two of us had enough leftovers for most of the week. Cooking for 2 is so less time consuming. That sounds strange, but it is true. We eat much simpler meals and we fill our plates at the stove and bring them to the table to eat. This cuts down on the amount of dishes we do because there are no serving bowls. I t takes much less time to prepare two chicken breast verses baking a whole chicken. Also putting two potatoes in the microwave is very fast compared to peeling potatoes for two hungry teenagers.

One of our sons is attending the university that is located about thirty miles from our home. He was very disappointed when he dropped over unannounced one night for dinner. He was going to surprise us so he just showed up. We were just finishing our meal. In cooking for 2 I had only prepared two pork chops, two baked potatoes and an individual salad for each of us. My son could not belief that his home cooked meal ended up being a cold cut sandwich and chips. He was used to having the dinner table filled with enough food to satisfy his hunger. He asked if he could come over for dinner later in the week. I told him that this would be great and that we love having him come over, but I need to have advance warning so that I would prepare more food than I do cooking for 2.

When he left my husband and I had to laugh. I think it is very typical for everyone when they leave home to think that everything remains the same. Young people are so centered on themselves that they do not stop to think that other people’s lives are changing along with theirs. It never occurred to my son that our life would adjust to his no longer living at home.