Cooking for One, Baking for 20

A new favorite: a good improvised dinner for one...

Yellow Swiss Chard and Parmesan Pasta

one bunch of farmer's market yellow swiss chard
three cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
1/2 cup water
olive oil

1/2 box Barilla fortified spaghetti or regular spaghetti
bread crumbs
a good hunk of Parmesan
1/2 lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Sautee garlic in olive oil until nicely browned. Add roughly chopped chard. Wilt. Add 1/2 cup water, cover, and allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes or until chard is soft, including stems.

Boil pasta (about 10 minutes.) Drain. Toss with chard, add more olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon, salt and pepper to taste. Toss with bread crumbs and grated parmesan.

Feeds 1, with leftovers for 2. Leftovers will taste best eaten at midnight, with your new lover, who will undoubtedly be psyched by your ability to make something out of nothing. Who knew pasta and swiss chard could taste so good!

As the current object of my affection is an extremely over-worked public defender, and works in Palm Springs an hour and a half away, to boot, I am still cooking for one...a lot. So to break the monotony, I decided to bake Christmas cookies for 20 this weekend (the Public Defender worked all weekend, so I decided to let all my sexual frustration out in the form of butter cookies. A reasonable outlet, I think.) I baked lemon-rosemary butter cookies, raspberry shortbread, triple chocolate brownies, chocolate chip cookies (for the purists) and candied orange and Meyer lemon peel. WHEW! My favorite, by far, were the Lemon Rosemary butter cookies. I found the recipe in Sunset magazine, the December issue. I highly recommend baking them--even if you aren't sexually frustrated at all.

Lemon Rosemary Butter Cookies

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2 cups flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
rosemary sprigs

Mix flour, butter, sugar, lemon zest, rosemary, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer on low speed until just combined. Increase speed to medium and mix until dough just comes together (I throw a towel over the mixer. Unless you like being covered in flour, I suggest you do so as well.) Roll dough into 2 discs. Chill 30 minutes. Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out cookies (ever resourceful, I used a shotglass.) Chill 15 minutes. Bake for 9 minutes or until slightly browned around edges. Combine powdered sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. Frost cooled cookies, placing a piece of rosemary on top of each one.

Bask in compliments that ensue.

Would cooking my pasta for the Public Defender make it more satisfying? Perhaps. Would sharing my lemon-rosemary cookies with him and watching him consume them appreciatively make them sweeter? Probably. But for me, at least tonight, the peaceful hum and quiet solitude of my little kitchen feels just right for me. There will be many more nights to cook for dates...that's one thing I know for sure!