Gone, Baby, Gone

Woe is me. I am single for the week. Jason has been gone since last week, actually, and I’ve become a lazy cook. Somehow when I’m just cooking for me, I’m a little less enthusiastic about jumping in the kitchen and firing up the stove. I miss sharing a meal with my guy at the end of the day…food, to me, is much more than sustenance. It’s a way to share my love and a way to reconnect with friends and family. Call me a sap, I don’t care. Food is part of me.

The one good thing about being solo for meals is that I can branch out and eat all the stuff that I love and Jason won’t touch. These things include olives, creamy sauces, marbled steaks, tofu, and cheese. Bless his soul, the boy won’t eat cheese. {Except in various processed versions like queso dip, pizza, cheez-its, and the like.} Jason’s eating preferences {aside from the aversion to tofu} probably keep me from having coronary artery disease at the tender age of 26. I mean, really…I am the girl who would sneak pats of butter and eat them—plain!—when I was young. I love the bad, greasy, creamy, cheesy, buttery stuff. Love it.

Anyway…I don’t have recipes to share, per se, but I do have some pictures of a few of my solo meals. First, a lovely, perfectly rare-medium-rare ribeye {pictured above}, marbled and oh-so tender. I have to have acid with fatty steaks for balance, so I just sliced an Alabama tomato, paired it with some baby greens, and doused it all in lemon juice and olive oil. And lots of salt.

Next, a meal Jason surely would have loved…I’ll make it again, J, promise! Craving something totally unfancy, I fried a corn tortilla to golden-crisp perfection, topped it with lettuce, spicy refried beans and ground beef that I cooked with cumin, chili powder, garlic, and salt. I took a cue from the nachos on Last Night's Dinner and made a cheese sauce with Monterey Jack and Cheddar. Oh, and I added some sour cream {but that came after the picture}. Yum!

More to come…