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Cooking for Two
Provides recipes for creating a diverse array of appetizing dishes for varied occasions
95 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1968
1 person is currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Better Homes and Gardens
2,052 books290 followersBetter Homes and Gardens is the fourth best selling magazine in the United States. Better Homes and Gardens focuses on interests regarding homes, cooking, gardening, crafts, healthy living, decorating, and entertaining. The magazine is published 12 times per year by the Meredith Corporation. It was founded in 1922 by Edwin Meredith, who had previously been the United States Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson.
Better Homes and Gardens is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.
Better Homes and Gardens is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2024
This is a solid cookbook for making small amounts. Interestingly, unlike both of the other “cooking for two” cookbooks I’ve read, the Southern Living and the Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens doesn’t provide any front matter or back matter justifying cooking for two. They just get right down into the recipes. It starts with “Frankly Fancy” which, surprisingly, is not a chapter on upscaling hot dogs. It’s things like Savory Tomato Soup, Curried Orange Chicken, Sauce Provencale (for steak), and a section on luncheons—almost all scaled down for two servings. Looking on the luncheon page, even the Peanut Butter Puffs makes only a dozen cookies.
This really stands out in the Chili for Two. It’s a quick recipe that makes two servings of chili with no leftover (assuming you’ve already portioned out your ground beef in approximately quarter-pound pieces). It cheats a little—at least, it’s a cheat today, I don’t know if it was a cheat then. It calls for an 8-ounce can of kidney beans. I only had 15-ounce cans on hand, and I’m not sure you can even get 8-ounce cans of beans, other than baked beans, anymore, if you ever could.
But leftover kidney beans (or black beans, in my case) are not difficult to use up in a salad or some such.
It is a very simple recipe: ground beef, beans, canned tomatoes, salt, chili powder, and dried onion. The cans mean it’s a quantized recipe: you couldn’t make it for one or three without having something left over. But chili isn’t an amount-specific dish; if you’re making it for three you could just as well use fewer beans and more tomatoes.
Some of the recipes come from other books. The Perfect Fried Chicken caught my eye because it’s one of my favorite recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens Meat Cook Book. It’s nearly exactly the same recipe. In fact, it’s kind of a cheat, too, because it’s nearly exactly the same recipe that serves four in the Meat book and only serves two here. All of the spices remain the same, only the chicken is changed, and from “2-⅓ to 3 pounds” to “2 to 2-½ pounds”.
Either the guests for the Meat book are going hungry or there’s going to be leftovers. Or perhaps not: this really is a phenomenal fried chicken.
Next, I made some Peanut Coco-Roons. I ostensibly chose that recipe because I had some leftover condensed milk, and this recipe doesn’t call for any non-scalable ingredient. So, however much condensed milk I had left, I could scale the recipe for that amount. As it turns out I had the ½ cup this recipe calls for, so I didn’t need to.
This is one of those “magic” recipes that use condensed milk to replace both eggs and flour. It’s a peanut, chocolate, and coconut cookie with a similar texture to no-bake cookies. The recipe makes 24 cookies, which might sound like too many for two people, but they are very good—and of course they’re cookies. They last at least the three days it took me to go through them.
This morning I made some Mexican Chocolate, which is pretty much just hot cocoa with cinnamon added. It’s a simple recipe of the kind that hardly needs to be a recipe (melt chocolate in milk with a stick of cinnamon; beat vigorously when done), but it is a good example of the kind of nice “breakfast and brunch” treats you can make even if you’re only cooking for two people or so.
The nice thing about both of the latter recipes is that they’re fully scalable. None of the ingredients in the Coco-Roons are quantized: no eggs, for example, that are difficult to reduce or increase by arbitrary percentages. The chocolate and the milk in the Mexican Chocolate can easily be measured out for any number of people. Even for the Chili, there’s a lot of leeway in how much tomato you add to chili—and many people would solve the 8-ounce can of beans problem by removing it entirely.
I’m looking forward to making some Chocolate Pecan Whip (gelatin, egg white, and cream), some Orange French Toast, and some Maple Shortbread Bars (a shortbread base with a sort of pecan pie-style filling of maple syrup and coconut on top). The Coffee Sherbet made with gelatin and cream also looks intriguing.
The back section has tips on how to manage cooking for two—how to equip your kitchen, how to shop for groceries and store them after buying, and how to substitute for ingredients that, as someone cooking for only two, you might not keep on hand, such as cake flour or whole milk.
It’s a neat little book; I’ve seen it around and never picked it up because I expected a lot of the recipes to be repeats of other Better Homes and Gardens books. But at a recent “bag of books” sale it was too good of a deal to pass up, and I’m glad I didn’t.
This really stands out in the Chili for Two. It’s a quick recipe that makes two servings of chili with no leftover (assuming you’ve already portioned out your ground beef in approximately quarter-pound pieces). It cheats a little—at least, it’s a cheat today, I don’t know if it was a cheat then. It calls for an 8-ounce can of kidney beans. I only had 15-ounce cans on hand, and I’m not sure you can even get 8-ounce cans of beans, other than baked beans, anymore, if you ever could.
But leftover kidney beans (or black beans, in my case) are not difficult to use up in a salad or some such.
It is a very simple recipe: ground beef, beans, canned tomatoes, salt, chili powder, and dried onion. The cans mean it’s a quantized recipe: you couldn’t make it for one or three without having something left over. But chili isn’t an amount-specific dish; if you’re making it for three you could just as well use fewer beans and more tomatoes.
Some of the recipes come from other books. The Perfect Fried Chicken caught my eye because it’s one of my favorite recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens Meat Cook Book. It’s nearly exactly the same recipe. In fact, it’s kind of a cheat, too, because it’s nearly exactly the same recipe that serves four in the Meat book and only serves two here. All of the spices remain the same, only the chicken is changed, and from “2-⅓ to 3 pounds” to “2 to 2-½ pounds”.
Either the guests for the Meat book are going hungry or there’s going to be leftovers. Or perhaps not: this really is a phenomenal fried chicken.
Next, I made some Peanut Coco-Roons. I ostensibly chose that recipe because I had some leftover condensed milk, and this recipe doesn’t call for any non-scalable ingredient. So, however much condensed milk I had left, I could scale the recipe for that amount. As it turns out I had the ½ cup this recipe calls for, so I didn’t need to.
This is one of those “magic” recipes that use condensed milk to replace both eggs and flour. It’s a peanut, chocolate, and coconut cookie with a similar texture to no-bake cookies. The recipe makes 24 cookies, which might sound like too many for two people, but they are very good—and of course they’re cookies. They last at least the three days it took me to go through them.
This morning I made some Mexican Chocolate, which is pretty much just hot cocoa with cinnamon added. It’s a simple recipe of the kind that hardly needs to be a recipe (melt chocolate in milk with a stick of cinnamon; beat vigorously when done), but it is a good example of the kind of nice “breakfast and brunch” treats you can make even if you’re only cooking for two people or so.
The nice thing about both of the latter recipes is that they’re fully scalable. None of the ingredients in the Coco-Roons are quantized: no eggs, for example, that are difficult to reduce or increase by arbitrary percentages. The chocolate and the milk in the Mexican Chocolate can easily be measured out for any number of people. Even for the Chili, there’s a lot of leeway in how much tomato you add to chili—and many people would solve the 8-ounce can of beans problem by removing it entirely.
I’m looking forward to making some Chocolate Pecan Whip (gelatin, egg white, and cream), some Orange French Toast, and some Maple Shortbread Bars (a shortbread base with a sort of pecan pie-style filling of maple syrup and coconut on top). The Coffee Sherbet made with gelatin and cream also looks intriguing.
The back section has tips on how to manage cooking for two—how to equip your kitchen, how to shop for groceries and store them after buying, and how to substitute for ingredients that, as someone cooking for only two, you might not keep on hand, such as cake flour or whole milk.
It’s a neat little book; I’ve seen it around and never picked it up because I expected a lot of the recipes to be repeats of other Better Homes and Gardens books. But at a recent “bag of books” sale it was too good of a deal to pass up, and I’m glad I didn’t.
November 18, 2021
This cookbook provides great menu ideas for two people. I enjoy reading this cookbook because it lets me see how my mother's generation used to cook. There are lots of great recipes that are portioned for two people. This is a great cookbook for those who want to try out vintage cooking. I'm now giving away this cookbook for free to make space on my cluttered bookshelf. (I will pay for the shipping.) Feel free to check it out from my blog:
https://mybooksorganizer.blogspot.com...
https://mybooksorganizer.blogspot.com...
December 6, 2019
Fairly good recipe book with lots of ideas.
February 9, 2023
Very old style, but lots of interesting info. I enjoyed it from a historical perspective.
November 21, 2017
This book was originally given to me by my Grandmother at my bridal shower. i still use the recipes in this book. It may seem dated, but the recipes still work! A nice feature is that the book will provide ways to put meals together in menus. You don't have to serve the same dishes in the menus, but i feel that it helps you to learn how to pair up food.
November 16, 2017
My Grandma gave me this book at my bridal shower in 1990. I am still happily married, and the recipes in this book are favorites.
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March 4, 2009Better Homes and Gardens Cooking For Two by Editors of Better Homes and Gardens (1982)
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June 28, 20180-6960-0450-X
TX652.B48
TX652.B48
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews