Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One

by Joe Yonan

From the award-winning food editor of The Washington Post comes a cookbook aimed at the food-loving single. 

Joe Yonan brings together more than 100 inventive, easy-to-make, and globally inspired recipes celebrating solo eating. Dishes like Mushroom and Green Garlic Frittata , Catfish Tacos with Chipotle Slaw , and Smoked Trout, Potato, and Fennel Pizza will add excitement to any repertoire and forever dispel the notion that single life means starving, settling for take-out, or facing a fridge full of monotonous leftovers. Yonan also includes shopping and storage tips for the single-chef household, along with creative ideas for making use of extra ingredients. Serve Yourself makes cooking for one a deeply satisfying, approachable pleasure. And with such delectable meals, your solo status could be threatened if you’re forced to share with others!

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Joe Yonan is the two-time James Beard Award-winning Food and Travel editor of The Washington Post and the author of “Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One,” which Serious Eats called “a truly thoughtful, useful, and incredibly delicious book.” He was born in Georgia and raised in Texas, moving to Boston after college to work in newspapers. He was a food writer and Travel section editor at The Boston Globe before moving to Washington in 2006 to edit the Post’s Food section, for which he also writes an award-winning monthly column and occasional feature stories. His work from the Globe and Post has appeared in three editions of the “Best Food Writing” anthology.

Joe is spending the year in North Berwick, Maine, on leave from the Post to work on two more book projects.

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely liked the idea and many of the receipes, but the recipes tend to be very time consuming for just one meal serving. I think a better implementation of this idea would have involved making 2-3 servings and instructions on how to store them so you could have leftovers for lunch or dinner the next day (or even further down the line). If you were to truly use this book for most of your meals, then you would likely see a lot of waste and trips to the store because many of the ingredients are not things you are likely to have on hand and are very perishable.

[Kari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Normally I wouldn't track cookbooks but these two by Joe Yonan have a lot of essays as well as recipes.

I also wanted a record of why I didn't like this book for my own reference.

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I read and really enjoyed Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook. It's mostly vegetarian and I liked the essays and interesting stories, even if the author is a bit weird about "unpronounceable ingredients" and "things that end in ~ide or ~ate". (Please don't tell him about Sodium Chloride (table salt) or Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda).) I'm excited to try a bunch of the recipes - they sound easy but delicious, and approachable.

I was also excited to read the first book he wrote, given that it was available at the library and I liked the second one so much.

Imagine my shock and horror at discovering in this book basically no recipes I wanted to eat or try, almost all recipes have a huge focus on meat, and lots of those snooty foodie combinations that I am not looking for in a quick, single-person dinner: "Shrimp Tacos with Grapefruit-Black Bean Salsa", "Puffy Duck Egg Fritatta with Smoked Salmon", "Wine-Braised Chicken Thighs with Olives, Prunes, and Almonds", "Mahi Mahi with Kiwi-Avocado Salsa and Coconut Rice"...

For the record, I am mostly vegetarian, but I'm fine with making recipe amendments where needed; I was hoping that this book wouldn't require it in basically every recipe.

I admit to never having gotten rid of my university tastebuds - the ones that let me have a fried egg sandwich three times a week and not get sick of it, and I also admit to being very low on spoons for dinner. One of my favorite things to eat is a can of great white northern beans, heated up and partially smashed with lots of salt, pepper, lemon, and plenty of good oil. (Please try this if you like beans! It sounds like a deprivation meal but it's so good.)

But these recipes are not for me. Definitely not for this single chef, low on spoons. I'll stick with Eat Your Vegetables, thanks!

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these recipes are finicky, but I love the philosophy of it all -- you don't have to eat lame dinners when you're cooking for yourself. Yes, you can half a recipe from a regular cookbook. Yes, you can pack up leftovers. But this is a book about how to cook in the moment for yourself. (Obviously, you need some preparation.) But it's the philosophy of the thing. That's a good thing to think about.

[Lily P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the basis of creative and probably tasty recipes, along with good narrative and interesting side bars, this book is probably worthy of 5 stars.

My 4 star rating has more to do with my personal interests and preferences. These recipes were on the gourmet side and focused on the pleasure and creativity of the meal, while you're cooking for yourself.

The creativity was eclectic and I didn't find myself drawn to any of the recipes (save perhaps the updated recipe for Snickerdoodles). At another time, I might be more enthusiastic for this book. But I'm tight on budget right now, dealing with a finicky eater partner and supposedly on a healthy restricted calorie diet. (again let's note those Snickerdoodles calling to me.)

If you love creating art as you cook with interesting ingredients, smells, taste sensations, this is the book for you!
If you're under a trim crunch, pinching pennies and trying to drop a few pounds . . . maybe not.

[Ansate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried 2 recipes, Corn Risotto with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Tuna Salad.[return][return]The risotto took over an hour to make, and was way too rich to be a stand alone dinner. I ate most of the leftovers as a side dish, but I couldn't get through enough of it to call it dinner. [return][return]The tuna salad (minus the olives) was great - I really love the notion of cooking the potatoes with the eggs. I doubled it because I was only able to find one can of tuna in olive oil, and it was twice the size he suggested. It was not from Italy or Spain, so he would have found it unacceptable. Also, because then I got to have leftovers and not have to cook the next night![return][return]Many, many of the recipes didn't even make it to my to-try list because either the ingredients were too weird and precious or the level of work involved was ridiculous for the amount of results you got. [return][return]I did also copy the recipe for the faux-chicken-fried steak. I'll try the steak part, but the potatoes he suggests go with it add a huge amount of time to the cooking of dinner. [return][return]It had some interesting ideas, but it didn't really seem like a practical cookbook for someone aiming to spend less than an hour per meal. It's ok to have leftovers if you're going to spend that long cooking!

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Joe's column in the Washington Post for years and I enjoyed this cookbook too. As the cook in a 2-person household, I like the idea of not always being stuck with a week's worth of leftovers. Most of these recipes would scale up fairly easily if you wanted to make 2-4 servings.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly my favorite WaPo Food writer even though I can't eat most legumes anymore and I will never give up meat and potatoes. It's not always the recipes (which are great) - it's the attitude and stories that matter.

[Eleni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, the recipes really did not appeal to me, but I like Yohan’s voice and the idea of the book: it’s worth cooking for one. However, his book Cool Beans has a lot of tasty sounding recipes, especially the dips, and interesting dessert and drink recipes. The bean is so versatile!

[Abigail G · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was much practical advice for dealing with feeding a solo person, though the author is definately fond of fancy foods.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

None of these recipes interested me. The flavor combinations sound terrible or too fancy or too much work for one. More pictures would be nice.

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

80% recipes, 20% memoir. I first started following Yonan's work in the Washington Post and was excited to find his cookbook. If you've read much of Yonan's work before, the kind of fussy recipes aren't all that surprising, but it's a little frustrating how few of the recipes can be considered "quick"--many of them take more than 30 minutes to make. Which, I suppose, is Yonan's point: that cooking for one doesn't have to be a rushed affair, one eaten out of the pot standing up in the kitchen. I much preferred Judith Jones's The Pleasures of Cooking for One--the recipes are simpler and more comforting.

I've only made one recipe from this book so far: the mahi-mahi with kiwi-avocado salsa and coconut rice. This one was actually really easy, fast, and tasty. [Bring rice and coconut water to a boil, reduce heat to a bare simmer. Place mahi-mahi fillet on top, cover, and cook until rice and fish are done. Separately, stir together diced kiwi, diced avocado, scallion slices, chopped jalapeno, lime juice, and a bit of honey. Top fish/rice with salsa.]

Other recipes that look good and relatively simple:

Sweet potato soup base. Roast 2 large sweet potatoes. Saute 2 sliced carrots, 1 sliced celery stalk, and 1 sliced leek in some olive oil. Add sweet potato flesh 2 C. chicken/veggie stock. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Puree.

Sweet potato soup with chorizo, chickpeas, and kale. Take 1 C. soup base and stir in ~1 C. chicken broth; simmer. Saute 1 small link fresh chorizo. Add 1/3 C. chickpeas and cook ~5 minutes. Add 4-5 leaves kale (in pieces) and wilt. Top soup with veggie mixture.

Miso mac & cheese with mushrooms. Cook 3/4 C. dry elbow macaroni. Saute 1 C. sliced mushrooms in olive oil. Set aside. Make a roux-based white sauce with 1 TBSP butter, 1 TBSP flour, and 1/4 C. milk. Stir in 1/3 C. shredded cheddar and 2 tsp. white miso. Add macaroni and mushrooms. Top with panko breadcrumbs and broil.

Also, cappuccino tapioca pudding with cardamon brulee. Looks delicious but far too much work for me...

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have cooked the swiss chard, bacon, and goat cheese omelet, the pan-fried sirloin with anchovy sauce, and the tacos with mushrooms and chile-caramelized onions. 3 for 3 each recipe was worth repeating and there are still more I'd like to try out. Better than eating out, and that's saying something for me.

All of the recipes I tried required nothing more complicated than heating some oil in a pan. The steak and the omelet didn't take 30 minutes to cook, and the mushrooms and onions took longer because that's just how those veggies cook, but it was still not so long that it was taxing after coming home from work.

You probably won't have leftovers. This will be a minus for some, but honestly it was a plus for me. There are enough recipes out there that will leave a single person with tons of food for leftovers. Its a relief to have some go to recipes that I know won't get me stuck eating the same food every night for half a week.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to learn about this book but disappointed when I got it. It truly is hard to cook for one and I was looking forward to reading some recipes and ideas that deal with this issue.

These recipes are too over the top. They are not recipes that I would fix everyday or for that matter, every month. Most of the ingredients I am not going to keep on hand either. I am really disappointed by this book. However if you love to make an elaborate dishes for yourself, then get this book.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely for foodies

I am not enough of a foodie to properly appreciate this cookbook which is why I rated it 3 stars. Too many nuevo Tex Mex type dishes for me. I enjoyed his commentary and can relate to the problem of finding produce and so on in single person quantities. I will definitely be using a few of his tips. I may try one or two recipes but I doubt I will try more than that.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Yonan makes the prospect of cooking for yourself exciting. He riffs off a few popular singleton themes -- eggs, pizza, sandwiches, tacos, rice and pasta -- but the stuff he makes is fun and original without being so hard to make that you would never bother. I am dying to try his method of baking a small pizza on the back of a hot cast iron skillet.

[Jennybeast · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a very pleasing and accessible cookbook – and I fear cookbooks, so that’s saying something. Witty and engaging, with recipes that are easy to follow – more than anything else I really appreciate the thought that goes into how to plan for your leftovers to become something completely different.

[Darcy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this would be a good one as I don't like to cook for myself. The recipes are very time intensive, much more than I would spend for myself and had a lot of ingredients that I don't keep on hand. I did copy out a couple of recipes, not sure if I will make them.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoy cooking for myself -- previous roommates have stared in astonishment as I cook a single person's Cantonese dinner most nights -- but there's no way I would attempt the recipes in this book on a weeknight after work.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think i'm actually going to buy this one. every single thing looks delicious and there's and entire CHAPTER on tacos.

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book made me realize exactly how lazy a cook I am. Although the recipes sound tasty, there were very few that I would try to make.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't really write a review about a cookbook. All I can say is that it made me hungry and I'm craving Texas style chicken fried steak.

[Phobean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three recipes attempted and counting!

[False · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a review of this in Clean Eating. I should have liked it. Didn't. To be honest, I couldn't find one recipe I would even want to attempt.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

High end bachelor recipes.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't really say I read this book, but have copied some recipes out for future use. He's a bit gourmet for me, but I'm looking forward to those I copied.

[T Crockett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed his writing, but very few of the recipes appealed to me. I'm not that into spicy food.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of recipes that lean toward the spicy side. But many that are promising. Love the portions - it's hard to find a good cookbook for only 1 person

[Heydi Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The text was too small to be enjoyable and there was so much of it. It made the book feel unwelcoming to me. I like the look of the cover and the pictures are very well done and appealing.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh...

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book. While it gives useful information, most of the recipes were too spicy for me.