When you love to cook like I do, you’re always cooking–always making something.  It’s not in my wiring to simply put a frozen pizza in the oven, bake it, slice it, and eat it.  Without fail, I find myself doctoring something up no matter what.  So maybe that would mean I would add another kind of cheese to the frozen pizza or caramelize some onions to go on a frozen veggie burger.  I just can’t help myself.  When I find myself alone for a day or evening, and don’t want to swim in leftovers, I like to come up with new recipes just for me–just for one serving.  Here you have a new kind of recipe I’d like to start sharing with you–Table for 1.  Now these recipes could easily be doubled for 2 or quadrupled for 4, but I like to think we should all embrace our solitude and evenings/days by ourselves sometimes–enjoy the treat of eating by yourself.  And you can watch any TV you like while doing so.

Strawberry Poppy Salad

Ingredients

1/2 head butter or Boston lettuce, cleaned and kept in full leaves

4 strawberries, de-stemmed and sliced

1 tbsp. sliced almonds, toasted until slightly browned

Poppy Seed dressing:

1 tbsp. light mayo (or regular, of course)

1 tbsp. orange olive oil*

1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. water

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. poppy seeds

Salt & pepper to taste

*Note: if you don’t have orange olive oil, any fruity oil will do.  You can also use plain olive oil and simply grate some orange zest into the dressing.

Directions

1.       Layer lettuce leaves on a plate.  Scatter strawberry slices on top.  Spoon dressing over to your liking and top with sliced almonds.

2.       Enjoy the solitude.

Serves 1.