Cooking for Two: 120 Recipes for Every Day - and Those Special Nights »

Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough are the authors of the eleven-volume Ultimate cookbook series and more than a dozen other books. They are contributing editors to Eating Well and columnists for weightwatchers.com, and they contribute regularly to Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, the Washington Post, and other publications. When they're not teaching cooking on Holland America cruise ships, they live in rural Litchfield County, Connecticut, with a fairly sane collie named Dreydl.

Tea for two. That's what it's all about, right? So how come every recipe you pick up says "serves 4 to 6"? Or more! What do you do when you want macaroni and cheese, but don't want to be reheating it for three nights? Or a couple of cookies, but don't want to be tempted by two dozen sitting on the counter all week?

Creative cookbook authors and cooks Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough have all the answers in Cooking for Two.

Brimming with 120 smaller-serving, big-taste recipes,Cooking for Two offers cooks familiar favorites such as PastaBolognese, Chicken Pot Pie, and Mushroom Barley Soup, as well as new dishes for today's tastes like Pork Satay Salad and Snapper Fillets Sautéed with Orange and Pecans.

Simply cutting down larger recipes leads to wasted ingredients. But Bruce and Mark have developed each recipe so you buy only what you need, and use all of what you buy. Instead of opening a can of vegetable stock only to use three tablespoons, use the liquid the dried mushrooms have soaked in. If an onion is too large for a recipe, chop a shallot instead.

The dessert chapters are filled with cookies, puddings, and cakes, all designed for two servings. Small-batch baking requires strict attention to detail. A regular egg can be too big for a small batch of six cookies, so they suggest quail eggs or the easy-to-find pasteurized egg substitutes, which you can measure out in tablespoons.

Truly a cookbook for everyday use, each recipe is labeled as quick (ready in minutes with minimal cooking), moderate (requires a bit more preparation or cooking), or leisurely (perfect for quiet celebrations or weekend meals) to help you decide which dish best fits into your day.

With ingredient and equipment guides, as well as tips on how to stock your pantry to avoid those there's-nothing-in-the-house-so-let's-go-out moments, Cooking for Two will surely become the cookbook you reach for every night of the week.

It's just two perfect.

Library Journal

Authors of the best-selling "Ultimate" series (Ultimate Ice Cream; Ultimate Potatoes), Weinstein and Scarbrough now offer recipes from soup to desserts for intimate dinners, whether a casual weekday supper or a festive special occasion. Part of their goal is to avoid leftovers so that one night's dinner doesn't have to be endlessly recycled and the refrigerator filled with wilting produce or half-empty cans of stock. Although this is a sensible aim, it works better with some courses than others. For example, while soups and stews can be somewhat time-consuming to prepare (no matter what the quantity), they are often better on the second day, and many of them freeze well, making leftovers a bonus. And in order to adhere to their guidelines, the desserts here yield, for example, only six Chocolate Chip Espresso Cookies or two Brownies-and the quantities of eggs called for are likely to be "1 tablespoon egg substitute or 2 quail eggs"! A good idea, but most cooks will find the main-course chapters the most useful ones. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.