34 personal recipes

Personal veggie pizzas on honey wheat crust with broccoli, yellow pepper, roma tomatoes, fresh basil, and melted provolone. Three crispy pies in 30 minutes flat.

Chinese American fortune cookies bake from a thin batter of cake flour and egg whites, then fold around personal messages while still warm. A homemade version of the takeout staple.

Butterflied shrimp topped with a buttery crab, scallion, and hot-sauce stuffing, microwaved fast for an easy two-person seafood dinner. Ready in 30 minutes flat.

One of my favorites. These are the cookies I make when I am trying to impress someone or cheer a person up. Though they are made with milk chocolate they are not too sweet. The edges are airy and crunchy and the center is soft and chewy.

Microwave taco salad with hot Italian sausage, green chilies, and Monterey Jack over crisp lettuce and tomatoes. Single-person dinner ready in 20 minutes start to finish.

Homemade fortune cookies with cake flour, egg whites, and vanilla, folded warm around personal messages. A crisp Chinese-American treat that turns dessert into a paper-tucked surprise.

Easy calzones use refrigerated pizza dough cut into squares, folded over a sausage-mushroom or ham-spinach filling, brushed with egg, and baked golden. Six personal-sized handheld pizza pockets ready in 25 minutes.

Mystery pizza with a ricotta cheese crust made from just ricotta and flour, topped with tomato paste, oregano, Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms, and mozzarella. A gluten-light, no-yeast personal pizza.

Mexican pizza on cornmeal-dusted personal crusts topped with seasoned ground beef, taco sauce, cheddar, and finished with cool lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and scallions. Pizza-night-meets-taco-night.

Mandarin Cornish hens: small game hens roasted and basted in a bright orange juice glaze for tender, citrus-kissed meat and burnished skin. An elegant, simple main with one bird per person or to share.

Grilled Cornish hens roast halved in the oven, then get glazed with plum barbecue sauce during the final 45 minutes until tender and sticky. Elegant personal-sized dinner from just 2 ingredients.

Flour tortillas brushed with herb-infused olive oil, topped with diced turkey breast, bell pepper, tomatoes, and melted mozzarella. Crispy personal pizzas baked in 8 minutes flat for the quickest dinner or appetizer ever.

Some people like the cherry sauce served hot with the rice pudding. In Denmark the tradition is to include 1 whole almond in the rice pudding. And the person to find it wins the prize commonly a cute and tasty marzipan pig!

Red pepper and lentil pasta sauce braised in red wine with garlic, onion, and basil, then pureed silky smooth. A hearty vegan sauce packed with plant protein and bold flavor.

Beau's notes: * There are no "jalapeno beans;" there are jalapeno peppers and pinto beans. I have two recipes, both of which are quite tref, but a Catholic should worry? But if you are hosting a Jewish person, smoked turkey will substitute most agreeably for the chazer called for in either recipe.]

Flour-dredged chicken browned in butter, then baked in a lemon-mint sauce with brown sugar and paper-thin lemon slices on top. A bright, herbaceous Greek-inspired casserole with a sweet citrus kick.