My Family Didn’t Get Smaller. Dinner Did.
Maybe learning to cook less isn't really about cooking less. It's learning how to feed the family I have right now instead of the family schedule I had five years ago.
And apparently, I am terrible at it.
For years, I have cooked like I am feeding a small army. To be fair, for a long time I kind of was.
There were five of us, but five was really more of a starting number. The kids brought friends home. Friends popped in. Somebody stayed for dinner. I fed them. That's simply how our house worked. There was always enough food for one more person at the table. I knew how much pasta to make, how much chicken to buy, and which pot to grab.
I didn't think about portions.
I simply cooked.
But sometime in the last six months, I realized the math at our dinner table had changed.
Wait. Who Is Home for Dinner?
My husband's schedule isn't routine, so there are nights he isn't home for dinner. My older kids have work, school, plans, and lives of their own. And some nights Hope has karate that ends well past what we consider "dinner time."
So before I can even figure out what we're eating for the week, I have to ask a completely different question:
Who is actually going to be home for dinner, and when?
This should not be complicated.
It is apparently very complicated.
Because my brain can understand that only three people will be eating dinner on Tuesday, while my hands are still preparing food for everyone we've ever met.
And then there are the recipes.
Why does every recipe on the internet feed 6 to 10 people?
I don't need 10 servings.
At this point, I've figured out my sweet spot. I want enough to feed three people for dinner and two people for lunch the next day.
That's it.
Five-ish actual portions.
Dinner tonight. Lunch tomorrow. Done.
I Have Leftover Fatigue
I know all the tricks!!!
I can turn leftover chicken into tacos.
I can turn taco meat into nachos.
I can take something from Monday and Iron Chef the hell out of it until it barely resembles what we started with.
But eventually, I don't want another creative interpretation of the chicken.
I want the chicken out of my life.
There is absolutely such a thing as leftover fatigue.
And not everything freezes well.
"Freeze it for later" sounds fantastic until you thaw something three weeks later and discover that Later Brooke does not want it either.
So we've been wasting food and I hate that. Food is expensive. I don't like throwing it away. I don't like watching containers slowly migrate toward the back of the refrigerator while we all pretend we're definitely going to eat them.
But here's the part I've had to admit. I don't like admitting it. I keep making too much food because making too little food makes me nervous.
Which is ridiculous.
My pantry is full.
My freezer is full.
Nobody in this house is going to starve because I underestimated the amount of chicken we needed for dinner.
But apparently, there is a part of my brain that hasn't gotten that memo.
For years, "enough" didn't mean having the exact right number of portions.
Enough meant there was room for another plate.
If one of the kids brought a friend home, I fed them. If someone popped in around dinnertime, I fed them too.
I never wanted to have to count the chicken pieces before telling someone they could stay for dinner. That instinct is a little harder to turn off than I expected.
I've Been Feeding People Since I Was 10
I think some of this is simply baked into me. I've been cooking since I was a kid. It was one of my big chores growing up. AND THIS is not a complaint. I loved it.
I would get off the bus, start dinner, do my homework, and then finish making dinner. I can guarantee I was doing this by the time I was about 10 years old.
Then I grew up and had a family of my own, and I loved cooking for them too.
Feeding people has been part of my life for so long that I don't really think about it as a task.
It's one of the ways I take care of my people.
Make enough.
Make sure everyone gets fed.
Make sure there are seconds.
And apparently, make sure there's enough in case a bonus teenager materializes in the kitchen. That instinct has served me pretty damn well for most of my life.
It's simply terrible at portion control.
This Is Where I Lean HARD on ChatGPT
This is one of those places where AI has become ridiculously useful in my everyday life.
When I find a recipe, I'll give ChatGPT the link or upload the recipe PDF.
But I don't simply say:
"Make this recipe smaller."
I tell ChatGPT who is eating.
Because "three people" doesn't tell the whole story.
There is a difference between feeding a 10-year-old and feeding a 22-year-old.
Hope, by the way, is 10 and well on her way to eating tons of food herself. I don't make separate "kid food" for her. She eats what I cook and likes most of it.
I tell ChatGPT who's going to be sitting at the table that night and how much food I actually want left when we're finished.
Usually my goal is:
Feed everyone tonight + two lunches tomorrow + STOP.
But I don't only ask it to resize the recipe.
I ask it to look at the recipe itself.
Because here's another thing I've learned:
Just because somebody wrote a recipe doesn't mean it's a good recipe.
We've looked at recipes together where ChatGPT has basically said, "That is way too much broth."
Or salt.
Or something is missing.
Sometimes I agree.
Sometimes I don't.
We chat it out.
If it's something I've made before, I have my own experience to bring to the conversation.
If it's a brand-new recipe, I'll ask more questions.
Why do you think that's too much?
What would you change?
Will changing that affect the cooking time?
Is this going to be bland?
What is this missing?
And then I decide.
That's an important distinction for me. I'm not handing dinner over to AI. I know how to cook. I've been doing it for most of my life.
I'm using AI as a second set of eyes and, lately, as a way to help me recalibrate instincts that were built around feeding more people than I usually have at my table now.
The Prompt I've Been Using
If you're also trying to stop accidentally cooking for the entire neighborhood, you can do this too.
Give ChatGPT the recipe link, paste the recipe, or upload the PDF.
Then try something like:
Help me resize this recipe for my family tonight. I'm feeding [tell ChatGPT who is eating and their ages, if that's helpful]. I want enough for everyone to have a satisfying dinner plus enough leftovers for two lunches tomorrow, but I don't want extra food beyond that. Before resizing it, sanity-check the original recipe. Look at the ingredient ratios, seasoning, liquid, and cooking method and tell me if anything seems off or if you think something is missing. Then give me the adjusted ingredient amounts and tell me about any cooking-time or method changes I should make.
And then talk to it.
Push back.
Tell it that doesn't look like enough chicken.
Tell it your family hates something.
Tell it you've made the recipe before and know that reducing the broth that much won't work.
Ask why!
The conversation is the useful part.
I'm Still Learning
I haven't mastered this. I still look at a smaller amount of food and think, "There is no way that's enough."
Sometimes I add more.
Sometimes ChatGPT talks me off the ledge.
Sometimes I am right.
And sometimes I end up staring at another container of leftovers thinking,
"Dammit. The robot was right."
But I'm getting better.
Because this isn't really about becoming someone who cooks tiny meals.
I don't want that.
I still love feeding my family.
No matter who is home, we still sit down at the dinner table together. We eat. We talk about our day. We figure out what's happening tomorrow and what the rest of the week looks like.
That hasn't changed. The number of people sitting there on any given night has.
And maybe that's what I'm actually learning to adjust to.
My family isn't disappearing.
They're growing up. Their schedules are changing. Their lives are getting bigger.
I'm still feeding my people.
I'm simply learning how much food that takes now.
Wow, that was therapeutic!
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