Problem: A Texas physician seeks recipes she can adjust to serve varying numbers of diners.

Cooking for two doesn't necessarily mean less work than cooking for a larger group. Recipes most often serve four to six people, and it can be tricky determining how to cut a recipe down, what to leave out, and what to substitute. Robin Eickhoff, 39, a San Antonio physician, cooks for her husband, Tom, and herself for most of the year. But in the summer and on other occasions when her stepsons visit, she cooks for four. And sometimes with another family or couple over for dinner, she might need to cook for six or eight people. She tries to keep meals healthful and fast, and she aims to make efficient use of the ingredients she buys.

"I want to be able to cook for either the two of us or the four of us and have a recipe that doesn't leave a refrigerator full of leftovers or spices I'll never use again," she says. Eickhoff does not mind one or two leftover servings for her and her husband's lunch, but in general, she wants a fresh dinner after a day of seeing patients, not reheated food from two nights earlier.

Kitchen Strategy: Quick dishes that are easy to double or halve

We've created a batch of recipes with Eickhoff and her family in mind—quick, easy, and healthful fare with adjustable serving amounts. (Some even provide lunch the next day.) We offer instructions both to increase the smaller dishes to feed four or more people and to scale back the larger recipes to serve just two. Now Eickhoff can serve fresh, tasty meals no matter how many people come to her table.

Pleasing results
The chocolate soufflés were Eickhoff's favorite. "They were incredibly easy to put together with ingredients I had on hand," Eickhoff says. "The flavor was a nice, intense chocolate, but not too much. I never knew soufflés could be that easy. And I love that I can just make two for my husband and me without having massive leftovers."

Eickhoff says the Chicken Potpie was "easy to put together and the phyllo crust was a nice change of pace." While she lacks experience with phyllo, she found it simple to handle. She noticed no change in taste or results between the individual potpies and the six-serving version. Still, she thought the dish needed a little more salt.

Some of the dishes we created, such as the Turkey Mini Meat Loaves, pleasantly surprised Eickhoff and her family. "I was expecting the same old meat loaf flavor, but the Tabasco really added a nice kick, and the turkey was nice and moist," Eickhoff says, adding that she preferred the six-serving loaf to the mini loaves, which seemed less substantial to her. She also was "shocked" that her 13-year-old stepson, Raiden, liked the meat loaf. Talon, 10, her other stepson, didn't like the texture, however.

General tips
• Assemble a casserole that serves four to six, but divide it into two small baking dishes. Bake one dish, and wrap and freeze the other for another night. • If you regularly cook for only two people, shop at grocery stores with bulk bins so you can purchase the quantity of a particular spice, pasta, rice, or nut that you need without leftovers cluttering your cupboard. • When cooking for two, take advantage of supermarket salad bars. You can choose from a large variety of presliced and pre-chopped produce to make just the amount of salad you need for dinner.

Serving solutions
Freeze tablespoons of ingredients such as tomato paste, chicken or beef broth, chipotle chiles and adobo, and pesto in ice cube trays. Once solid, pop them out and store them in zip-top plastic bags for convenient small servings.

Bags of high-quality frozen vegetables such as green beans, broccoli, and sliced peppers don't spoil and can be used for small portions of vegetable side dishes, soups, or casseroles.

When doubling or tripling a recipe, you may not need to scale some stronger spices and herbs—like ground red pepper, nutmeg, and rosemary—upward proportionally. Add more of such ingredients in small increments, tasting with each addition, to avoid overpowering the dish.

Check the doneness of halved recipes about 5 to 10 minutes before the normal recommended time; the smaller size means a shorter cooking time.