Cover Story : Great Home Cooks : THE HOME ALONE EDITION

The Spirit of One

When Fred Bremer cooks for two, the other party is likely to be his champion beagle, Spirit. The dish Spirit prefers is baked chicken breast.

Bremer cooks a big batch of chicken when Spirit is due for showing. He refrigerates part of the bird for use in salads and casseroles. The rest goes to Spirit’s handler, who parcels it out as treats. “When Spirit knows she is going to get chicken in the ring,” Bremer says, “she stays perky and alert and shows a lot better.”

Bremer and Spirit occupy a house in Chino Hills. In addition to breeding champion beagles, Bremer likes to ski, travel and entertain. He shops for fresh ingredients every other day at supermarkets near home. “I don’t stock up too much,” he says. “When I am really in a bind, I have a frozen chicken dinner. Or I’ll go to a Chinese takeout.”

Or he’ll make spaghetti, and dress up a bottled sauce with ground meat, onions, green pepper and mushrooms.

A practical shopper, Bremer clips coupons. He likes to make meatloaf for friends, then have meatloaf sandwiches for a couple of days. Or he grills a steak or makes a tuna casserole or tuna salad sandwiches.

Meanwhile, Spirit is restricted to dog food--no treats from the table, not even at Bremer’s annual Christmas party, when the house is crammed with guests and food. Friends bring some of the dishes. Bremer makes most of the desserts himself.

One of his party specialties is chicken Hawaiian--chicken in pineapple sauce topped with coconut and almonds. Bremer takes this along on ski trips to Mammoth Mountain. He makes the sauce in advance and freezes it in ice cream cartons. That way, it stays cold until he and his friends arrive at the slopes. They buy chicken breasts there, bake them with the sauce and add accompaniments like rice and a tossed salad.

As a variation, Bremer might cook pork chops in the sauce and accompany the dish with a green bean casserole or beets Normandie, a combination of beets, green pepper, sour cream and bread crumbs that he learned in a men’s cooking class in Ventura.

FRED BREMER’S CHICKEN HAWAIIAN

1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup catsup

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

2 tablespoons bottled chile sauce

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

6 skinned chicken breast halves, bones left in

1/4 cup shredded coconut, or to taste

1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds, or to taste

Cooked rice, optional

Combine pineapple, butter, catsup, vinegar, brown sugar, chile sauce, cornstarch, soy sauce, salt and pepper in saucepan. Heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. Set aside.

Place chicken breast halves in baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees 1/2 hour. Pour sauce over chicken. Sprinkle with coconut and almonds. Bake 15 to 20 minutes longer. Serve with rice.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

522 calories; 849 mg sodium; 137 mg cholesterol; 34 grams fat; 23 grams carbohydrates; 33 grams protein; 0.46 gram fiber.

The Entertainer

“I cook for myself rarely,” says Sandrena Sorensen, “because I think it’s depressing to eat alone.” When she does cook alone, Sorensen produces as elaborate a dish as if she were entertaining--steak with Port wine sauce accompanied by steamed asparagus with orange-Champagne sauce, for example, or shrimp with tequila and lime juice paired with Cajun rice, or lamb shoulder marinated in beer and mint sauce and barbecued. The plate will be intricately decorated, and the table lit with candles.

Sorensen, who handles export of luxury cars for an international shipping firm, lives in a house on Los Angeles’ Westside. She stocks the kitchen with pasta, canned crab meat and smoked oysters--things she can whip together into a snack, like a crab meat quesadilla, if a friend drops in.

Sorensen loves meat in any form--smothered with rich sauces, grilled or in salads. She’s an expert cook but is willing to use convenience products. Those she favors include a frozen rice-and-vegetable bowl, frozen quiches and frozen cheese-stuffed ravioli. She never serves these straight from the package, though. She adds spices to the rice and stir-fries it, prepares a sauce for the ravioli and adds spinach to the quiche.

Sorensen was born in Sri Lanka and raised in Hong Kong. Her mother, Felicia, is a food consultant, caterer and cookbook author based in Hong Kong. Sorensen cooks only European food for herself, although she can turn out a full-scale Sri Lankan feast for friends.

“I love cooking, but I prefer to cook for other people,” she says. “I like to decorate food well and see the admiring look on their faces.”

SANDRENA SORENSON’S TEQUILA LIME SHRIMP

Sorensen decorates this dish with sliced tomatoes placed at an angle on one side of the plate. The Cajun rice (rice seasoned with a commercial Cajun spice mix) nestles in a romaine lettuce leaf. The shrimp goes next to the rice, and a jaunty sprig of chives with a flower alongside finishes off the plate. “Enjoy it by candlelight, with a nice wine,” Sorensen says.

1/2 pound peeled large shrimp

1 tablespoon lime juice

2 tablespoons butter

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional

Salt, pepper

2 tablespoons tequila

Cajun rice, optional

Rinse shrimp well. Combine shrimp and lime juice in bowl.

Heat butter in skillet. Add garlic and mint and cook 2 minutes over medium heat. Add shrimp and cayenne and cook 4 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add tequila and cook 3 minutes longer. Serve hot with Cajun rice.

Makes 2 servings.

Each serving contains about:

262 calories; 434 mg sodium; 203 mg cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 0.08 gram fiber.

Spontaneous Consumption

“Totally sporadic.” That’s the way Gloria Pringle describes her approach to cooking. “I don’t keep much in the fridge,” she says. “I shop when I need things.”

An independent auditor/accountant, Pringle lives in a high-rise apartment in mid-Los Angeles. She heads to the market early, about 7 a.m., “before the crowds hit--when the food is out but not picked over.”

On the weekend, she cooks something that will provide several meals during the week, sometimes meatloaf, chicken soup or boiled chicken that can be used in various ways. If there’s nothing on hand, she stops off at the supermarket for chicken breasts or a steak to cook that night.

A small apartment kitchen doesn’t allow much storage, but Pringle stocks a few things that enable her to put a meal together quickly. These include pasta, rice, canned tuna, a drawerful of Indian lentils and, in the freezer, chicken. “I don’t keep much in the fridge,” she says. “I like things fresh, so when I’m inspired to do something, I go shopping.”

Pringle has, she says, “closets full of cookbooks.” But she doesn’t refer to them for her own meals. “I enjoy thumbing through them when I invite somebody over,” she says.

Pringle worked for several years in Asia when she was an auditor for an oil company, and she learned a lot about Asian food. These days, she might treat friends to an Asian menu such as cucumbers with peanut sauce, stir-fried garlic shrimp and fried rice. Or she might turn to the chicken dish she’s cooked since graduating from college. It’s an easy version of chicken cacciatore that, as she puts it, “looks like you did something but you didn’t.” Pringle serves the chicken with rice, steamed baby asparagus, a salad, exotic fruit topped with vanilla yogurt and, she says, “any kind of wonderful red wine.”

GLORIA PRINGLE’S EASY CHICKEN CACCIATORE

The perfect solo dish--one that tastes even better a day after you prepare it.

1 1/2 pounds chicken parts, or 1/2 chicken, cut up

2 tablespoons shortening

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can condensed tomato soup

1 cup chopped onion

3/4 cup dry red wine

2 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon oregano

1 medium green pepper, cut into strips

Cooked rice, optional

Brown chicken in shortening in skillet. (If desired, remove skin to reduce fat content.) Add soup, onion, wine, garlic and oregano. Cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes. Add green pepper and cook, covered, 15 minutes longer, or until chicken is tender. Stir occasionally. Serve with rice.

Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

324 calories; 596 mg sodium; 63 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 16 grams carbohydrates; 19 grams protein; 0.65 gram fiber.