Menu from the sad café Culinary comfort for the brokenhearted with these breakup bites Homemade
By: Eva Wasney Posted: 1:23 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025 Last Modified: 4:15 PM CST Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025 Updates

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/02/2025 (567 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Breaking up is hard to do.

But breakup food is easy to make, because, let’s be honest, cooking is often the last priority when you’re feeling low.

This edition of Homemade goes out to all the hungry hearts looking for brevity (and levity) during the lovey-dovey Valentine’s season.

Full disclosure: I laughed a lot while putting together this recipe roundup. Mostly at fictitious recipes that didn’t make the cut for obvious reasons — such as the Sadwich (chips between bread, probably); the Café Lone Lait (coffee, one cream); and the Häagen Daze (one pint, one spoon).

I also got a real kick out of the creative submissions from local food folks and readers who responded to my callout for lighthearted breakup dishes.

Find below recipes for Solitary Charcuterie from Cassandra Carreiro, owner of Sharecuterie (which sells premade, individual-sized meat-and-cheese boards to go, if you’d rather someone else do the assembling); The Miss Lonelytart from Alix Loiselle, former owner of La Belle Baguette who is now sharing recipes on his site, French Kiss Cook; Scorned Beef Hash from reader Brian Spencler, who gave this cooking prompt the full creative-writing treatment; and The Doghouse Sub from the team at Hoagie Boyz.

You can eat your dinner in a fancy restaurant, you can buy yourself flowers or you can make yourself a tasty little low-effort treat, like the following. Enjoy!

Submissions have been lightly edited for clarity. Apologies to Neil Sedaka, Bruce Springsteen, Sinéad O’Connor and Miley Cyrus.

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Charcuterie for One

Ingredients

• Soft cheese, such as Brie
• Hard cheese, such as Manchego
• Cured meats, such as salami and prosciutto
• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Chocolate
• Fresh herbs, optional garnish

Note: Tailor your ingredients and their quantities to your taste and appetite. Other options include pepper jelly, pickles, crackers, cookies or whatever your broken heart desires!

Directions

On a plate or small cutting board, start by laying out the cheeses. Unwrap and place the brie or other soft cheese; cube or slice and place the hard cheese. Manchego cut in wedges, for example, can be arranged in alternating directions.

Place cured meats between the cheeses. Prosciutto can be laid in long ribbons and circular meats, such as salami, can be turned into edible roses — fancy, but you’re worth it. Lay 6 to 8 slices of meat in a row, overlapping slightly, and fold the row in half lengthwise. Starting from one end, roll the meat into a cylinder and place on the board “petal” side up.

Fill any remaining spaces with colourful fresh fruits and vegetables, such as grapes, blueberries, strawberries and cherry tomatoes; as well as pieces of your favourite chocolate.

Top with sprigs of fresh rosemary or thyme, if you’re feeling up to it.

“I usually do about four or five pieces of meat per person and then as much cheese as you want; there’s no limit. And the nice thing with cured meats and cheeses is if you do buy too much, it’s gonna last a few days in your fridge, so it’s not like you’re putting things to waste. You can just have charcuterie again the next day — I’ve done it.

“And you can go to a specialty meat or cheese store, but if you’re breaking up and you don’t necessarily want to put in too much effort, you can just go to the grocery store.”

— Cassandra Carreiro

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The Miss Lonelytart (Chocolate Banana Tart)

Ingredients

Crust

• 125 ml (1/2 cup) chocolate cookie crumbs or 6 chocolate sandwich cookies
• 22.5 ml (1 1/2 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted

Filling

• 60 ml (¼ cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 60 ml (¼ cup) sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
• 5 ml (1 tsp) maple syrup
• Half a large ripe banana
• Pinch flaky sea salt, optional

Directions

If using sandwich cookies (Oreos or otherwise), place the cookies, filling and all, into a food processor or blender and pulse to a fine crumb. You can also place them in a zip-top bag and crush them with a rolling pin.

Stir the melted butter into the store-bought crumbs or crushed cookies and mix until well-combined.

Place the crumb mixture in a shallow 4-½ to 5-inch dish or ramequin. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the dish to an equal depth. Refrigerate the crust while preparing the filling.

Add the chocolate chips to a microwave-safe dish. Microwave for about 90 seconds until smooth, stirring vigorously every 30 seconds to avoid overheating the chocolate.

While the chocolate is still warm, add the sour cream or yogurt and whisk until smooth. Stir in the maple syrup.

Remove the crust from the fridge and slice the half banana into ¼-inch rounds. To assemble the tart, cover the crust in a single layer of banana slices and carefully pour the chocolate mixture overtop, using the back of a spoon to spread. Top the tart with remaining banana slices and garnish with flaky sea salt, if using.

Serve right away or return to the refrigerator until ready to eat.

“Breakup food, to me, is either a comforting recipe from my childhood, or an indulgent treat to satisfy my cravings.

“The main kinds of foods I will most gravitate to for a pick-me-up are usually savoury, like a meat lover’s pizza or macaroni and cheese. If I am craving something sweet, it’s most likely going to be a cinnamon bun or something involving dark chocolate with sea salt.

“As someone who cooks for a living, when I’m not feeling too great, cooking for myself is the last thing on my mind, unless I’m really craving something that I know I can’t just go out and buy.”

— Alix Loiselle

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Scorned Beef Hash

Ingredients

• 30 to 45 ml (2 to 3 tbsp) unsalted butter, margarine or vegetable oil
• 250 ml (1 cup) onion, finely chopped (or more, it’s not like you have to worry about onion breath tonight…)
• 500 to 750 ml (2 to 3 cups) corned beef slices, chopped
• 500 to 750 ml (2 to 3 cups) potatoes, cubed and cooked
• Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper (or those little paper packets of salt and pepper from your last Skip order)
• Fresh parsley, optional

Note:  If you bother with the last ingredient, good news! It means you’re not really upset about the breakup. Because a truly broken heart doesn’t have time for fresh chopped parsley. You can also round out this dinner for one with a single, solitary, lonely fried egg; the cracking of which will remind you of the sound your heart made when you found out it wasn’t you, it was them… but you know it was totally you.

Directions

Heat a large skillet (preferably a cold, hard, soulless, cast-iron one) over medium heat. To the hot pan, add your desired fat and the onions, cooking for a few minutes until translucent.

Add the corned beef and potatoes. Mix everything together and spread in an even layer.

Increase the heat to medium-high and press down on the hash with a metal spatula — crushing the potatoes slightly, just like they crushed your hopes and dreams.

Do not stir, let the potatoes and corned beef brown. If you hear sizzling, this is good. Just leave it alone. Don’t call. Don’t text. Don’t ask how they’re doing or if they got the box of belongings you left by the door at their place. Leave it alone!

Use the spatula to peek underneath. If the bottom is nicely browned, flip the hash in sections to brown the other side, pressing down again with the spatula. It’s important to flip in sections, because if you try to flip it all at once it will just become another thing you suck at… like relationships.

If the hash is sticking too much, add as much butter or oil to the pan as needed — it’s not like you’re gonna cause anywhere near as much damage to your heart as they did.

Once the hash is browned on both sides, remove from the heat. Stir in chopped parsley, if using, and season with salt and pepper.

“The dish is simple, quick and filling. With the shortcuts, like using the frozen hash browns (I also buy frozen diced onions sometimes), and skipping the parsley, it takes even less time to prepare.

Although I may have had a little fun tailoring the ingredients and directions for a freshly broken heart, there have been several times I have made this dish for a party of one. Something about starchy foods with high sodium content just works for some of us when it comes to comfort food. This recipe is definitely for the savoury of heart.”

— Brian Spencler

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The Doghouse

Ingredients

• Meatballs, frozen
• 250 ml (1 cup) Pesto, store-bought, let’s not kid ourselves
• 250 ml (1 cup) heavy cream
• 1 lemon, optional
• Red onion
• Roasted red pepper
• Crusty long bread, or whatever you want
• Mayo
• 2 heaping spoonfuls shiddy parmesan (you know the one)
• Handful arugula, if you’re fancy
• Salt and pepper

Note: Quantities are approximate, prep ingredients to your taste.

Directions

Cook the frozen meatballs however it says on the box or bag or sack that they came in. We make our own but you’re too sad for that so just take it easy.

Put on your fave Spotify playlist super loud (we recommend something with lots of shredding guitar riffs).

Heat up your pesto and heavy cream in two separate saucepans over medium-low heat, whisking both frequently. If you want to get real sad, a microwave will do the trick.

When both are warmed through, slowly add the heavy cream to the pesto while whisking constantly to prevent splitting. Once combined, leave to simmer on low. You may want to add the zest and juice of a single lemon here, but you’re not gonna do that.

Thinly slice the red onion and thickly slice the roasted red pepper lengthwise. If you feel like crying, now is the time.

Once the meatballs are fully cooked, add the desired amount to the creamy pesto. If there’s not enough space in the pan you can skip this step and add them to the sandwich separately.

Construct sammy in this order: Bottom bun, mayo, creamy meatballs (drizzle extra sauce if you want), roasted red pepper, arugula, red onion, shiddy parm (very important), top bun.

Sit down in front of TV and destroy the sandwich with fervour, whilst watching Traitors or whatever gives you joy.

“For those in the doghouse, this is a lonely time and the only solace you’ll find is from filling your tummy to the absolute max, fast and easy. We at Hoagie Boyz want you to know we’re always here for you seven days a week during work hours. The other times we’re off with our loved ones or watching the S&P 500 so just leave a message.

“We’ll be keeping with tradition and serving this sammy all day long on V-Day down on south Osborne (513 Osborne St.), so if you want to come by and tell us about your cat, you can do that too. We got you.”

— The Hoagie Boyz

 

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com