Living alone can be absolutely fantastic.  Sometimes I think I’m borderline hermit, because there’s nothing I love more than crawling into my batcave and not talking to a single person.  A lot of people ask me if I get lonely living alone.  Honestly, some days… YES (especially when I hear a noise on my patio, even though I’m 99.9% sure it’s the fat black cat that likes to hang out).

But then other days, I cherish the fact that I’m independent.  So in case you’re wondering, here are some of the perks of living alone:

1. Permanent No-Pants Party.  Pants are over-rated.  When you live alone, you can walk around with no pants.  There’s no one to hide from or be judged by.  It’s just you and your thighs, hanging out.

2. The peanut butter jar is yours and only yours. 

You can dip your fingers in peanut butter, eat huge bowls of ice cream, have handfuls of chocolate chips, and pretend like calories don’t matter, because if no one saw you consume it, it didn’t happen.  Ok so I’m kidding, but really you can have ridiculous eating habits and no one will judge you.  Jesse saw me devour a banana with almond butter one day and was completely horrified.  I keep it private now.  (Note: the obvious exception to this is the awesome roommate who goes to the store to get half moon cookies and coconut popswith you at midnight… looking at you Christina!)

3.  You’re the Queen of the Remote.  This is pretty much self-explanatory.  You decide what’s on TV… I’ve watched the same 2 episodes of Catfish like 5 times… When Jesse comes over and I turn it on, he comments on how we already saw that one… Oh yeah…

4.  You can fart if you want to.  Totally not lady-like, but let’s be honest, everyone farts.  It just happens.  When you live alone, you don’t have to worry about anyone else hearing you, because no one is around.  You can keep up lady-like appearances in public when you know you can let loose at home.

5.  You can hog the kitchen and bake whenever you want. 

I’ve been lucky and have generally had roommates who are cool with me dominating the kitchen.  Only one roommate was not ok with it (there’s a reason I live alone now…).  But the best part of living alone, for me, is being able to spend hours with baking experiments, like this plum-almond tart.

I’m going to be totally up front and honest with you.  I have mixed feelings with this recipe so I decided not to share my recipe.  I’m going to try again until I get it to taste awesome.   I wanted to love this tart, because it has all the makings an an awesome blog post: healthy alternatives, unique non-wheat flour, no added refined sugar (does maple syrup count? It’s still sugar).

The crust is made of buckwheat and spelt flours.

Honestly, this crust tastes a little too “healthy” for my liking, and the texture is a little too crumbly, not flakey.  The filling on the other hand, I liked.  Moist but nutty and slightly “healthy” tasting.  It involves almond meal and maple syrup.  And the plums.  Divine.

Ok so at this point, I’ve told you why living alone is great and why it’s not so great.  I’ve also told you why this tart was awesome and also not so awesome.

Do you live alone? Do you love it? Hate it?  Do you have roommates/friends/partners you live with?  What’s best?