It happens to the best of us...at least I think it does. At least it's happened to me: I am bored and uninspired and stumped by dinner. I call it my Daily Dinner Crisis.
It feels so lame when others are suffering from sickness, poverty and a host of other unspeakable horrors that my biggest trouble is dealing with dinner.
Last year, I made a schedule to solve the problem, and it worked for a while.
Monday: stir-fry
Tuesday: Mexican
Wednesday: pasta
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: hamburgers or steak
Saturday: pizza or out
Sunday: stew or soup
Trouble is, I stopped following the schedule. I rebelled against the schedule because that's the kind of person I am. Like diets and exercise routines and budgets, it only works if you follow the plan--to the letter.
Maybe because I'm a professional cook I think that I'm better than that silly schedule. I can improvise and pull the Welsh rarebit out of a hat. Or maybe I'm struggling with the change of seasons, but I did make 4 soups just in the last week.
Come to think of it, this schedule saved us on many nights when I was on the verge of calling pizza 911. It offered direction with enough leeway to pull something together from whatever I happened to have.
I never once regretted our own home-cooked food, which was invariably better and more nutritious. I never once wished that I had spent the money on doughy pizza or greasy Chinese all because I was in a state of desperation. Eating out or in, I think, should be a treat and a pleasure.
So, let's see...if it's Wednesday, it must be pasta. I've got some delicata squash and red onion. If I whipped up some homemade ricotta...
So, how do you deal with the nightly need to eat something warm and yummy?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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2 comments:
We take a little time on the weekend to plan upcoming dinners (which you can see on the side of Roots and Grubs) together. This is a difficult things for a cook to do solo, but if everyone participates it's better. Iris and I each get a "pick of the week"--whatever we want, Matthew chooses which day he'll schedule it for and he cooks it. Sometimes it is hard to come up with a pick, but most of the time Iris and I both love to. The things on your schedule are staples for dinner here, too.
I always want to know what other people are having for supper, so I love the Roots and Grubs sidebar. I'll have to reference it next time I'm stumped.
In general, it really IS about having a plan. Just typing about my dilemma helped me deal, and I really did make sauteed delicata and onions with ricotta over whole wheat pasta, which everyone loved.
What may have really helped is that Benjamin played with the girls while I made it!
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