Tuesday, August 30, 2011

What's For Dinner

Last week, I came home from school most days and wanted to pass out. It took everything I had to stay awake long enough to help my kids with their homework and brush my teeth. (I don’t recommend falling asleep with a toothbrush in your mouth.) I hadn’t planned out dinner and most nights didn’t have the time or energy to cook. I was naive. I was clueless. I was unprepared. I stopped at Chick-fil-A a lot.

Actually, I only stopped at Chick-fil-A once. The other nights, we had Taco Bell, and pizza. Some of you may ask what the big deal is. I mean, it was my first week at work after staying home for seventeen years. It’s understandable that I might have relied on fast food that first week, right? But the thing is, that kind of stuff is not in my budget. It was obvious I needed to change things, so, I came up with a plan.

I decided I needed to plan out menus and do some cooking ahead of time on the weekends. Great plan, yes? Sunday night, I made grilled garlic chicken, knowing I’d have enough left over for lunch for the week. While I grilled the chicken, I browned some beef stew meat on the stove and chopped carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes in anticipation of Monday’s dinner. Monday morning, I threw the fixings for beef stew in the crock pot and went to work, all happy that I was so organized and so amazing, confident in the knowledge that dinner would be ready when I got home and there would be enough left over for another night this week. Oh yeah, I gloated, I’m awesome.

So, we ate the beef stew and by “we ate”, I mean, six of us ate while Brooklyn turned up her nose at the yucky, non-peanut-butter-sandwich gruel I’d placed before her. Life was good. I decided I could do this working thing and still manage to feed my kids. Hot diggity dog! Oh and speaking of, I checked that we had buns so we could have hotdogs for dinner the next day. I went upstairs to read with my little kids, fully planning on coming back down to finish cleaning up the kitchen and to put the leftovers in the fridge.

I fell asleep.

This morning when I trudged to the kitchen to make some coffee, I realized I’d left the beef stew sitting in the crockpot all night. I’d have to dump it out. I almost cried at the waste, and more importantly, at the fact I’d have to plan another meal this week. I started to grab the crockpot to clean it when I noticed that not only had I failed to clean it up last night, but I never even turned it off! For those of you who might be interested, this is what beef stew looks like after it cooks for 24 hours. 
DSC 0171 300x200 Whats For Dinner?

There’s a reason Pioneer Woman has a show on the Food Network and I don’t. A very good reason.

2 comments:

Christa Cox said...

Hey make sure you come check out my fist gaveaway!! yay! http://christanncox.blogspot.com/2011/08/first-giveaway.html?spref=tw

Anonymous said...

i always attempt a meal plan - and then fail.

glad i found your blog!

http://www.parentingwithpinot.com

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