Part of our weekend routine is to sit down with our own hand-written book of recipes, our folder of clipped recipes, and the other sources we draw from for ideas and inspiration, and put together a menu for the week. We make notes on adjustments, compile a list of ingredients needed for everything on the menu, check it against our current pantry, fridge, and freezer stocks, and then work through the grocery list before going to the store to get what we don’t have. We take any meat for the first few nights out of the freezer and put in the fridge to thaw (imperative since our built-in microwave has been dead for about a month, and we’ve not bothered to call to have someone look at it yet).
This eliminates the dialog that otherwise starts by about Tuesday night and continues through the week:
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I don’t know – what do you want for dinner?”
“I don’t know – what will the kids eat?”
“I don’t know – go ask them.”
“We want eggs and sausage!” (which they’ve already had for breakfast)
Or, I should say, this routine almost eliminates this dialog. Every once in a while, no matter how well I review the menu and plan things out, something comes along to derail me. Case in point is this past Monday. Somehow, in putting everything together, I completely overlooked the fact my planned recipe was a slow cooker recipe. There is nothing like coming home after a 9+ hour day at work, plus my first day back to the gym in well over a month, to realize that the only meat thawed out for dinner is the main ingredient for a dish that requires a good 5+ hours on low in a crock pot. Add in the fact it’s approaching 7pm and everyone’s getting hungry. Now what do I do???
Improvise! Grab a few ingredients (including a frozen package of ground turkey) and whip something up fast, before the natives get too restless and tear apart the kitchen. The result is a soup that will almost take you less time from start to finish that it will for you to read through the intro of this post. So let’s get started…
