I have a new concern. You see, the other night I dreamt that I overheard Jacob telling a friend, "If we only ate when Katie cooked, then we would have starved to death years ago." When I woke up, I got to thinking about it. I cook dinner... um...maybe two or three times a month, at the most (maybe 24 nights a year, maybe). I suddenly felt like such a slacker. It's not that I don't want to cook, really. I would cook dinner if someone expected me too, or even if someone would eat it whether they expected it or not.
Unfortunately, we have two regular conversations at our house. The first goes like this:
K: Are you hungry?
J: No, I ate a large lunch.
K: Okay. I'll have some cereal.
The second conversation goes like this:
K: Are you hungry?
J: I don't know. I guess so.
K: What do you want to eat?
J: I don't know, you pick.
K: Nothing really sounds good to me. You pick.
J: I don't know you pick.
(This goes on for at least 45 minutes.) Finally,
K: Okay, when you decide what you want let me know. Or there's cereal in the kitchen.
We eat alot of cereal. It seems like between not having the time to cook, not being able to pick what we want to eat, and not having all the ingredients for what does sound good at the time, I never spend any time in the kitchen. The biggest meal we usually eat is Weekend Breakfast. This could be a combination of omelets, eggs cooked to order, hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, pancakes, waffles, and french toast. While absolutely my favorite meal of the week I'm not the one that cooks it. Jake is. Jake is the culinary mastermind in our house.
This morning I'd been thinking about my dream again so I decided to make dinner tonight. I left work kind of early, called Jake and asked him to thaw some steaks, went to the grocery store, bought produce for a salad, and went home ready to cook. Guess what happened? Yep, Jake had eaten a big lunch and wasn't hugry. I don't know how to use the barbecue outside so Jake cooked my steak for me. I opened a bag of salad, grated some cheese and sliced a tomato. The extent of my "cooking" was chopping a tomato.
So now I have to ask: Do you actually make dinner at your house? How often? And if so, does that dinner include a main dish and side dishes, or just a single dish like mac and cheese or hamburger helper? Am I the only "slacker" out there?
6 comments:
Oh how I miss my Katie :) We do eat dinner most nights... well, we did before Dave went on his intense diet. Now I eat cereal and he eats his paltry meals. Cereal is just so easy!
Well, back when we ate every night, the ONLY way I could make myself do it was to have a weekly menu. (If not, it was always "What do you want to eat?" "I dunno, what do you want?", or "Crap, I don't have the ingredients I need for this recipe!")
So, I made a list of the meals for the week (the recipes were gathered from cookbooks or online), went shopping on Saturday for any ingredients I didn't already have, then tried my best to stick to the menu. It worked really well, and we always had leftovers, which made lunches the next day super easy. Does that help? :)
Poor Jake. Who knew dreams could be so telling?
Katie, katie, katie, .... considering is me. Yes I cook nearly every night. I spoil Colby though because I make him breakfast too every morning. I switch up dinner, sometimes one course casserole and then sometimes a main dish with sides. Something that we do is decide on about 9-12 meals that we want together. Then I buy only what I need for those meals with a few extra things but I never buy extra because it is too easy to spend a lot of money on food. Then we leave a list on the fridge so we know what we have all the ingredients for. Plus we usually have extra so Colby has lunch the next day. It really helps on saving money. But that is such a small part of it. IF you want to know more I would love to share with you what we do to save on groceries.
KATIE...don't feel bad. At least you would be willing to make dinner. Poor Dave, I hate cooking and no I do not make dinner every night. I'm not sure how Laural and 'Johnson family' do it, but I never know WHAT to make. I end up eating cereal a lot too, and Dave usually eats some frozen foods (fast and easy). So, we're not the best examples of eating healthy. But at least I feel bad and wish I was better at cooking meals every day. :) So NO you are not the only one out there.
That was a great post and a good question. I will cook but it is always something out of a box that takes 5 min to prep and 30 to cook and yes, loaded with sodium. I still only cook about 3 times a week and what's funny is on the weekends when I have plenty of time to cook I don't I'd rather just eat out. We too eat a lot of cereal but usually for snacks rather than meals :) I wouldn't worry about it though. Every family is different and what works for them is how it is!
You are definitely not alone in this. I almost started laughing because your conversations are very similar to ours...and like you my husband is the culinary mastermind.
How do I avoid feeling guilty for not making dinner? I figure one of these days I'll learn to cook something we both agree on and then I will be the culinary mastermind. Until that happens, there's no use putting more guilt on myself for one more thing I don't do as expected.
If you want you can cook dinner for me! We would love it. I just don't have time much anymore. I probably make dinner half the time. I have found using my crock pot has helped my sanity. Also, soups and casseroles are pretty basic so we get a lot of those. The less ingredients I have to use the better. It makes a faster meal to prepare and usually less clean up. Mike and I've have switched our diets to eating healthier so it has forced me to be better about cooking.
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