11:55 p.m. - 2004-12-13
Eating at the Den of Iniquity
I am on the ball tonight! I've only been home for twenty minutes and already all three meals for tomorrow are in the fridge ready to go.
I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, so I've taken to throwing the ingredients for my smoothie in the blender the night before and then sticking the blender cup in the fridge. My smoothie for tomorrow morning features dessert tofu, vanilla and strawberry yoghurt, frozen unsweetened strawberries, and a banana. Considering that a year ago, I almost never ate breakfast, I think that is an impressively healthy morning meal. (Well, this morning I had a cinnamon bun, but every day can't be a feast of nutrition, right? Besides, they were all fresh and delicious, made by Diana last night! Who am I to resist?)
I am making a very distinctive effort not to buy as many lunches at work, and so far I've managed more than two weeks bringing a lunch every day, which is pretty much unheard of for me. Tomorrow's choice is leftover macaroni and cheese, also made by Diana and totally delicious. Yum! We have a pretty good system going around here - we both kind of like to cook, but aren't too obsessive about it, so we share the cooking pretty easily and tend to enjoy whatever we make. I'm a much more traditional cook than she is, and a much pickier eater, but she tends to cook to my tastes very cheerfully, which I appreciate. Plus, we often have very good leftovers. There are some very old leftovers lurking in the fridge but I'm approximately 500% better about eating them than I used to be. I will also take a Christmas orange, and maybe a butterscotch pudding for my lunch tomorrow, and I'll be all set.
Dinner is going to be some boneless skinless chicken thighs, which are currently thawing in the slow cooker pot, which is in the fridge with some carrots and some sauce type stuff that I threw together. We'll toss some rice in the rice cooker and dinner will be ready 15 minutes after one of us gets home, which is always enjoyable. If you're noticing that I'm a total whore for kitchen appliances, you are not wrong. The slow cooker, the rice cooker, the blender, the sandwich maker, and the toaster oven all get used extremely regularly. They are all incredibly convenient and I love them all.
Those of you who know me probably know the general state of cooking and eating at my parents' house. Dinner is decided last minute and 90% of the ingredients are bought on the way home from work. Leftovers rarely exist. The fridge is half empty and the deep freeze even more so. The cupboards have basics but very few things that can be thrown together to make a meal. There are no kitchen gadgets - everything is cooked from scratch, pretty much, with more effort than necessary a lot of the time. There is very little available for lunches, since most of the time they just get bought at work.
I am making a concious effort to not be like that. We shop bi-weekly or so, and stock up on a lot of things, watching the sales and clipping coupons when we remember. Our pantry is full, and our freezer is jammed with tasty options for lunches or dinners. We make extra and keep leftovers, which both of us bring for lunches. We take advantage of the appliances and time-savers that we have, and try to plan our meals in advance so we can figure out what needs to be thawed. I could go into the kitchen right now and make at least six different perfectly tasty dinners, and we're more than a week past our last grocery shop.
This, in my opinion, is a much more civilised way to live. And it results in saving a ton of money, time, and sanity. The longer I live on my own, the more I realise that I'm totally capable and responsible when I need to be. It's a good feeling.
