in my kitchen
Ah, my kitchen.
There's not much grand about it, really.
Nothing fancy or over-the-top.
However, it all works as I need it to.
Mostly, I think, cause I've got it down to a science.
(even though today, at lunch with my co-workers who were talking about aprons, of all things, I admitted that I don't even own an apron. nor do I measure the amounts of ingredients in my recipes. nor do I reference a recipe, most times. it's all in my head - a gift, of sorts.)
My tricks are these:
1.) I plan our meals a week at a time. This I have found to be a necessity. At the store, it ensures that I come home with stuff for a meal, not just snacks and whatever looks good as I'm shopping. What I plan for what night depends on how much time I know I'll have that night to prepare it. And I have to think ahead for meals on weeknights that will make enough for leftovers for the Gunny (he's mighty good at packing his lunch).
2.) Plan for one meal a week to be eaten out on the town. Usually Sunday lunch, with our friends. And usually at our favorite Mexican spot.
3.) Plan for chaos. Meaning - some weeks get chaotic. Know that a few slip ups in schedules and life in general that land you at the closest take-out places a few nights a week will ultimately be forgiven. So plan for that :)
4.) Keep a master list of all the meals you make or try or attempt to try. Then trying to figure out what to plan for each night of the week is easy - just look at what you didn't make last week (this, of course, requires that you have more than 7 or 8 meals on that master list).
5.) Before I even make that list for the week, I have to consult what's on sale at my preferred grocery stop. And if you have a coupon, too.....then it's a must.
6.) All that planning and organizing stuff being said, I've found that lately my pregnancy brain has squandered me into forgetting one key ingredient for a meal on a weekly basis. Consequently, I've learned to forgive myself for a quick jaunt to the grocery store twice in a week, kids in tow (and I've also learned that if you promise the kids a free bakery cookie when I've retrieved that one item, all goes much better).
And lastly and most importantly, #7 (in a paragraph of its own, it's that important): The cook that I revere the most is my Grandma. Whether she only fixed good food or whether she tended to just fix what I liked is besides the point (my memories now have blurred with time), but she was the best at it. On my wedding day, one gift to me was a church cookbook, with this scrawled inside the front cover, "A Word of Advise: All good cooks do occasionally have failures. Those 'failure' experiences create expert cooks." Kitchen rules to live by, for sure.
A friend told me last week that she needed new meal ideas, because it felt like she fixed the same thing every week. If your inquiring mind must know, here's what's on the meal plan for this week:
Monday - tortellini, green beans, and baked provolone bread
Tuesday - calzones (love these, cause everybody makes their own)
Wednesday - noodles and cornbread
Thursday - lasagna and garlic monkey bread (and don't forget the 4 dozen cupcakes to make and take to school for bday treats)
Friday - crispy chicken (a specialty of mine), baked mac and cheese, and baked beans
Saturday - biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and eggs (plus the bday party at our house - which includes homemade cake and frosting and my famous chips and dip)
Sunday - pizza
There you have it. All planned, all bought (well, now that I went back to the store for Cool Whip), all laid out before me. No failures in sight for the week (well, at least not in the kitchen...)
There's not much grand about it, really.
Nothing fancy or over-the-top.
However, it all works as I need it to.
Mostly, I think, cause I've got it down to a science.
(even though today, at lunch with my co-workers who were talking about aprons, of all things, I admitted that I don't even own an apron. nor do I measure the amounts of ingredients in my recipes. nor do I reference a recipe, most times. it's all in my head - a gift, of sorts.)
My tricks are these:
1.) I plan our meals a week at a time. This I have found to be a necessity. At the store, it ensures that I come home with stuff for a meal, not just snacks and whatever looks good as I'm shopping. What I plan for what night depends on how much time I know I'll have that night to prepare it. And I have to think ahead for meals on weeknights that will make enough for leftovers for the Gunny (he's mighty good at packing his lunch).
2.) Plan for one meal a week to be eaten out on the town. Usually Sunday lunch, with our friends. And usually at our favorite Mexican spot.
3.) Plan for chaos. Meaning - some weeks get chaotic. Know that a few slip ups in schedules and life in general that land you at the closest take-out places a few nights a week will ultimately be forgiven. So plan for that :)
4.) Keep a master list of all the meals you make or try or attempt to try. Then trying to figure out what to plan for each night of the week is easy - just look at what you didn't make last week (this, of course, requires that you have more than 7 or 8 meals on that master list).
5.) Before I even make that list for the week, I have to consult what's on sale at my preferred grocery stop. And if you have a coupon, too.....then it's a must.
6.) All that planning and organizing stuff being said, I've found that lately my pregnancy brain has squandered me into forgetting one key ingredient for a meal on a weekly basis. Consequently, I've learned to forgive myself for a quick jaunt to the grocery store twice in a week, kids in tow (and I've also learned that if you promise the kids a free bakery cookie when I've retrieved that one item, all goes much better).
And lastly and most importantly, #7 (in a paragraph of its own, it's that important): The cook that I revere the most is my Grandma. Whether she only fixed good food or whether she tended to just fix what I liked is besides the point (my memories now have blurred with time), but she was the best at it. On my wedding day, one gift to me was a church cookbook, with this scrawled inside the front cover, "A Word of Advise: All good cooks do occasionally have failures. Those 'failure' experiences create expert cooks." Kitchen rules to live by, for sure.
A friend told me last week that she needed new meal ideas, because it felt like she fixed the same thing every week. If your inquiring mind must know, here's what's on the meal plan for this week:
Monday - tortellini, green beans, and baked provolone bread
Tuesday - calzones (love these, cause everybody makes their own)
Wednesday - noodles and cornbread
Thursday - lasagna and garlic monkey bread (and don't forget the 4 dozen cupcakes to make and take to school for bday treats)
Friday - crispy chicken (a specialty of mine), baked mac and cheese, and baked beans
Saturday - biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and eggs (plus the bday party at our house - which includes homemade cake and frosting and my famous chips and dip)
Sunday - pizza
There you have it. All planned, all bought (well, now that I went back to the store for Cool Whip), all laid out before me. No failures in sight for the week (well, at least not in the kitchen...)
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