(no subject)
Apr. 6th, 2008 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaFrom the results of my poll, it seems that I am not a space alien - but neither is my friend. Which is about what I would have expected prior to our conversation.
What she found so incredible was that, most nights, I make a full cooked dinner for my family. ("Do you just really love to cook? ...Don't you ever just eat something bad? ...I just can't believe that you do it.") We sit down and eat at the table together, usually with a glass of wine for Michael and me, sometimes with candles lit. (Lest you think we're totally June-and-Ward Cleaver, the other end of the table is usually piled high with mail, books, nursery school projects, and miscellaneous cruft.)
I do really enjoy cooking, although I have to confess that when you do it almost every night there are times when all it is is work. I do find it satisfying to feed my family well. When I make something particularly tasty, I really glow. Part of what I enjoy is the sense of doing something concrete, hands-on, and real, which makes people feel good right away. Mostly the things I do with my time are a lot more nebulous than that, and the rewards or benefits are less clear.
The food I make is pretty simple. I don't use Rachael Ray's cookbooks, but I know a lot of recipes that take about a half-hour to make, and we mostly cycle through those. Some of them are pretty damn fancy (salmon with tropical fruit salsa, say, or pan-fried tilapia with soy-ginger sauce), but other meals are pretty much the sort of thing my Mom learned to cook in her 1950s-era home ec classes: say, broiled steak with mashed potatoes and peas.
Part of what enables me to cook at home nightly (or almost-nightly) is that I don't adhere to foodie-level standards. I use canned chicken broth, canned tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce from a jar. (It's the fancy kind of jar, at least, and I add meat and vegetables. But still.) We eat a lot of frozen vegetables. I buy tubs of pre-grated parmesan cheese.
I plan meals and do a major supermarket shopping once a week, with additional forays to a small neighborhood grocery store as needed. I shopped today. I was feeling stressed out at the time, so there's nothing particularly complex or adventurous on the menu. This week's meals:
Sunday: Michael had gaming, so it was just me and Alex. I don't really cook for just the two of us, because it drives me crazy to put in a lot of effort to make something and then have her refuse to eat it. Tonight we had frozen fish sticks, organic tater tots, and a choice of sauteed fresh spinach (me) or raw spinach (her). I haven't had fish sticks since I was a little kid, and was surprised to discover that they're actually kind of tasty.
Monday: Smoked-gouda-stuffed hamburgers, sauteed fresh spinach with sesame oil, steamed frozen corn.
Tuesday: Baked chicken thighs with garlic and herbs, mashed potatoes, steamed frozen peas.
Wednesday (teaching night): fried ham slice, Pillsbury biscuits, steamed frozen green beans.
Thursday: something with chicken breasts, to be determined later. Popular favorite cooking methods in our household include spreading them with dijon mustard, wrapping a slice of streaky bacon around them, and grilling them on the Foreman grill; or else dredging them in flour-and-parmesan-cheese, sauteeing them, and serving them with a lemon-parmesan pan sauce. Probably we'll have basmati rice and steamed fresh asparagus on the side.
Friday: Special dinner for Alex's birthday. Shrimp scampi pasta, probably a salad, and homemade cupcakes for dessert.
Saturday: The day of Alex's birthday party. After corralling five rampaging three-year-olds and entertaining their mothers as well, we'll probably want to order takeout for dinner.
What she found so incredible was that, most nights, I make a full cooked dinner for my family. ("Do you just really love to cook? ...Don't you ever just eat something bad? ...I just can't believe that you do it.") We sit down and eat at the table together, usually with a glass of wine for Michael and me, sometimes with candles lit. (Lest you think we're totally June-and-Ward Cleaver, the other end of the table is usually piled high with mail, books, nursery school projects, and miscellaneous cruft.)
I do really enjoy cooking, although I have to confess that when you do it almost every night there are times when all it is is work. I do find it satisfying to feed my family well. When I make something particularly tasty, I really glow. Part of what I enjoy is the sense of doing something concrete, hands-on, and real, which makes people feel good right away. Mostly the things I do with my time are a lot more nebulous than that, and the rewards or benefits are less clear.
The food I make is pretty simple. I don't use Rachael Ray's cookbooks, but I know a lot of recipes that take about a half-hour to make, and we mostly cycle through those. Some of them are pretty damn fancy (salmon with tropical fruit salsa, say, or pan-fried tilapia with soy-ginger sauce), but other meals are pretty much the sort of thing my Mom learned to cook in her 1950s-era home ec classes: say, broiled steak with mashed potatoes and peas.
Part of what enables me to cook at home nightly (or almost-nightly) is that I don't adhere to foodie-level standards. I use canned chicken broth, canned tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce from a jar. (It's the fancy kind of jar, at least, and I add meat and vegetables. But still.) We eat a lot of frozen vegetables. I buy tubs of pre-grated parmesan cheese.
I plan meals and do a major supermarket shopping once a week, with additional forays to a small neighborhood grocery store as needed. I shopped today. I was feeling stressed out at the time, so there's nothing particularly complex or adventurous on the menu. This week's meals:
Sunday: Michael had gaming, so it was just me and Alex. I don't really cook for just the two of us, because it drives me crazy to put in a lot of effort to make something and then have her refuse to eat it. Tonight we had frozen fish sticks, organic tater tots, and a choice of sauteed fresh spinach (me) or raw spinach (her). I haven't had fish sticks since I was a little kid, and was surprised to discover that they're actually kind of tasty.
Monday: Smoked-gouda-stuffed hamburgers, sauteed fresh spinach with sesame oil, steamed frozen corn.
Tuesday: Baked chicken thighs with garlic and herbs, mashed potatoes, steamed frozen peas.
Wednesday (teaching night): fried ham slice, Pillsbury biscuits, steamed frozen green beans.
Thursday: something with chicken breasts, to be determined later. Popular favorite cooking methods in our household include spreading them with dijon mustard, wrapping a slice of streaky bacon around them, and grilling them on the Foreman grill; or else dredging them in flour-and-parmesan-cheese, sauteeing them, and serving them with a lemon-parmesan pan sauce. Probably we'll have basmati rice and steamed fresh asparagus on the side.
Friday: Special dinner for Alex's birthday. Shrimp scampi pasta, probably a salad, and homemade cupcakes for dessert.
Saturday: The day of Alex's birthday party. After corralling five rampaging three-year-olds and entertaining their mothers as well, we'll probably want to order takeout for dinner.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 02:03 pm (UTC)People's different ways of dealing with food are fascinating. We tried planning menus a week in advance and gave up; we'd not feel like cooking one night, or leftovers would last longer than we'd planned, or *something*. Now we plan at most a couple days in advance. And we rely far more heavily on leftovers.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 02:39 pm (UTC)The only thing that's set in stone is that Wednesday nights require a dinner that can be made quickly - I don't have much time between playgroup and OWL.
give me crunchy fried fish any day.
Every other week, the hospital cafeteria has a fried fish special - usually lake trout, but sometimes catfish or similar. They take a huuuuge flat filet, dredge it in seasoned cornmeal, deep-fry it, and serve it with cornbread and coleslaw. OMG GOOD.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 02:53 pm (UTC)(Via Mark Bittman's _How to Cook Everything_, I believe. Yum.)
Man, now I want some of that. And it looks like catfish is safe, too. *makes note to check store for fish*