Getting Dinner on the Table

Oh crap, my blog. To be honest, I love, love, love starting things…but, other than my wife/mama title, I am also a big fan of change & get bored rather quickly - so there.

Time to remind myself of my GOAL:

The goal: Getting it together -- on time -- feeling good about it, and enjoying it when it’s done.

Am I talking about my blog?

No.

I am speaking to a much greater, more daunting challenge known as…

…Getting Dinner on the Table.

As much as I’d sometimes like to avoid doing my blog entry, this week’s topic is really coming to me full-force and if you read it to the end you’ll even get a tasty RECIPE (starring a Theo Chocolate bar no less) out of it.

When I first got married, I didn’t have a kitchen. It belonged to my husband - his turf. Seriously, if I was in the kitchen putting some utensil away, he was tailing me, micromanaging all the way. If I was using a utensil, he was putting it away. If I was wanting to know where a utensil or tool was, he had just put it away. We evolved, thankfully, and learned to enjoy cooking together and share all of the rooms in our house.

But now, pragmatically, it often makes sense for me to do the greater part of the meal preparation. And, to be fair, I really do enjoy cooking. Not that I am the best chef but I do make my fair share of tasty dishes.

No one told me they expected dinner on the table by 5pm – I didn’t grow up with the expectation that it was “women’s work” nor do I get that message from my sweetie, friends, or society as a whole. But somewhere deep down, my innerhousewife^® believes there must be some wisdom from the golden oldies whence many housewives did indeed get supper ready for their families by the time their honey’s came home from work. I don’t know the history but I can hope that this was less about gender equality and hopefully more about practicality. Also, I imagine, it was seen as a gesture of love. Food = Love in many forms.

So, I thought for this latest entry I could focus on, or at least TRY to focus on, getting dinner on the table – at a reasonable time – during the work-a-day week.

I’ve done more challenging things. But in the current configuration of my life – this one vexes me.

First of all, there is this unfortunate alignment, where dinner making time just happens to be when both I and the kids are most exhausted and cranky. Just the perfect time to make a beautiful meal that will bring us all to the table.

Assuming dinner does get made we eventually reach the end of the meal. And then, just when we are all on the verge of food coma, it’s time to do dishes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank goodness for Trader Joe’s where I can simply heat up a meal that sounds luxurious but sometimes it just tastes a little like wax. Or frostbite. Or they taste like the tamales and the tomales taste like their pizza which tastes like their granola (but that’s another topic). I really don’t have anything against “leaning on” Trader Joes or Costco. I use it often. But…There’s nothing like a homemade meal when I CAN swing it.

Here is one of my innerhousewife^® attempts at completing this mystifying task: getting dinner on the table.

Meal Plan #1:

Ravioli & Green Salad

(cue Inner Housewife monologue):

4:00pm: Here we go – dinner tonight, ravioli & green salad. From Costco. Cheating a little, yes, but this is pretty easy. I can do this.

4:05: Hmmm, I think I should make the tomato sauce.

WHY??? Someone stop me now.

Eh, why not?

Famous last words.

I have 9 tomatoes – that’ll work.

OK, recipe, find a recipe. {Eli squeaks from the baby swing} Ooh, Eli needs a diaper change but that has to wait because, I just need to look on epicurious for a recipe. Ok, Eli, hold on – this is veeeeerrrryyy important. Ok, got one!

4:15pm: {Change Eli’s diaper, lots of smiles, coo’s, tickles}.

5:00pm: Back to the kitchen, recipe for sauce in hand (and Dan gets home from work). Ok, blanch tomatoes. What?! Do I have to? Submerge in boiling water 10 seconds…ooookaaay. Submerge in ice bath (that’s the tomatoes, not me). I only have two ice cubes. {fill ice trays}. I guess I will just submerge the tomatoes in just a cold water bath (the water isn’t really cold so somehow we went from freezing water to lukewarm water with a rice-crispy floating in it). Trial and error. Ok, error – watery tomatoes. Oops.

5:30pm: Next, cook the ravioli. But, I just used the large pasta pot for the sauce. I can use this extra wide soup pot instead.  Bowls, knives, plates, peeler, multiple spoons, mixing bowls, etc. spilling out of the sink. Hm, how did I use so many items for just making ravioli? In the back of my head (well, actually front of my head) I hear my husband asking this same question.

5:45pm: {Gabi comes out of her room covered in some sticky substance…}

Me: ”Gabi, what is that?”

Her: “Your lotion.”

Me: Inside voice: Oh.

Me, Again: Outside voice: “Gabi, that’s so great you are experimenting. Ok, now let’s clean it off together [translation: I am going to be cleaning this myself]. Where did you get this? My room. Please ask for permission to use my lotion. Do you want to help me make dinner? You can wash the lettuce.”

6:15pm: And curtain up! The result is dinner at 6:30pm: watery tomatoes = watery sauce, oddly sweet tomato sauce served over mild and under flavored, previously frozen ravioli. From Costco. Very nice green salad. Thanks Costco for nothing…

Meal Plan #2:

Vegetarian Chili with Theo Chocolate served with Cornbread

Spoiler alert: The result is delicious, on time and makes very good leftover burrito filling.

Stef’s veggie chili with Theo chocolate bar

Ingredients:

• 2 tbl. olive or vegetable oil
• EITHER: ¼ tsp. Chili powder, ½ tsp. Garlic powder & 1 tsp. Cumin OR: Chile spices mix packet (PCC if you are local)
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 small or medium onion, chopped
• optional: 2 celery ribs & 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 15 oz. can kidney beans (wash and drain)
• ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes (with juices)
• 1 package fake meat (also known as ground beef substitute)
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• ½-1 cup veggie stock
• Salt and pepper
• 1 bar Theo Nib Brittle chocolate
• non-fat plain Greek yogurt
• 1 bottle wine – red or white

Directions:

Sauté spices in 1 tablespoon of oil over medium heat for 2 minutes; add 1 tablespoon of oil, green pepper, onion, celery and carrots, sauté 5-8 minutes over medium heat; add fake meat and break into crumbles; add kidney beans, dice tomatoes, broth, cayenne, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about an hour. Pour glass of wine and open Theo Chocolate Nib Brittle bar. Slowly eat & enjoy one section of chocolate bar and sip wine. Break off remaining 3 parts of chocolate bar and toss them into the chili. Stir until fully melted and mingling with other ingredients.

Serve with fresh cilantro and a dollop of plain non-fat greek yogurt, cornbread, or rice and simple green salad.

Dinner is on the table!