Monday, August 24, 2009

Dinners

I once loved to cook. When I worked at my corporate office job I'd typically arrive home about and hour before Mr. Bella and cook dinner. I tried new recipes, I bought fancy ingredients, I made pretty displays on the table.....


But now? Not so much!

In the summer our dinners are pretty low key with garden veggies on the grill with chicken, steak, or fish. We also eat a salad nearly everyday because we get such good produce from our garden or the farmers market. We also eat salsa three or four times a week. Mr. B loves tomatoes and our plants always do well so we make homemade salsa. Yum!

This works because we all love salsa, boys will eat salad is it's swimming in dressing, and it's easy to grill a variety of garden goodies that most everyone will eat.....even if corn on the cob and potatos are a staple.

But now that school is back in session and this damned humidity will eventually go away I'm starting to hyperventilate at the thought of cooking. Between Mr. B and BB making dinner is absolutely miserable! MISERABLE! They both are picky about different things.

  • it's too bland.
  • it's too fancy.
  • it's too spicy.
  • you should have added (insert here)
  • what is it?
  • OHMYGOODNESS IS THAT GREEN STUFF IN THERE?
  • do we have ramen?
  • can i make a frozen pizza?
  • what? carrots? i'm not eating it!
  • what spices are on this?
  • eww...i can taste (insert here)
It drives me mad! I hate when I cook something I know one or the other won't like, but I also hate eating chicken or steak with mashed potatos every night. Oh wait....they both agree on burgers and fries too. (Not turkey burgers...I hate turkey! What is bison? What did you mix in the burger? What kind cheese did you use?---they still can't be happy!)

So I have a couple of choices:
  1. Make their same old thing every night and cook something decent for myself.
  2. Make it and they'll eat it or be hungry.
  3. Make them cook and be done with it.
But these choice won't work because:
  1. I refuse to make two meals.
  2. I can't buy enough peanut butter and ramen and then the dinner I made is wasted.
  3. Well since I don't work I feel like I should cook and the guilt complex kicks in.
So I'm asking....what would YOU do in my shoes? I want them to eat the things I work so hard to prepare and that are healthy and decent and aren't burgers or pizza every night. But when they don't my feelings are hurt and I begin to hate being in the kitchen, which is a crying shame because I have all sorts of fancy and neat kitchen gadgets.

1 comment:

Platinum Rose said...

I would probably just go with #2 - make it and they'll eat it or be hungry. They need some variety in their diet! It's good for them!