Category Archives: cooking

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what do you mean “i have to cook dinner”?

For the last 2 years, Wilzie has been working shift work – 2 days, 2 nights, 4 days off – and I hated it.  theoretically, he had the same amount of weekends off as he worked, but his weekends seemed to go so fast and the weekends that he worked seemed to stretch on forever.

So when he was offered the chance to move to a different shift this year, he jumped at it.

For the next year he will be working Monday to Thursday, 9:30am – 8pm.  And he will have every single weekend off.

And I rejoiced.

Until I realized that meant I had to cook dinner every night.

I have no shame in admitting that Wilzie is the cook in the family.  He really likes to cook.  I really don’t.  He likes to try new things and experiment with different ingredients and doesn’t mind if it takes a couple of hours to complete.  I like to open a can, or a box, pop things in the microwave and be done with it in a few minutes.

But now that I have to cook 3 full meals/week (+ one night of leftovers), and that boxed shit just won’t fly.

I just needed to figure out a plan.

So I turned to Pinterest, and Pinterest did not let me down.

I collected a large base of recipes that I could conceivably make, and I bought a day planner.

Last weekend, I went through my collected recipes and selected 3 to make last week.  I wrote in my day planner what meals we would be having each day, made a grocery list of what I needed for each day and on Sunday we went shopping.

I made hashbrown quiche, crispy cheddar chicken and mini meatloaf, and Wilzie enjoyed every one.

I’ve already planned out my meals for next week and gone shopping for my ingredients, and I’m actually looking forward to my time in the kitchen!  I know that the pre-planning is the key for me to keep up with cooking well-balanced, real food during the week because if I am unprepared, out comes the KD.

Let’s just hope I can keep this up!  And I think the perfect incentive to keep me in the kitchen is one of these beauties:

courtesy of Etsy

~ How do you decide what’s for dinner?

~ Would you be interested in reading about/seeing pictures of one of the meals I make each week as I continue down the path of becoming an exemplary wife?

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my pot boileth over

I do not cook.

I just don’t have patience when it comes to kitchen work.  I can spend 2 hours hanging pictures “just so”, but the thought of chopping vegetables for 10 minutes has me reaching for the phone to order a pizza.

So it’s a very good thing that I married a man who enjoys cooking, because I think a steady diet of ramen noodles and pizza pops would get old pretty fast.

Wilzie not only enjoys cooking but he is also damn good at it, he is creative and intuitive and is willing to make me try new things.  And as further proof that we are made for each other, as good a cook as Wilzie is, I am an even better taster.*  Together, we make some mighty tasty dinners.

Unfortunately, when Wizlie is working weekends, it’s up to me to have dinner ready for when he gets home.

Last weekend we had Kraft Dinner.

But when Wilzie went to work on Sunday morning, I decided to put all those hours I spend on Pinterest endlessly clicking “See More Pins” to good use.  There are a bunch of recipes available for lazy cooks like me who want something tasty with little effort – all I had to do was pick one.

I decided on caramelized chicken with honey-glazed carrots, roasted beets and smashed roasted potatoes.

The chicken seemed easy enough: per the recipe, I mixed soy sauce, honey, ketchup, olive oil and garlic and dumped some chicken breasts in to marinate.  When it came time to bake it, I just chucked it in a baking dish and tossed it in the oven for an hour at 350 (basting the chicken every 15 minutes).

I chopped the beets drenched them in olive oil and wrapped them in tin foil to join the chicken in the oven.

I diced the carrots, piled them into a microwave-safe bowl, drizzled them with honey and put them on a 5 minute fast track.

The potatoes were the most labour-intensive part of the meal:**  I par-boiled them, and smashed them with a fork, after adding some butter and cream cheese.  Then I spooned out portions on to a greased cookie sheet, flattened them into free-form potato cakes and shoved them into the oven too.

All that was left was to wait for Wilzie to come home.

But when it came time to eat, I realized that I used teriyaki sauce instead of soy sauce for the chicken so the sauce was way too sweet and it seemed more poached than caramelized.  The carrots were still mostly raw.  And the smashed potato-cakes could’ve used a few more minutes in the oven to crisp up.

But the beets were good!

Yet Wilzie was “Yum”-ing as thought it was truly a gourmet-calibre meal.

And that is just one more reason that I know that Wilzie is my soul mate:  after doing nothing more strenuous than converting oxygen into carbon dioxide all day, I can pour some too-sweet sauce over a chicken breast, smash some potatoes and not-quite cook some carrots and, because he loves me, Wilzie not only eats it, but believes it is delicious.

That’s love.

*Even if my most common suggestion is “needs more salt”

**Which still wasn’t very intensive, at all

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what night do you want to come over?

When Wilzie cooks dinner:

Appetizer of herbed goat cheese wrapped up in mild genoa salami.

Entrée of grilled chicken breast rubbed with Wilzie’s own spice blend.  Served with roasted, baby red potatoes, julienne carrots and red onions.  Also, asparagus and mushroom sautéed with miso, garlic and lemon juice.

Not Wilzie’s – thank you Contessa

When I cook dinner:

I text Wilzie at work and tell him that I don’t know what to make for dinner and suggest we go out.  He reminds me of the contents of our cupboards and fridge and suggests ways for me to put them all together.

I slice the leftover chicken and reheat in a pan with the leftover veggies.

I cook some rice and mix everything together with sesame sauce.

With a flourish, I produce a coupon and suggest we go for ice cream for dessert.

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first, the caulk. now, the balls

When Wilzie picked me up from work yesterday, he announced that he made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

The entire ride home was filled with “ball” talk:

“I got saucy balls waiting at home for you.”

“I was going to try a white sauce, but I don’t know how I feel about creamy balls.”

“I thought about adding some coconut milk and ginger to Thai up my balls.”

“I crumbled the old pretzel buns, so my balls may actually be kind of crumby.”

“I hope you’re hungry, because you are going to be putting some big, meaty balls in your mouth.”

Me: “So you spent a good part of your day rolling balls in your hands?”

My husband…he may not be classy, but he sure has some tasty balls.