I feel that one of the primary responsibilities now that I'm a "housewife" is that I have dinner ready. Thing is, I don't know how to cook. I don't particularly like to cook. And, I feel I have to cook from scratch - or, at least close to it.
I do feel this is a valid responsibility. It's better for the family. The boys (I have a 3 year old and a 17 month old) are always ready to eat when they get home at 5:30pm.
We decided to keep the boys in daycare 3 days a week. That would give them 2 days to be home with me (and allow us to save $500/month) and 3 days open for me to look for work. The problem with looking for work is that I don't quite know what I want to do with my life. I happened upon my last job - well, my last career in graphic design / management. I don't want to stumble into my next career. I want it to be intentional. I'm nearly 40 and it's time to figure out what I want to do with my life and do it.
Today was one of the days the boys were in daycare. I spent the first 2 hours of the day checking out craigslist and the like looking at jobs. It wasn't pleasant. Then my husband and I went back to the cabinet maker for about the 5th time to change our order (our house flooded in May and we are just getting around to nearly making a commitment on what we want to replace what we had). On my way home I popped into Trader Joe's, spontaneously picked up a whole chicken and decided I would roast the bugger.
I thought being responsible for dinner would be straight-forward. After all, it's just dinner. We ate dinner when I was working. But when I was working, everything I cooked came next-to ready-made from Trader Joe's - barbeque chicken, orange chicken, frozen fish, etc. We'd stock up on Sunday and whoever got home first would throw together dinner from whatever we grabbed from the freezer.
Well, like everything so far about being a housewife, having dinner ready is more complicated than I expected. The first thing is that you have to have recipes. You have to have a "menu" of what you're going to make during the week, planned for it, shopped for the ingredients, etc. Being new at this, I am doing this day-by-day rather than planning the week (which is my goal for the future). In the morning (or, more often, at 3pm) I'll think about what we should have for dinner, look in the fridge and figure out what to make.
So, I've started reading my husband's cooking magazines. Bust most of the "quick" recipes don't work for me. They're often fish, which is OK, just a little foreign to me on how to cook most fish. Or they're just not something I would like.
Ages ago I asked my stay-at-home mom friends what they cook. One mentioned roast chicken, which was my favorite dinner as a kid.
What I realize now is that i don't need "quick" recipes, I need "easy" recipes. It's OK if it has to cook for 2 hours, I'll be around. Just make it simple.
And it was simple enough. Except for rubbing the butter on the chicken - it just slides off. And it's much more intimate an experience than I care to have with a chicken - massaging butter all over it's body. Oh, and the giblet bag thingee kind of exploded while I was trying to get it out. I pulled and coaxed, but it wouldn't come out. Finally, the little baggie tore and the innards oozed out and i was able to birth the bag from the chicken. Especially as an 10-year vegetarian, not pleasant. I've only been recarnivorous for 5 years or so and the more carnal foods - lobster, meat on bones, etc., still disturb me.
But it felt good to have a roast chicken ready when all the boys got home. Quinn helped me make the gravy, which i didn't realize had to be cooked but then we cooked it. And he poured in the left over chicken stock into it when i had my back turned, and then the extra flour, and really Dane ended up fixing it, but it was almost there.
Then when eating dinner, i was worried I'd undercooked the bird. I tested the temperature, which it said to test at the thigh - so i tested the drumstick and it was fine. Dane told me the drumstick isn't the thigh. I'm not great on chicken anatomy, but I still can't figure out why the drumstick wouldn't be the thigh - if it's not the thigh, what is it? The Shin? Does't make sense. But no one got sick.
So for a real easy dinner (not quick, but easy), here's what I used:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1654627
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My dear, you have been blessed. I have to cook AND I work! You may enjoy the slow cooker. You can take a cookbook out of the library called "Fix it and Forget it" which I like. You put everything in the pot, turn it up to low and then leave it for 6-8 hours. Done. Meat, potatoes, veggies, everything.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work, you'll hit your cooking stride! I know it!
I have Fix-it and forget it. Dane's mom gave it to us with the slow cooker. It's actually a 2008 calendar with index cards, so it's hard to figure out because each day it's a different recipe so it's not organized at all. I'll try the book. Thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that by being at home, I'll learn enough about cooking that when i go back to work i'll have enough recipes and organization and know-how, that i'll be able to do more than just do trader-joes frozen foods. So i do feel fortunate to have the time to learn.
How about a page where you solicit everyone's favorite no-thinking-super-easy recipes? I've got a couple great easy ones if you want them. But if you dedicated a page to it, and everyone pasted a couple of their own into the comment boxes, then we could all raid each other's recipes. Anyway, I think that would be awesome.
ReplyDeleteChickens scare me. I am *terrified* of pink rubbery underdone chicken meat. And there's that skin, and the gristly parts, and those rubbery things that hold the meat onto the bones -- *shudder* -- I did used to make a super-easy super-crispy rosemary lemon roast chicken though, hmm...wonder where that recipe is...