May 13, 2008
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….it’s been my marriage-long dilemma: what to cook for supper?
Every day, week after week, year after year, the question arises. And in the 38 years of marriage that we’ve shared, that means we’ve shared 13,870 suppers, more or less. Mercy.Other tasks that fall under my jurisdiction have waned in those 38 years. I no longer hang load after load of laundry on the clothesline, because my dryer is just too handy and efficient. I don’t iron every single item of clothing we wear, because modern fabric finishes no longer demand it. Washing and drying dishes? Relegated to the miracle-working dishwasher. I do still run a vacuum cleaner, but my friend has a robot that no longer makes it a hands-on job. And the vacuum cleaner I now own makes me feel like Superwoman because of its efficiency; it is actually fun to clean with it.
Along those same lines, there are certainly tools in the kitchen that have made cooking less of a chore. A food processor chops in seconds what would have taken half an hour. A slow cooker keeps the kitchen from getting hot while making meat so tender it falls off the bone by itself. An electric mixer whips egg whites in a minute–have you ever even known someone who could do that by hand? And the microwave! Can you even imagine living without one now? Convection ovens, table-top grills, toasters, rice steamers, panini presses, electric slicers, frypans and knives, blenders, hundreds of coffee makers, frothers….all programmable so you don’t even have to think (if you can figure out how to program them.)
But it still begs the question: what to cook for supper? Because to use all those myriad gadgets, magic though their results may be, one must FIRST have an idea of what to prepare with them!
Unlike those other chores that have gotten easier with time, this is one task that has actually waxed, becoming larger and more ponderous as the years go by, this decision that must be daily made. Sadly, the decision is often postponed until just before preparation time. I call this meal a Last-minute Lunch. Or if it is the evening meal, then it is going to be a Snappy Supper. And if I’m feeling particularly tired, non-creative, or am faced with a depleted pantry, it may be a Desperation Dinner.
All cooks have one, the one meal that can be made in a jiffy, the thing for which one keeps all the ingredients on hand, at all times and under all circumstances. It is the sure-fire, make-it-quick, tried and true one thing that your family knows you for, because they’ve eaten it a thousand times. I’ve heard quite a few cooks say that Breakfast for Supper is their salvation in such times. Others rely on a hidden box of Hamburger Helper, used only in the direst of circumstances. In my kitchen, it is Trusty Tacos! I daresay we’ve had Tacos once a week for the last 1976 weeks.
And above you will see exactly why I’ve been able to get away with fixing Tacos so often: homemade salsa and home-raised ground beef.
Last Friday, I worked outside late into the evening, trying to get my garden planted before the rain once again arrived on the weekend. The final seeds were sown just as darkness was settling in. Then the chickens were shut up into their house, eggs gathered, garden tools washed and put away, and when I finally dragged myself into the house, being quite filthy, I had to shower before I could think about cooking supper. By the time I started cooking, my husband was hovering, hungry and impatient. When he asked that time-honored question, for the 13,871st time, “What’s for supper?”, I just pointed to the ground beef cooking in the skillet, the tortillas ready to fry, and the cheese and vegetables ready to grate and chop, and he knew, as he has known so many times before. “Tacos!” he said with a grin. And the happy ending to this story is that he still likes them!
P.S. Now let me hear about your favorite last-minute meal–what do you fall back on when the going gets rough? If I ever run out of homemade salsa or home-raised Diamond T. ground beef, I may be looking for a new Snappy Supper idea!
Comments (7)
We eat a lot of buttered pasta and Parmesan. That’s our meal a few nights a week to make the groceries stretch a bit. We do have meat for tonight, so we will have Parmesan chicken and Parmesan orzo (my hubby calls it Chicken Parmozo). The guys are looking forward to it.
To me tacos are not the fastest meal with all the chopping etc. but oh, we do love it. I don’t get to eat the shells now but Wil just crumbles his into the rest of the “salad”.
I do breakfast for supper lots of times. Wil loves it. If we are traveling and he has a chance for breakfast for supper most times that is what he will order.
My mother used to fix creamed eggs on toast or biscuits. Yummy!
Wil loves a huge glass of hot butter milk with hot cornbread broken up in it and can make a supper off that.
We have speg/sauce for another meatless meal.
I’m with you on the home grown beef. Not at all fatty and so good! Another thing that I’ll use my WW points for are home grown eggs. Fake eggs are lots less points but YUCK!
And like you, I don’t have any trouble dealing with our big meal of the day but come supper time ………!!! In winter I can use lots of soups and chili etc. and in hot summer lots of various salads with all fresh stuff in them but even then you don’t want just that every night.
I’m not much of a cook, and it’s just me, so I’ll go get Taco Bell! In other words, I do A LOT of fast food places!
Your old stand-by looks mighty yummy with that homemade salsa. I think my husband could handle that meal once a week! My dear, sweet hubby loves graham crackers and milk. He can’t wait for the night that I just don’t feel like cooking! We have a freezer full of meat from our kids farm and it’s so easy to cook a meal. Start with the meat, add a veggie cooked in one of those new microwave bags…add a salad and that’s it! We also like a zucchini/tomato/cheese skillit dinner. Now that the kids are all gone it’s sometimes just easier to eat out.
We often have Breakfast for Supper, with turkey bacon zapped in the microwave, frozen biscuits and scrambled eggs. Or a dish D used to make with his granddaughter when she was tiny, which we call “Morgan’s Pasta” in her honor: rotini pasta tossed when it’s hot with some butter, some parmesan cheese, and a can or two of those yummy Italian-seasoned tomatoes with basil and garlic. Add a quick salad and a couple of pieces of toasted French bread, if you have it…we call it our favorite Comfort Food. Even my meat-loving husband loves it. And despite the fact that it’s SO easy, it’s actually delicious.
Homemade salsa…I admire you so much for that! Maybe I’ll actually make some this summer, if you’ll tell me how!
btw, my column for tomorrow is about the first caramel icing of my life, made with the recipe you sent me! YUM!!!
Homemade salsa would make that standby fantastic! Good for you that he still likes it!
We do burritos a lot. We like to use corn tortillas. We butter them on both sides, stack them and heat them up. The are soft that way and so good.
We also make quesadillas a lot too. Its quick and satisfying and I have a lot of mouths to feed.