It seems that whenever I say to myself that I will cook every meal, for a whole five-day work week, even, I fail. The more determined I am, the more spectacular the failure. I think this partly stems from the fact that I love not cooking almost as much as I love to cook. It’s also related to intersections of what we have out (thai, last saturday) and what’s left in the house (stuff to make Thai food). I always end up feeling kind of bad–the money spent! the environment wasted!–and then pledge to do better.
This week is not off to a good start.
Monday, I did cook. I made thai-style pineapple fried rice. Mr. Pea had leftovers for Tuesday lunch. I, on the other hand, had been craving barbecue, so a friend and I went out for lunch. I was stuffed for the rest of the day, which meant that Mr. Pea had to order take-out last night. And because we had no food in the house and no leftovers to eat, he’s ordering take-out for lunch today. It’s a terrible spiral! And I feel at the center. We ate out all weekend long, too. It’s kind of what we do–some people go to bars, see a lot of movies, we eat out a lot. So to that end I don’t feel so bad, sort of. It’s rarely anything extravagant, mind you, but then I feel so useless after a weekend like that. I did make some bread. That’s something, anyway.
So I start again. This week, I will cook Wednesday through Friday. That’s a pretty small stretch of days before we meet up with friends on Saturday night for dinner. I’ll cook Sunday, too, and then I think we’ll be back in need of a trip to the grocery store.
Does anyone else have this problem? Or I am complaining about nothing? I remember reading someplace not too long ago that many (most?) people eat lunch out every day. At least we’re not that way.
Oh, there’s a nice Thai restaurant near us that has some really good pineapple fried rice. Mmm!
I have a similar problem, basically you should write out a list of meals for the next week or so, maybe some crockpot/slow cooker meals as well, so you can make them in the morning and have them for the evening when you come back home. Also allow a few free days where you cook with the leftovers or cook meals in double and freeze one meal for weeks later. I hope these tips are some help.
What’s sad is that I DO write out a list of meals; I always have a plan, it just doesn’t always work out so well! I’ve got a freezerload of split meals; for some reason, I never remember they are in there….my system clearly needs some tweaking.