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Ok, But Let’s Make It a Quickie

Over the years, we’ve been known to spend hours preparing elaborate meals that get consumed in less time than we spent chopping the ingredients for. We know that will be a thing of the past come June, and we’ve slowly been preparing ourselves for our new reality. The fact that our lives have already become busier has made this transition more a necessity, but other times, we’ve been experimenting just for testing purposes. Can I really cook this meal that used to take me an hour to make in 30 minutes? What can I cut out, what shortcuts can I use, do I really need to de-seed those cucumbers and tomatoes? Our goal is to retain the same type of meals that we’ve been enjoying over the years without succumbing to the ease of take-out and things pulled out of the freezer. I’m sure all of you parents will laugh and say “Oh, just wait. You’ll see.”

But we do have some advantages: we’ve built up a repertoire of meals that we can practically cook blindfolded with one hand tied behind our back (which may come in handy), many of the dishes that we make can easily be simplified by cutting out some of the ingredients, lots of things that we make actually require minimal cooking or minimal attention while cooking, we’re planners and figure out what we’re going to make each night of the week and shop and prepare accordingly on the weekends, we have a well-stocked pantry, and we’re a little nuts.

For us, meals are never an afterthought. We never say, let’s just eat whatever and get it over with. We eat dinner together at the kitchen table every single night, and it’s something that’s enormously important to us. Yeah, it’s a time to talk, share, blah, blah, blah, but more importantly, it’s a time to eat really tasty food. Every day and every meal, we’re excited about what we’re eating. We actually say things like, “Ah, I can’t wait for dinner tomorrow night. It’s going to be soooooooo good.” My favorite part of the workday is lunch, when I get to eat my tasty leftovers from the night before. For most people, cooking is a chore, but we choose to make it special every night. It makes the day so much better when you know you have something tasty to look forward to.

With that being said, we know we have to be realistic about things. In a few short months, something that cries a lot, poops a lot, and eats a lot will take precedence in our lives. We know that things will completely change, and we’ll have to make many sacrifices along the way. I know that our meals will be interrupted, delayed, or flat out ignored as we tend to the needs of a baby, but I have to stay optimistic and at least try to keep up what has always been a huge part of our lives. Ask me again in July how I’m doing with this.

On a busy Monday night, we attempt to cook dinner in 10 minutes, and it’s a rousing success. You have to know when to use some help, so we enlisted the help of our good friends Trader Joe’s and Russo’s. This would be a quick noodle soup with lo mein noodles, shrimp, carrots, and snap peas, and to make things easy, we used some boxed soy ginger broth from TJ’s and freshly made lo mein from Russo’s. The only actual prep work required was defrosting the shrimp (from two pound bags bought at Costco), slicing the carrots, chopping the scallions, and um, that’s it. The broth goes into the pot to heat up, and once brought to a boil, the snap peas and carrots go in. I added a little more fresh ginger and soy to liven up the broth a little bit, and in went the shrimp and the noodles. Everything cooks in pretty much the same amount of time (all of about 4 minutes), and a little hot sauce at the end finishes it up. Done and done. With the exception of the chopping, it could literally be done with one hand, and you know what? It tasted really good, and it immediately entered into our permanent rotation. All it took was having the right ingredients on hand.

I’ll be honest, it all felt a little Semi Homemade, but if I ever really get to that point, you have my permission to kick me in the junk. You’ll most likely be seeing a lot more of meals like this from me coming up, but don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be stupid enough to try to keep on tackling more adventurous meals, so stay tuned. Wish me luck.

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1/29/2007

• What a difference a couple of coats of paint make. For some stupid reason, when we painted the rest of the house, we neglected to paint about half of the doors to match the rest of the trim and doors. Left their natural stained wood color, they made the rooms feel dark, and for months, we’ve wanted to paint them. We finally got out our brushes and went to work on them, and a few hours later, the place looks completely different. We have a couple left to do, but who knew that white doors could make me so happy?
• Forget this whole baby thing. The Lovely Suse has already had the most exciting and momentous event of 2007: She beat me in a game of candlepin bowling. I have no excuses other than the fact that I was not yet at my two beer bowling sweet spot. It wasn’t that I played particularly poorly, but she just bowled an impressive string. We love the old-skool vibe of Lanes and Games, with both 10-pin (an hour and a half wait on Saturday night!), Candlepin, billiards, and most importantly, a lounge with cheap drinks.
• It was not a particularly good week of sleeping for us last week. Our little friend George decided to start waking us up crying at 3AM for a week and a half straight. Some days, it was 2:30, some days 12:30, and some days 4AM. Granted, we have yet to experience the sounds of a crying baby in the middle of the night, but is there a more annoying sound than the whines and yelps of a 4.5 pound yorkie? We’ve had two good nights in a row, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.
• I tried out my reworked cast iron pizza technique to great success on Saturday night. After a 2 minute bake in the oven on top of an overturned preheated cast iron placed under the broiler to completely cook the top and inside, a couple more minutes on top of the stove in a non-stick pan finally gave me the crispy bottom that I was looking for. It came out as close to perfect as I think I can get in a home oven. Come on, who wants to build me a wood burning oven?
• Scheduled Sunday afternoon naps are a very good thing. I think that will become a new tradition in a hurry.
• Another easy home improvement fix that made a huge difference in our lives: a single piece of aluminum sleet metal. When placed behind the radiator in our bedroom, it’s as if some one turned the thermostat up by 10 degrees. The heat that would usually be lost to the wall is reflected back out into the room to keep us nice and toasty. Thank you This Old House.
• Speaking of home improvement, my current favorite home improvement tv show is Holmes on Homes. This expert builder and contractor, Mike Holmes goes into people’s homes who have had shoddy work done by other contractors. He shows what they’ve done wrong, completely rips it apart, and rebuilds it the right way. It’s amazing how badly people get taken advantage of by contractors, and this show teaches you lots of things to look for and how to do things correctly. Hopefully, this helps us when we hire one to build us a closet.

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