Dinner a disaster?

CWhile I may not have it all together, but really who does, I mean only the Blessed Mother really was the perfect house wife.  I'm not her, but as I have been stuck in my house for the last three winters (thank you to my precious preemies for keeping me there!)  I have learned some tricks to keeping myself sane and even finding two seconds to do other things...I'm not sure what those things are right now but I'm sure they are projects or other cleaning tasks that I will get to somewhere down the road here.

Anyway, dinner...it comes every night beckoning like finals on a daily basis, and many days I find myself cramming like a college freshmen and producing what most cramming does, mediocrity.  Now mediocrity is not something I like to be known for and at one point in my life many people thought I could cook.  This praise and position have not served me well.  I married an Italian, who is the son of an Italian, who is the son of someone off the real island of Sicily on one side and the northern peninsula on the other side.  What does that mean?  That means that I cannot cook.  Not only can I not cook, I am terrible at it.  My warm hearty dishes from the Mid-west intended to grow strapping young men who can haul hay and mow down the enemies on the football field is "bland, indistinguishable, inedible,"  and on some occasions has even made my dear husbands taste buds wretch.

Is anything I make that bad?  No.  It's not.  It is edible...absolutely.  So what you may ask is the issue.  My husband has "distinguishing taste buds."  Which translates to 1.  I'd better salt it because he can't taste spices unless they are salted well.  2.  It better be good enough to serve in a restaurant,which means he is often also disappointed in restaurants which do not necessarily cook food to his standards either.  3. It cannot be a simple recipe.  It will and most times does take hours of cooking to make things which are up to his standards  unless I am very lucky.  Hence, dinner is like a final every night with a judge who is not only particular but swears he can do better and not spend hours cooking...(doubtful)

Do I care?  *sigh*   Sometimes...but other times no.  I figure, "it's healthy, it's fairly cheap, and it is not burnt, moldy, or disgusting.  Rather, he just "doesn't like it"  and no ladies he cannot lie to save his life.  His eyebrow raised half-smile "it's good." speaks volumes.

Have I given up?  No.  and here comes the helpful part for all of you.  I have not given up.  I am perpetually on a search for food to be made from scratch, that is easy, cheap, healthy, and does not take massive amounts of preparation, and of course the most important criteria, that passes my husbands "distinguishing taste-buds."  This is a challenge.  It has led me to try many many recipes and to only save the ones that pass.  Hence, I am continually trying new ones so that I can have a stash to pull from. I like to try new things whereas he would be happy with the same 10 things over and over again if he likes them.  Remember I am stuck in my house.  Cooking to me is like freedom.  I need to taste it and for me it needs to taste different every night!

Therefore, I plan!
Every Friday I sit down with my cook books and recipe file that I have created with magazine clipped recipes that "look good" ie are not too simple, not too hard, have spices he likes and that I can hack in my basic kitchen and choose all the meals for the week.  From this 6 day plan (I don't cook Saturday, leftovers are fine!) I make my shopping list.  This will do many things for your sanity.

1. You will not wonder what is for dinner at 4 o'clock and have that last minute cramming.  My grandmother told my mom you should always know what is for dinner by 1pm.  Now this high expectation is easily met!
2. You will not think, "humm, I want to make 'such and such.' Oh wait, I have no "fill in ingredient."
3. You will be able to make more complicated dishes because you will have already read the recipe ahead of time and therefore will make less mistakes (this is in theory of course)
4. You will save LOTS OF MONEY.  Why?  Because you will buy less.  Instead of buying random ingredients that have no specific meal to go with you will have only what you need.
5. LESS WASTE!  For example, I used to buy "vegetables" and they would inevitably go bad because I had just "vegetables" and forgot about them or had too many.  Now I have green beans for monday night with roast chicken and scalloped potatoes.  Less waste = less money spent!
6. It will be HEALTHIER!  Homemade = more natural, no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, no food coloring or dyes = healthier kids, healthier you = happier you.

Ok  back to paragraph format.  My son, he's 2.5 years old and he is my "tiny chef"  I actually call him my sous chef because he is definately pulling his weight in the kitchen.  Upon waking the first words out of his mouth are usually "cook"  followed by "cake."  He then jumps out of bed runs to the kitchen, pushes his chair over to the counter and asks for a knife.  Yes, a knife.  He loves knives.  He loves to chop vegetables (this is going to be great when he is just a little older and a little more precise with that knife, right now his pieces are just a little bit on the big side and not very uniform)  (hehe)  Anyway.  For the last week we have almost had all of dinner prepared by 9am.  Yes.  9 am.  This is all due to my son waking and demanding that something be cooked immediately.  He doesn't want breakfast he wants to cook.  Now after I made scalloped potatoes at 9am the other day I had an epiphany!  I thought, "I don't have to make dinner at dinner time when I am exhausted, cranky, have missed my nap, want to throw my child out the window, smell like monkey and just want to crawl into a hole.  No!  I can make dinner earlier!"  Ok, maybe this isn't rocket science.  But hear me out.  Side dishes suck.  No one wants to make scalloped potatoes, or rice pilaf from scratch because you are just feeling amazing that you have a dinner on the table let alone nice sides or "gasp" fresh bread to go with it.  I realized with stark conviction that I need to make dinner in the morning.  My son will help me, it will go in the oven, crock pot, fridge or whatever until dinner time when I can

1. reheat it-this is permissible!
2. cook it for the first time 
3. have it ready to assemble at the last minute!

This means that I can have a side dish, a bread and low and behold maybe even a dessert.  Does this mean I cook a ton!  Yes!  I love to cook and so does my son and he is learning so many things besides good knife handling techniques (don't worry he only uses the butter knife under supervision)

1. directions
2. following orders
3. patience
4. measuring
5. vocabulary!
6. interest in new foods!
7. life skill

I am sure there are more but those are just a few!  So there you have it.  I make my main dish or a side dish in the morning, try to get everything as ready as possible so that the magic 4-6pm witching hour when my children decide to start melting down I will not melt with them but hack dinner better than a lazy freshmen and hopefully get rave reviews from my foodie husband! 
Coming soon-the recipes that have passed the test and entered into the "home-run" cookbook.  Did I mention my husband loves the Yankees, well he does and there are tons of sports analogies to boot.

that's all for now...
trying to be like the blessed mother.  Hoping for heaven!