Last night, the thought of cooking another meal from scratch finally got to me. I’m tired. It isn’t as if my husband hasn’t been pitching in. He cooks just as much as I do. But after almost two years of this constant, cooking, chopping, buying, preparing and the constant daily clean up of our kitchen, I’m about ready to throw in the towel. We’re both exhausted.

So, I made a serious mistake due to my melancholy and I called up for Chinese take-out food. I didn’t have a menu on hand but I just ordered up what we always used to get: wonton soup, 2 pork egg rolls, chicken chow mein and roast pork fried rice. My husband kept trying to get my attention and tell me to order the smaller pint sizes (which is what we used to get) but I ordered the quart size instead. It’s been almost 2 years since we ordered take-out food. I had assumed our dinner would cost what it used to cost: $20. When hubby went to go pick up the food, the bill came to $35.

I was just shocked and floored. I couldn’t believe it. Hubby told me to just forget about it but I didn’t. Since I ordered the larger sizes, we cut the dinner in half and made two meals out of it instead of one. Anyway, lesson learned. We just can not afford take-out food. So, what’s a tired, burnt out cooking-from-scratch home cook to do? Someone had suggested buying frozen, prepared meals from the grocery store. Yes, it’s a bit pricy BUT not as pricey as actually either going to a restaurant or paying for a take-away meal. So, that’s my new grocery shopping plan. For a while anyway, until I feel more relaxed, rested and energized, we’re going to be having a few more frozen (processed) foods for our main dinners.

In the interim, here’s what I cooked up this past week. As you can see, its the same old, same old, tried-and-true food choices. Any leftovers either got cooked up into a frittata or I made my infamous quiche. This week I had a lot of steamed broccoli left over, half of a baked potato and half a sausage link. Everything got included in both the frittata and quiche. Made for a delicious extended breakfast and lunch.

I had some leftover turnip greens with pulled pork from the Cracker Barrel restaurant we went to last weekend (we ate for free with gift cards). I served the greens as a side dish to a rack of baby back ribs hubby grilled up in the oven. I also made a big pot of Tuscan Bean Soup (served with or without grated Parmesean cheese). Other than these dishes, we ate sliced turkey sandwiches topped off with my roasted red peppers and black olives if we were hungry in the evening. DH still conjured up his almost daily Greek salads (with bottled dressing!) Hopefully, in a few weeks DH and I will be back to cooking a bit more fluently.

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