Dinner Dilemma

Everyday I'm asked the same dreaded question... What's for dinner?

   Like I sit around all day thinking, "Gee, wonder what I'll make for dinner today?" And I'm always asked this question about twenty minutes before everyone in the house hits starvation critical and is ready to blow up things. As if I'm the dinner God and have a magical selection of dinners ready to whip out of my butt at moment's notice.

I don't.

A fact everyone should be grateful for since dinners (and all other meals) should not be coming out of any rear openings.

   While I do think about food throughout the day, it's not often in conjunction with actual meal planning. On my better days, I combine ingredients in the crock pot in the morning, set the temperature, and come evening time, look like a rock star. A slightly frazzled and over caffeinated rock star, but a popular one who has food to serve before household occupants start chewing on the furniture. Some days I'm more successful at this than others.

   Perhaps I have brought this dilemma on myself by occasionally making premade meals which can be retrieved from the refrigerator and heated up in the microwave in mere seconds. It's a testimony to the true depth of my laziness and unwillingness to actually make myself a meal come mealtime.

   I spend a lot of time with me, myself, and I, which contributes to my lack of interest in meal preparation. Who wants to spend time and effort making a meal for one that will be consumed in mere minutes. By comparison, making a meal for say - the entire family - takes considerably more time and effort, yet it is also is devoured in roughly the same abbreviated time frame as the solo meal. As a result, I eat a lot of fruit. You would think the rest of my family would take the hint and simply belly up to the fruit bowl. But no, they seem to think we should have regular full blown meals.

Every. Single. Day.

   None of which they make. Worse yet, it's not just dinner either. I get requests for things like lunch and (gasp) breakfast. Here I thought breakfast was just stuff on a plate to go along with coffee.

  Today's request was lunch. As we were driving home from church my daughter asked what we were having for lunch. Cause that's something I always consider while listening to the new noise our truck has decided to make. I'm wondering if there isn't a cat in the engine...

Today, I decided to turn the tables. I asked her what ideas she had for lunch. HAH!

   Kiddo wasn't falling for it. She said if she came up with the ideas I would want her to make the lunch. (Damn, plan foiled!) Turns out she is as lazy as I am when it comes to making meals. The apple truely doesn't fall far from the tree. If it did, we would probably starve to death.

   After some discussion, we settled on pancakes. In my house this is an easy meal that involves a box, minimal ingredients, a griddle, and a blender. No sense in making more work than necessary. The griddle covers two burners which means multiple pancakes can be cooked at one time. With the blender you need neither exert the effort stirring the ingredients nor concern yourself with cleaning afterward as this handy appliance can go in the dishwasher where it will be washed and live with all the other clean dishes in our house until the armageddon.

Meal prep isn't the only chore avoided in this house.

If nothing else, we are consistent.

   I declared I would only make the pancakes if she helped. So together we pulled out the box and three ingredients needed to dump in the blender. That was when my girl asked if I thought the milk was any good. I was pretty sure it was, but our fridge has been known in the past to sport stringy green items that are NOT green beans. There is a reason for the magnet.

   She suggested we pour a little bit in the sink to see if it was lumpy. Lumpy milk is never a good ingredient for pancakes. So I did.

   After which we both looked at each other and agreed to never speak of this moment again. No one would need to know what we did, at least not until Mom blogs about it and shares it across several streams of social media for everyone and their second cousin to read.

 For anyone who is curious, it was not lumpy and we had pancakes.

   There were even leftovers for one of those handy readymade meals I'm so well known for making.

Score one for meal planning.

We put the milk back in the fridge.

   If you happen to stop by and are thirsty, I suggest the orange juice, or perhaps a cup of coffee. There's several varieties of coffee and we have reusable filters for our Keurig (because even coffee shouldn't be a lot of work)!

If you're hungry, well, there's fruit.