Garbage for supper, again and again

[Conan The Librarian]

I wonder how long it will take them to get the hint. Between a vegetarian daughter and a wife who is experimenting with convenience foods, the following is common lately. I take ine look at supper, pray, then get up and make myself a peanut butter sandwich to eat instead. Tonight it was some kind of frozen pizza. A big one. My wife had it all to herself. Nobody else would touch it. Yesterday it was some crap that was supposed to be spaghetti. She made enough for twenty people, but it will just go to waste.

[powderman]

CONAN. Remember Father Mulcahey, on mash,  giving thanks in the mess tent and saying, for such that it is?? I'm glad that God has blessed me with choices. POWDERMAN. 

[chefjeff]

C, learn to cook for yourself! I won't let my wife near the kitchen,she can do the cookin' in another room of the house.

[Conan The Librarian]

ChefJeff:


I'm actually the best cook in the house. It's a hobby for me, and I enjoy it greatly. That's mostly why I' insulted by these latest developments.


By the way, my friend was just given the gift of a copy of Modernist Cuisine. Oooh Ahh! Way cool!


Powderman: I'm culturally illiterate. I have heard of that movie but have never seen it. I watched the Harry Potter movies because of their literary connection, but the previous new movie I saw was in about 1995, before that, about 1972. We have a TV but I have only used it to watch some hunting and fishing and shooting videos. I don't know anything about any popular spectator sport, except Tour de France and Americas Cup.

[mcwoodduck]

I am with the other guys,
Lear to cook.  It really is easy and some of the simplest things can be done that turn out great.
Depending o nthe level of Vegatarian, that to can be worked around so everyone can sit at the same table and eat dinner together.
Shoping at cost co helps to buy large peices of meat and butcher them into usable peices.
Roasting is the easiest to start with and can be turned in to other meals from the left overs.
I remember growning up a Eye of round roast on Friday nights, with mashed potatoes and green peas.
The left overs went on bread for a saturday lunch and the rest went into a pan with mushrooms, onions and some sour cream to go over noodles for strogonoff..
Roast chickens, pork roasts and even whole fish are easy and rather quick.
I roast whole dinners, chicken, rice, and green veg. are easy to do. 
Take a whole chicken, set oven for 350 degrees., clean out the chicken and rinseout the cavity.  Sprinkle some kosher salt and black pepper on the skin.  Put the chicken on a roasting pan.  When the oven is hot, stick the chicken in the oven and set a timmer for 45 min.   In the mean time, take a little Olive oil (1/2 table spoon) and put it in a pot with a lid.  Heat the oil and dump in a cup of long grain rice - like bismati,  let the oil coat the rice and toast it for about 5 min.  Pour in 2 cups of water.  Stick the lid on and when the timer goes off put the pot (make sure it is oven safe) in the oven with the Chicken and reset the timer to 10 min.  In a small baking dish add some vegtable - mixed frozen or cut up fresh are fine, sprinkle with some kosher salt and a little black pepper and when the timer goes off, add them to the oven.  Reset the timer for 10 minutes.  When timer goes off, pull the chicken and test with a thermometer in the thigh see if it reads 145 or higher.  If so pull the chicken fro mthe oven and put a loose sheet of foil over the bird.  Let it rest - Do not touch it till the timer dings, pull the rice and turn off the oven, carve the chicken, fluff the rice with a fork, grab the veg out of hte oven and serve on plates.  The left over chicken can be used as lunch at work, or the breast cut up and added to the adult mac and cheese (pasta roni) and some mushrooms and frozen peas for a fast stove top  casarole.
Add 15 minutes if your roasting pan is ceramic.
Master the roast chicken and the world is your oyster.  There are loads of things to do with the bones, the skin, and many cheap meals can come from a simple standard chicken.

[spikehorn]

Now that spikehorn Jr is off to college and I work second shift my wife gets to cook for herslef 5 nights a week. Weekends its usually just the to of us and she doesn't try to push the envelope very far. I do try some her new things and they are pretty good. The problem is she found out how bad country fried steak is for you and won't let it be made in the house. only time I get is when we go out some where that has it on thier menu.

[Hit or Miss]

I generally do the cooking, I think my wife enjoys the break.  I'm fairly blessed in that she has only made one meal in 17 years that I took one bite of and pitched the rest.  She wouldn't even eat it!  I don't always agree with her choices as far as nutrition though, her preference runs to junk foods.

[sidewinder319]

Elk and deer are vegetarians so I eat them that makes me a vegetarian right?

[blind ear]

A peanut butter sandwitch is a vegetarian meal. Buy some potted meat and deviled ham and creamed chicken. ear

[gypsyman]

Because I was a bachlor until I was 40, I cooked for myself. I still do 98% of the cooking, and really like to. The wife has done a few dinners, and they turned out pretty good. The biggest problem we have, is work and school schedule's. So alot of the time it's something quick, or it goes in the crock pot in the morning, and simmers all day. Brown up some meat in the morning, throw some 'taters and carrots in on low, and stew for dinner. gypsyman

[magooch]

My wife is a great cook, but I am also quite able to fend for myself.

[powderman]

Elk and deer are vegetarians so I eat them that makes me a vegetarian right?

 
You bet it does. Love those veggie products. POWDERMAN. 

[Conan The Librarian]

You jest, but consider what a lot of vegetarians eat. It's a lot of factor science lab food that's highly processed, treated with preservatives and stabilizers, made with 40+ ingredients for even the simplest things. Then there's supermarket bread, made with so many preservatives that it keeps at room temperature for weeks without growing mold or becoming stale. And there are these new soy and other "milks" that are technically made  of vegetable matter. Soy inhibits nutrient uptake and is coming to be realized as a health menace. Vegie dogs made of fungus and texturing chemicals. High fructose corn syrup that tricks your body into eating more and not feeling satisfied while messing with your insulin response. Then there are breakfast cereals with more sugar than coca cola. It goes on and on.
 
If you live near a big city supermarket, observe what people buy. It's the rare individual that buys mostly fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy. Most seem to load up on factory foods like frozen pizza, highly processed cereals, and so on.
 
Venison is health food compared to that glop.

[Dixie Dude]

My wife's parents were first generation Italian.  Food is good at my house.  However when my first wife left me, I had custody of children.  I would put a big chuck roast in the crockpot on Saturday night on low.  Then Sunday morning add potatoes, carrots, and English peas.  After church it fed everyone.  I learned to make venison meatloaf and spagetti.  I do very little cooking now.  I am southern so on Thanksgiving and Christmas I make my mashed sweet potatoes with pecans on top, then toped with mini marshmellows, forgot to tell you to add about 1/4 cup of brown sugar with each large can of yams.  I just opened the cans, wipped the sweet potato yams like mashed potatoes, put it in a glass Pyrex dish and topped with pecans and mini marshmellows, put in oven until marshmellows lightly brown.  I also deep fry a whole turkey.  Lots of quick meals.  BBQ on the grill in summer, hamburgers, hotdogs, ribs, pork chops.  I'm getting hungry.
 
 

[Old Syko]

Around here whoever is available does the cooking.  Either way it turns out good.  We buy some fresh fruit but vegetables were canned fresh out of the garden for the most part and some are fresh frozen.  Very little processed food here.  No need for preservatives in our food because we prepare what we need and it won't last that long. 

[OldSchoolRanger]

If you live near a big city supermarket, observe what people buy. It's the rare individual that buys mostly fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy. Most seem to load up on factory foods like frozen pizza, highly processed cereals, and so on.
 
Venison is health food compared to that glop.

Venison is a health food compared to supermarket meat.

[jimster]

My wife cooks all the time, lots of variety, good food,  and she bakes a lot too.  There is no way a person can burn off these calories. She also likes meat.  There is always fruit and salad of some kind with the meals. 
 
If she dies before I do I'll lose weight fast.  She is a great cook.  Always left overs to keep the calorie count up.  Tonight, a big pot of beef, potatoes and other veggie stuff in the oven, still have her famous meatloaf in the fridge and whatever we had last night,  I can't keep up on leftovers either.  I guess only 4 words come to mind...
 
I love my wife!

[sidewinder319]

Connan you made me ill just reading that post. No wonder those people look like the walking dead.

[bilmac]

Herbivores, carnivores and omnivores all have different types of teeth. We have omnivore teeth. [Omnivores eat a mix of meat and plants, like bears] God knew what he was doing when he built us.

[tunnug]

On the first morning of my married life my new wife decided to surprise me with breakfast in bed, the smoke alarm shrieking woke me up, ever since then when the smoke alarm goes off my kids and I say "Dinner's Ready", we call it the dinner bell, I also happened to find a reefer magnet that say's "Where theres smoke, theres dinner".
My wife will burn a tossed salad  .

[mcwoodduck]

On the first morning of my married life my new wife decided to surprise me with breakfast in bed, the smoke alarm shrieking woke me up, ever since then when the smoke alarm goes off my kids and I say "Dinner's Ready", we call it the dinner bell, I also happened to find a reefer magnet that say's "Where theres smoke, theres dinner".
My wife will burn a tossed salad  .

Buy her a heavy pot and a heavy pan, the thicker the metal the more even the heat transfer and the more even the cooking.
The think stainless steel pans and pots with the fake copper bottom look good but stick as cookware.  Also if you are cooking on electric, when you are almost done cooking turn off the heat, the coil carries loads of heat in will still keep cooking.  best to move it off the burner and let the heavy pan or pot finish the food.
If you lived close I would give her a cooking lesson.

[Conan The Librarian]

That's good advice. Another piece of advice is that a stove allows control over heat. It's not just either off or WFO.

[Sourdough]

We all have different schedules around here, so we each fix what we want when we want it.

Wife is from a big family, if she cooks there is a large amount of food left over.  She cannot cook for three, that's below her cooking comprehension.

I fix my own Breakfast, then off to the Gym.  I eat lunch either with the wife, or I attend a lunchion  three times a week.  Then for dinner I often fix a Meatloaf, Stew, Roast, or whip something up from the wife"s left overs.  But I make just enough for three people.

The Boy, He's a human food disposal.  He will come home from school and fix a 12" Pepparoni Pizza, then consume it by himself, along with a couple of big glasses of milk.  Two hours later he is back in the kitchen, usually looking for something fast.  Mom's left overs.   Then at around 11PM he's down for a couple of Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, and more milk.  A gallon of milk will only last a day and a half in this house.  In the morning it a big bowl of Frosted Flakes, More milk, and that Muscle building stuff.  Then he is off to school or the Gym, depending on his class schedule.  Lunch he eats at the University of somewhere else beside home. 

[Pike60]

I quess I got lucky. My wife can cook with the best of them and I hold my own except for baking breads, cakes, pies and cookies. She has also taught our kids to cook for themselves also. It is really tough around the holidays since she is baking cookies for trays that she gives as Christmas presents in the nieghborhood. All this stuff and she won't let me have any until she is sure she has enough for what she needs. That is the only thing that I can complain about.
 
Pike

[Sourdough]

When my wife bakes cookies for a function, the kid and I end up with the rejects.

[spikehorn]

The Boy, He's a human food disposal.


I know what you mean. Spikehorn Jr. is coming home from college every weekend right now to help some friends on their Christmass tree farm. Where they are loosing money is that they agreed to feed him! 

[mcwoodduck]

Just asking, but wouldn't a Spike horn jr. be called a button buck?     

[briarpatch]

Only cowards cook on low.

[blind ear]

Only cowards cook on low.

Who would cook in a crock pot? ear

[spikehorn]

Just asking, but wouldn't a Spike horn jr. be called a button buck?     

He will be home Saturday, I'll have to call him that!