Friday, October 07, 2005

How We Survived the Hectic Week

This has been one of those long weeks with far too many demands on my time. Its been the type of week where the temptation to get take out is almost overwhelming. Here's how we avoided it.

I really took advantage of the window of free time I had on Tuesday. When I made the baked mac & "cheese", I made a double batch. That got us through lunches on Wednesday without using bread. Also on Tuesday, when I made the carrot lentil burgers to freeze, some of the mixture was placed into a loaf pan to use for dinner Wednesday night. I topped it with a simple gravy which makes it more fun, according to my kids. We had gotten delicata squash from the CSA which rounded out Wednesday night's dinner.

Thursday was so busy, Jim actually took the day off from work to help me out. After scanning the fridge to see what we had an excess of we decided on lentil soup for dinner. Together we chopped up celery, leeks, a few tomatoes, a ton of carrots, and several cloves of garlic to use in the soup. This cleared out some much needed fridge space. It also covered Friday's lunches and left us with a ton to freeze to ease the pressure of future hectic weeks. We served the soup with the eggplant puree that we'd made earlier in the week, on toast.

Was it glamorous? Not really, but it all tasted good and everyone had plenty to eat. Perhaps this is a larger lesson of frugal living, sometimes it isn't glamorous. Sometimes its just about getting from point A to Point B with your wallet and good health intact. Now that the hectic week is over, my meals will reflect the extra bit of time I have.

On the menu for tonight, pasta with tomato & white bean chunky sauce, mixed green salad, focaccio with eggplant puree and apple pie.

2 comments:

Barbara said...

I enjoy hearing about your menus too. It gives me ideas.

Just FYI, your apple crisp is a huge success with me and my partner.

Next, I found a recipe for crockpot apple butter. My partner likes it and this one doesn't make too much, since I'm not quite ready yet to can things.

Barbara

Katie said...

Thanks Judy, your quickie meal sounds good too. I love a meal like that in the summer.

Barbara, I'm glad you're both enjoying the apple crisp. Its so simple, it satisfies your sweet tooth but its still a fairly healthy dessert.

I'd love to see the crockpot apple butter recipe. (I'll head over to your blog to see if you posted it by chance.)