One thing I love, when the Wonderful Spouse is gone, is the ease of the meal preparation. See if you can pick up the theme:
Friday night I added some leftover taco meat and shredded cheese to some leftover refried beans. The mixture was heated up and then topped with salsa and sour cream. Mixed all together this was used as an excellant bean dip for corn tortillas.
Saturday night I had a big bowl of bagged salad to which I added cheese, bacon bits, and broken up bits of a leftover hamburger that was in the fridge. For salad dressing, ranch dressing and salsa were added in equal parts. Lunch that day was the leftover bean dip from Friday night.
Last night I had a big bowl of bagged salad to which I added cheese, bacon bits and leftover taco meat. For salad dressing, ranch dressing and salsa were added in equal parts. Lunch that day was the leftover hamburger salad from Saturday night.
Lunch today will consist of the rest of the taco meat added to some more bagged salad (or a piece of leftover steak sliced into the salad) - either of which will have cheese and salsa added to it.
At this point you are probably picking up "salsa" or "cheese" as the theme. You would be wrong; the theme is meals in which only two dishes get dirty (a bowl and a fork - or spoon in the case of the bean dip). Technically if I finish the taco meat up, that meal will actually consist of an extra two dishes (the plastic container and its lid). Yes I know that if WS were gone for much longer I would run out of leftovers and actually have to cook something, but even then it might consist of one skillet and another fork.
WS should be back sometime this evening, so I need to get something out of the freezer for dinner. Hmm, maybe I'll just make a pizza (3 dishes) - LOL!
No, it isn't salsa and cheese, it's taco meat!
For breakfast and lunch (whether HH is at home or not) I nuke some old fashioned oatmeal (1/2 cup mixed with 2 tsp creamer, 1 tsp Splenda, raisins, cinnamon, & 1/2 cup water) in a Grabbit for 99 seconds. I can measure out 2 or 3 meals' worth of all but the water into small plastic containers (that need only occasional washing since I just put the same stuff in them next time) and stow them in the cabinet (with lids, of course). I wash the Grabbit after each meal, stashing it in the dish drainer with the measuring cup that I use for the water.
HH's breakfast is usually a bowl of fruity, nutty dry cereal in milk, with V-8 juice and a Trailmix bar. I leave his lunch in a Grabbit in the frig that he merely needs to nuke. Usually, he has tiny carrots with whatever was in his Grabbit, and often I leave a small container of fruit or cobbler atop his Grabbit for him. HH's favorite lunch is spaghetti, so I fix a couple of pounds of spaghetti meat (crumbled--not balled), spread out in a jellyroll pan, freeze, then store in a plastic bag in the freezer. That way I just cook up some spaghetti, place it in 2 or 3 Grabbits, top with meat, top with sauce, and put one on HH's tray in the frig (the other goes in the freezer).
When HH is out of town, dinner consists of "cleaning out the frig"--whatever is there. Often, "whatever is there" is wrapped in a tortilla, then wrapped in waxed paper & nuked for 44 seconds. This usually involves salsa & cheese (but not taco meat). Ah, yes, dinner is easy when we're on our own, isn't it?
Posted by: Cop Car | May 31, 2004 at 10:59 AM