Written by Ann
One of the most difficult jobs I encountered adjusting to married life was the new roles that I took on by default. For our first year together, I made the money and we lived in “my” apartment, so I handled the checkbook and bills. My laundry loads doubled, though my groom would haul it up and down the stairs. I had to clean more frequently, especially the bathroom, because I was cleaning for two. The most difficult change I made was adjusting to my new role as chef. On my own, a bowl of cereal, a can of soup, or a tuna sandwich was a sufficient dinner. Not so after my husband showed up. He is a ‘meat and potatoes’ man who likes a hefty serving of vegetables on the side. I had to learn to cook.
I relied on cookbooks, especially my favorite, a shower gift from my mother, The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.
Almost eighteen years later, the cover has fallen off, and worn pages flutter and fall every time I pull it out. My family has eaten many of its trusty, not-too-fancy recipes over the years. I also came up with another idea that has served me well for years. At the time I married, I was a schoolteacher, and I ate lunch with a dozen other men and women daily. At least, once a week I would ask everyone in the faculty room, “What are you having for dinner tonight?” If someone suggested an interesting meal, I followed up with, “How do you make that?” Generous friends shared their recipes, told me what to buy on my way home from school, what stores had good prices on the ingredients, what utensils I needed, how long it would take. I never left without a week’s worth of ideas. Often times, I would find typed copies of recipes in my office mailbox the next day. I still make my “ham, beans, and potatoes” the same way the art teacher taught me.
In my present job, I still visit schools, and still eat in faculty lounges. I still ask occasionally, “What are you having for dinner?” though less for instruction and more for meal planning. But it’s summer now, and I find myself stuck for meal ideas. Can anybody help me out? What are you having for dinner tonight?
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25 Responses to WHAT ARE YOU HAVING FOR DINNER
I came from a great line of Southern cookers. I had the basics down by watching them as I grew up and helping out in the kitchen. Desserts are never a problem, but coming up with new dinners after fixing the same old thing over and over was my challenge. I had to smile at your Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Mine is a Betty Crocker that was given to me at my wedding shower uh,…omg 28 Years AGO? I have used it so much and had bought a vintage one just like it to give to a friend this last Christmas. His BC cookbook didn’t have all the blanching and preserving info and also didn’t have a recipe for deviled eggs. The other most useful cookbook that I have and love is “Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars”. It is the handiest thing when you don’t know what to fix and you can look up the recipes by brand name ingredients. There’s’ a good variety and a lot of the recipes are contest winners they put on the product. They’re yummy and usually easy. Amazon still sells it and it’s a fun little cookbook.Tonight we’re having tacos because I forgot to put the chicken in the crockpot to cook. Tomorrow we’re having an old standard of chicken n dumplins.
I hate to cook but I do cook for four adults. I need recipes also.
We do the office thing also and tend to share ideas and recipes. But the truth still remains that I do not like to cook. Most of what I do cook is on the grill. Fast and easy.
I do make an easy potatoe “thing” on the grill. You just slice peeled potatoes on foil, salt, pepper, garlic salt, a few dabs of butter and onions if you like. Cook on low to medium heat for about 45 min to an hour. I also cook carrots and whole onions this way. No pans to wash when you are done.
We are fortunate to have a natural gas line to our grill so it really becomes just like an oven to me.
Wow! That’s really nice, Pam. We just did foil packets in the fire while camping, so I have done foil packets in the electric oven twice since we are back. I love just throwing the foil away, though it’s an environmental yucky. I make our potatoes without butter…just a bit of EVOO…and mushrooms, too. Yum.
What’s for dinner tonight? I am having whole wheat spaghetti with Italian turkey sausage and sauce from a jar, plus a salad.
Ok Ann, now don’t laugh. Tonight we are having Hamburger Helper for my sons and brats on the grill for my husband and myself. I know, wasnt Hamburger Helper an issue for one of the other blogs?
I am laughing.
Pam, if ONLY they could afford Hamburger Helper like you! You are just flaunting it at them, aren’t you?
Jennie will confirm for you all that *she* inherited the cooking gene – not me.
When I do cook, I love to use aluminum foil, if possible. I hate mess and dishes. No wonder, I can relate (and don’t judge) Kate G. and her paper plates!
Lily, my Mom made the best chicken and dumplings. Love them still. Talk about a ‘comfort’ food. That is it.
Ah, Mom’s chicken and dumplings. The BEST!
She also made a kick-ass hollandaise sauce. Whenever I make hollandaise (rarely), Anya will be like, “it’s good, but not as good as Mom’s.”
Tonight I made a new dish, from a recipe in the newspaper: Pasta alla Norma. It’s basically spaghetti (I used low-carb spaghetti in a attempt to make the dish a little healthier) with a simple tomato sauce served with fried eggplant slices and topped with some fresh torn basil and a little grated cheese (the recipe called for ricotta salata, but I couldn’t find it, so I used fresh asiago).
I think it came out good. The eggplant was yummy. Still a little oily, though I tried the trick of salting the eggplant first to draw out the water (which is supposed to keep it from absorbing so much oil, I guess). But still yummy.
That sounds hard to make, Jennie.
Tonight we’re having chicken breasts with noodles and broccoli. Simple.
I cooked the last two nights so I think we will order delivery tonight. How do you make your chicken breast with noodles? Are those two separate dishes?
Ann, do you make the boneless, skinless breasts or the ones with bone and skin? The former are easy to make (they are both easy, actually, but the boneless, skinless are quicker) and healthier, but I do love chicken skin.
The Pasta alla Norma wasn’t excessively difficult to make. It was probably medium on my scale, but I do like to cook and don’t mind a slightly more complicated dish if I have time for it.
I had a class tonight so we had frozen food (Safeway’s Mexican lasagna, which is kind of low-rent but quite tasty). Tomorrow I’m making chicken fajitas. Mmm, fajitas.
Jennie, fajitas sound good, even at this time of the morning. Your description of the eggplant sounds yummy and I bet my little one would love that.Are there any hubbies or significant others who cook out there? I always was the main cooker, there were a few things my former husband fixed, but it was me the other 99% of the time. I love those guys who know how to cook. Pam, those foil packets sound nice and easy. I used to throw a bunch of stir fry type veggies in foil with some soy sauce on the grill. They always came out tasty and were great left overs.I heart cheeseburger mac Hamburger Helper. We just had it the other day. That’s the only kind I usually buy.
I love eggplant. My Mom taught me how to salt it first and let it set. I never knew why until now. Of course, I never asked either. LOL
Pam, your image looks great.I just saw a funny clip and since I was just writing about men who don’t cook, I thought I’d post it. Apparently, Anderson Cooper has never seen or touched a can whipped cream before. It gets good at 1:50 minutes. (warning contains Kelly Rippa)
That was pretty funny, Lily. I know my husband knows how to use a can of whipped cream and I am sure my sons do also.
Tonight was easy. Steaks on the grill, baked pot and carrots w/some ranch dip. So glad it’s just a few dishes. On Friday nights I like to be done early.
I am suffering a little from a trip to the dentist so no cooking tonight. Have I mentioned I will use any excuse I can get not to cook. My husband is bringing home our dinner from the local deli. I am having chicken noodle soup. Yum
Friday is one of my takeout nights (usually it’s Friday and Monday) – I had pepperoni pizza. Mmmm.
Pam,
I see your eggplant!
Jennie, how many “take-out” nights do you get?
We had a big salad last night. I layered lots of crispy Romaine, spinach, onions, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, shrimp (I defrosted the cooked/frozen kind,) six slices of bacon cooked crisp and crumbled, topped with a thin layer of yogurt/mayo/cheese mixed together. My husband tossed it and served it.
Lily, I do not have a husband who cooks. He lived on his own for ten years so I know he cooked at one time, but he conveniently forgot everything he knew. I had to teach him to drain the spaghetti (not let it sit in water..ewww) and scramble an egg. Now he has a “signature dish” that he’s made several times this year…Aisan salmon the grill. He cooks it perfectly, and it is so delicious, he never has to make another dinner in his life.
Pam, hope your mouth is feeling better. I think you deserve another night of not cooking.
Ann, that salad sounds delicious and right in line with your Weight Watchers. You gotta love that convenient memory of men, but grilled Asian salmon sounds like a good dish. I love it when anyone cooks for me.
I got carried away at a local farmer’s stand. The sweet corn was so good, I heard myself saying two dozen. So, I will be freezing some of it today. It will be another easy night w/the corn (yum), a salad and leftover dumplins which get better the 2nd and 3rd day.
Jennie, I never order pizza anymore. I got burned out on it years ago. If it is around, I will take a slice. There’s a couple of exceptions w/wood stove restaurants, but for the most part I skip it.
Lily,
How do you make dumplings?
Pam, how do you add little eggplant pictures? I use IE, can I do it too?
Ann, here it is. This is embarrassingly simple. These are fluffy dumplins, not the rolled and cut kind (I think the rolled ones are too doughy).
I use chicken breasts because we like white meat, you have to have the skin on to make a good broth.
Cook the chicken in the crockpot. Drain the broth into a pot and your dumplins are going to fill about ¾ of the pot. You can add water and a carton of chicken broth to bring the level up a little over halfway. Save a little broth to pour over the chicken to help keep it moist.
Take bisquick and add milk until it looks like soft biscuit dough. Bring your broth to a high boil and spoon them until you’re about 1/3 away from the top of the pot. You can give it a quick stir for a thicker broth/gravy, but if you stir it too much the dumplins will break up and cook into the broth. You can turn the heat down after a little bit. Let you dumplins cook through, stirring easy so it doesn’t burn or boil over. They cook in about 10 minutes. They are better after they set a little while. I debone the breasts and pour the broth I saved over the meat.
That’s kind of it. I thought Bisquick might have it and they do.
Unfortunately the toolbar doesn’t work in IE. Only in Firefox. I encourage anyone who hasn’t done so to download Firefox. It has some really neat features. I especially love the Speed Dial Feature where you load your favorites into these groups of nine boxes and just click on the image when you want to go to that site. Your passwords are saved and most of the time you do not have to log in. I don’t accept change well and when my husband was pushing me to use it last year, I balked. But I forged ahead and love it now.
That dumpling recipe sounds pretty similar to mine. I think the first time I made them after a long time of not making them (actually, it’s possible my mom had always made them for me before; that’s how long it had been), I followed a recipe that called for putting a lid on the dumplings for half of the cooking time; for some reason this led to them all dissolving and I was left with gruel, more or less – I had to start over. But I’ve gotten the hang of it now. I use whole chicken; I prefer white meat too but a whole chicken seems to produce the tenderest meat and the best broth. I brown it first in a little butter, then add water and boil. I will usually keep it warm in the over (and let it dry out a bit from the boiling) while the dumplings cook in the same pot.
I usually only have this when the weather is cold – gives me something to look forward to!
Ann, Friday and Mondays are no-cooking nights – Monday I always go to the same place, a local deli, and get a sandwich (usually turkey) on a roll. Friday was Mexican takeout (chicken nachos!) for the longest time but I’ve been into pizza lately. Since I’m taking a summer class on Monday and Wednesday now, I don’t usually cook on Wednesdays, either, but my stomach and my wallet cannot abide three takeout nights, so I’ve been either making something ahead on Tuesday, or getting something prepared from the supermarket.
The chicken and dumplings recipes sound yummy. My family will lOVE them! Thanks!
Thanks for the recipes…they sound delicious!