Meals on rotation

I thought that when I semi retired from the paid workforce I would have time for all sorts of endeavours. Driving to the beach for the day was one of them (failed). Serving home made cake and cold milos for afternoon tea while chatting to the children about their days was another (again, failed but because every afternoon from 3-6pm was spent driving, white knuckles clinging to the steering wheel as i ferried children from one thing to another.

But the one thing I really really really wanted to do most of all was cook interesting meals from scratch after reading all of the Donna Hay magazines I had, a large number of which were still in plastic wrappers.

I remember the night I realised I was in a cooking rut. It was a Tuesday. I called each of the darlings to the table for dinner and placed a chicken pasta bake casserole thingy in front of them. They all looked at it. Then at me. Elle said 'where's the spaghetti bolognaise?' 'what do you mean', I asked. 'It's Tuesday', she replied, 'we have spaghetti bolognaise on Tuesdays'.

Now I am an organised person. My kids love my spag bog as we call it. And when I cook it, I cook 4 kilos of mince into spag bog, and a pre-prepared sauce bottle has never made it near my scanpan pot. So I always have a full meal of cooked spag bog in the freezer and Tuesdays just happened to the most fucked up afternoon requiring an easily reheatable meal with minimal extras, eg cooking pasta. I'm not sure what happened that day - maybe I had run out - but they were devastated to not have their usual meal. It got me thinking about the meals I cooked, and the rut i was in. And I am pleased to report am still in.

Spag bog - as previously advised. The Lawyer however claims that he can't face spag bog after eating it every week ever since our first child was about two. So that would be 17 years. I understand his feelings but I will not cook two meals any more.
Sausage casserole - a recipe handed down from my MIL, which I think I do better than her. Thick tomato gravy. Delicious with lashings of mashed potato. But Elle says it makes her feel sick so I have to make sure there is always leftover spag bog for her. And Billy loves sausage casserole for breakfast
Beef and kumara curry from taste.com.au (and in the slow cooker). Easy as. But Billy doesn't like curry so I have to make sure there is always leftover spag bog and sausage casserole for him
Shepherd's pie done the old fashioned way. My DOD (dear old dad) especially loves this one, and the sausage casserole. Billy and Harry like to have leftover Shepherd's pie for breakfast the next day.
Lasagne made with one of the frozen spag bog meals
Beef cannelloni made with fresh (but store bought) lasagne sheets
Chicken leek and mushroom cannelloni (as with beef) - both favourites with everyone except DOD who is 'not a pasta man'
Fried rice to use up all the leftover rice I cook because I always make at least twice as much as I need
Peanut chicken - the only recipe I cook from the Women's Weekly microwave cookbook yet I keep the entire book, just in case
A chicken pasta bake I make up as I go along and depends on what I have in the refrigerator
A Donna Hay chicken lemon basil pasta dish.
My new favourite is Marion's Kitchen Pad Thai. Absolutely delicious and easy peasy.

So that is basically it- our household meals (other than dinner parties which don't happen that frequently any more). And every time I cook one of them I cook at least enough for two meals. For those fucked up afternoons when all I can manage is to hit the reheat button on the microwave. Sorry Donna Hay - one day i will take all those dog eared pages and do something with them.

Now that I think about it, how did I come to be a slave in my own palace? That's a whole other topic for another day.

AMFYOYO






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