20-Something Cooking

When I was in my 20s I had gathered some cooking experience. by the time I was 9 years old, I was baking cookies as often as my mom would allow. Just a little older,  I loved Home Ec in school. By middle school, I was tasked with preparing one dinner per week for the family. And when my mother's cancer began to limit her stamina and mobility, I moved back in and did the cooking for her. But my cooking wasn't great, just passable. It wasn't until I married that I really got an education in how to cook from scratch.

My daughters can cook -- I made sure of that. It's not a hobby or something they really enjoy doing, but they can cook enough so that some day when they're on their own, they'll eat more than chips and soda. Both daughters are somewhat busy right now. Despite that, they have been making good on their promise to prepare dinner for every night of April so far. 

I thought I'd share some of their meals with you friends. I must say, they've done a great job so far. The two of them made out a menu plan for the entire month, divided up the nights, and shopped for a few convenience foods to make up for a lack of time and/or particular expertise. As I promised, I'm keeping up with the baking of bread and desserts, so they can rely on those foods as needed. And I'm harvesting what I can from the garden for them to use each day (mostly salad greens and cooking greens).

So here's what you make for the family when you're 20-something and have limited time and finances.

Homemade pizza, using a scratch crust and canned spaghetti sauce, greens from the garden with shredded cabbage for a salad with scratch dressing, carrot sticks.

Hummus, made with canned garbanzo beans, crackers, carrot and cucumber sticks.

Meatball sandwiches, using commercial frozen meatballs, rest of canned spaghetti sauce and shredded cheese from the pizza, hotdog buns (instead of pricier sub sandwich buns), plus steamed carrots and canned green beans in a sauce of cream of mushroom soup.

Homemade bean and vegetable soup, graham cracker and peanut butter "sandwiches", sautéed turnip greens from the garden with onions.

I think my daughters are making sensible choices with what to buy for convenience and what to make themselves. They both know how to make bread dough (pizza crust, which is less finicky than loaf bread), but don't have the time for making sub sandwich buns. The canned spaghetti sauce worked both as a pizza sauce and a meatball sauce, and they planned for using the leftovers. They know I keep cooked pinto beans in the freezer at all times, so they knew they could use some in making a bean soup. But they bought canned garbanzo beans, as they wouldn't require cooking but could be turned into hummus as is from the can. The graham cracker-peanut butter sandwiches doubled as a grain and dessert and were very, very easy to do.

It's only been 4 dinners, but I'm very happy with the meals at this establishment. So much so, I think I'll stay the rest of the month. I'm grateful to my daughters for doing this, and I'm proud of their ability to plan and execute an entire month's worth of dinners. 

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Last of March

Friday

scratch pepperoni pizza (using homemade frozen pizza dough), steamed broccoli, steamed carrots

Saturday
everyone for themselves after the picnic at the park and cake -- frankly, I was stuffed and couldn't even think about eating dinner. I did snack on raisins and cheese later.

Sunday
homemade hummus (using peanut butter in place of tahini -- tasted good), cheesy bread, carrot sticks, leftover birthday cake and ice cream

Monday
leftover sandwich fixings and deli salads, carrot sticks, sliced strawberries and bananas, homemade cream of sorrel soup, leftover cake and ice cream for those who wanted some

Tuesday
meatloaf and gravy (I used frozen chives and garlic greens fresh from the garden liberally in place of root onions and garlic cloves in the loaf), roasted root vegetables (turnips and beets from garden, onions and carrots from the store), sautéed turnip and beet greens, potato chips

Wednesday
Mexican bean soup, toasted tortilla strips

Thursday
tomato soup made from tomato paste, water, onions, garlic, herbs, salt, topped with Parmesan cheese, toasted cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks, last of the potato chips

Breakfasts included toast, cereal, homemade yogurt, frozen foraged blackberries, orange juice, eggs, and homemade blueberry muffins. Despite the chilly mornings, I didn't make any hot cereals this week. This afternoon I finally set the crockpot with steel cut oats. One daughter in particular will be very happy tomorrow morning. Also, I had put off making yogurt for several days. Yogurt is my favorite breakfast. But making it does take time and some effort. I finally got around to making another batch on Wednesday. On Thursday morning I was grateful to have my homemade yogurt again. (I can't eat commercial yogurt -- additives.)

Lunches included spinach soup, cream of watercress soup, a really yummy chive and potato soup (like leek and potato soup), rhubarb-strawberry sauce, bread, peanut butter, cheese, carrots, salads made with cabbage, watercress and radish greens, raisins, eggs, and leftovers. I'm trying to use up the frozen remnants from last year's garden. Earlier this week, I found a gallon-size Ziploc bag of chopped chives in the freezer. I decided to make a pot of chive and potato soup for lunch one day. This was a hit with my family. With the smoothie blender and potato flakes, it was a snap to make. I can make this soup several more times with the frozen chives. Then I'll move on to the garden chives, which are also about ready to begin cutting.

I have a birthday coming up in April. My daughters came to me today and said they'd like to do all of the dinner cooking for the month of April as their gift to me. So, for the next few weeks, I don't have to cook everyday suppers. I will cook Easter dinner and keep up with baking, though. But this will be such a treat to not cook dinner for several weeks. This will be the longest stretch of not cooking daily evening meals in literally decades. They may spoil me, and I may never want to cook dinner again!

Those were my meals for the week. What was on your menu?

Have a wonderful weekend!