Back in the Saddle

For a week and a half, I've been a slacker. I know it's hard to fathom that miss jump-out-of-bed-never-waste-a-minute could be that way, but it's true. I haven't cooked, cleaned, or blogged since Halloween weekend when I took mini cream puffs to a friend's party. (By the way, these were super easy! I used frozen puff pastry cut into small rounds and baked. Then I separated them and piped on chocolate pudding (made with chocolate milk) mixed with Cool Whip. Deluxe and beautiful, too.) The dessert was a hit among my teacher friends as we lamented the state of education today and drank ice-cold vodka.

I'm sorry to say the rest of my week was given over to self-pity and annoyance with unsupportive administrators and lazy students. Though I won't belabor the details here, suffice it to say that I've had enough bench time and am ready to get back in the game. Thus, it is time to take stock of the Eat at Home Project in its present form. With nine weeks left to round out a year of trying not to spend a lot of money eating out, we are over our budget by more than $200. However, since the $20 a week we originally planned would add up to only a third of what we spent at restaurants the year before, we're still ahead of the game. The idea that we will end our experiment at about half the money we spent in 2009 seems reasonable and likely. Though, thinking back I'm not sure how we managed to spend so much money on eating out last year. Perhaps the full weight of the economic melt-down hadn't hit us yet. Realistically, too, we've shelled out quite a bit of money for repairs to the house and car this year that we didn't have in '09. Whatever the reason, I don't think we'll be going back to our spendthrift habits even when 52 weeks of tracking is done.

The past week has been an example of what happens when we don't plan ahead. Because I was in a funk, I didn't plan meals, and we ended up eating some frozen dinners which were not particularly tasty or healthy. Since this gets old pretty quickly, we also ate out - twice. This too, though better tasting since we had the $5 value meals at KFC, was not exactly good for our arteries or wallets. So, this week we pulled ourselves back on to the bandwagon and planned some simple food we can eat at home. (That's the name of the project, right?) Yesterday we picked up sirloin tip roasts (which were buy one get one free) and cut a few small steaks for the grill. These - teamed with a green salad and half a baked sweet potato - signaled a return to simplicity and goodness. (While one roast went in to the freezer for crock pot cooking at a later date, I cut the rest of the first one in strips which we'll have in beef strogonoff tonight.) Of course one reason the steaks were good is because Jeff's dad shared the secret for grilling meat. Leave it alone! (Preheat the grill on high, and then turn the heat down to medium low before adding the steaks. Put them on, close the top, and walk away for a few minutes.) Since mastering this technique, Jeff's steaks have been tender, juicy, and perfectly cooked.

I have to admit that having a simple dinner prepared at home last night was the best thing that had happened all week. It gave me the impetus to get with the program - back to the blog, continuing my novel, working on various craft projects, and thinking about cooking something good for dinner. The power of food is amazing.