When my husband booked his flight to Zimbabwe last year, my youngest son seemed upset. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that he didn't want to eat leftovers and sandwiches for 2 weeks. My hubby cooks 99% of the meals at our house. When he has to work late or can't be here for dinner, my solution is almost always leftovers or sandwiches. I don't dislike cooking; I just don't like the time that the whole process takes, and due to lack of experience, I am not good at improvising. Due to my sons statements, when the hubby planned this trip out of town, I determined that I would be very intentional about making sure the boys ate "real" meals at least once a day. So, for the next couple weeks, I will probably be blogging about food quite a bit since the whole process of cooking is a bit out-of-the-norm for me.
I hadn't even thought about dinner until around noon today, and it was then that I realized all our meat was in the freezer. I called my son, and had him get the boneless pork chops out of the freezer to thaw. A few years ago I discovered a very simple and tasty recipe for pork that doesn't involve marinating for hours, so I figured I would make that. McCormick makes some seasonings under the name Grill Mates, and the particular blend we usually have in the house is the Montreal Steak seasoning. Their recipe for marinade can be found here. It only calls for 3 ingredients (Montreal seasoning, olive oil, and soy sauce) which is my kind of recipe, and only needs to marinate for 30 minutes. One quick call home right as I was leaving work, and the youngest had the pork in marinade, ready for me to grill when I got home. We also had some corn on the cob (still in the husks) in the fridge, so I cooked that, and added some bread and we had a yummy dinner that we all enjoyed.
Dessert is something rarely eaten at our house. For one thing, we are normally full after dinner, but it is just another thing to prepare, so it usually is overlooked unless we have guests over, or if we just particularly are in the mood for something specific. Tonight, however, I was fully aware of the fresh strawberries in the fridge that probably wouldn't last much longer. As I was searching the internet (again for a quick, simple recipe), I found this blog for a Summer Strawberry Flan. I scanned the ingredient list, and it looked like I had everything. I made adjustments, which is completely normal for me-not because I think the finished product will taste better, but usually because I need to substitute something that we don't have in the house. I used regular sugar since I had never heard of caster sugar (who knows-my hubby will probably tell me there was some here when he gets back-lol), and I didn't have little flan dishes, so I used a pie plate. Also-no powdered sugar-so we just did without. I asked the boys what they thought of the final product-they liked it (and went back for seconds), but when I asked if I should make it again or find a new recipe, the oldest said to find a new recipe. Glad dinner is over and time to relax! Now I need to plan what to cook for tomorrow!
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