She Gets Too Hungry For Dinner At 8

So my usual work schedule is 8-4 (if I'm lucky, sometimes I end up working later).  That means I get home roughly around 4:30pm and I start right in on dinner for me and Jesse. He gets home around 5:15 and wants to eat right away since we have to be in bed by 9pm.  Did I mention we're 25 years old?

Ah, dinner. The constant struggle of figuring out what to make, deciding if I have all the ingredients from memory, and then actually making whatever I chose.  Lately though, I've been inspired.  I've wanted to make food, healthy food, that we enjoy eating.

Here are a few choice dinners over the past few weeks:

OK, so this isn't the healthiest of options. But what we have here is sauteed steaks with a mushroom sauce over cheese grits.  Not particularly healthy, but definitely delicious.

Healthier! Spinach salad with apple-wood chicken sausage, blue cheese, apples, and walnuts. And homemade dressing!

Mongolian beef (beef, green onions, and cabbage in a sweet sticky sauce over white rice)

I have figured out that if I am able to pull something out of the freezer with a purpose, meaning I have already figured out what I want to make with it, I am much, much more likely to actually enjoy cooking dinner.

I hate trying to look up recipes at 3:00 in the afternoon, scrambling to come up with a dinner plan.

These meals, and many others including Mexican lasagna, chicken noodle soup, and spicy pulled pork, are the product of years of cooking.

I started baking when I was young, usually with my mom. Though there was this one time when I was 11 and I made chocolate chip cookies but forgot to add the flour.  Imagine super flat and crispy burnt cookies with hunks of burnt chocolate dispersed throughout the "dough".  

Anyway, when I graduated high school and lived with my parents while working and attending college, my job was to make dinner at least 1-2 nights a week.  About 50% of the time, I failed. Miserably. But I learned a lot. You can not save something that has been over salted. Adding a water/cornstarch solution will save a particularly thin sauce.  Using fresh herbs is always best.

I now consider cooking to be a hobby. Even a passion. I truly enjoy all the cookbooks I have. I watch the food network religiously. I love to cook and bake for my family and friends.  It makes me feel like I am showing them my love through my food.  

Plus it feeds the hungry.  Two birds with one stone, people.