Well, I’m a day late and a dollar short and don’t care a WHIT because I am typing this outside in my backyard in the sunshine. It may be – checks calendar – only April 7 but it FEELS like summer, and right now that is a novel and welcome feeling so I’m going to bask in it a bit. There are so few opportunities for good basking, don’t you agree?
The reason I am late with my dinners this week is because I have hit my semi-annual Dinner Wall and hit it hard. Nothing sounds good. I cannot bear to think of food. Not a single food sounds remotely edible, not even my one true love: tacos. Perhaps I have overdone it on the Easter candy. Although I don’t really think so, because even that sounds repulsive at pleasant. I tracked down a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs at Walgreens (thanks for the recommendation, NGS!) and I have not opened it. That’s how dire things are, people.
Of course, we are once again confronted by the undeniable fact that we must eat to survive, and therefore I need to plan something. (Even takeout sounds unappealing, which is an indication of where I am, food-ily.) (I am feeling, temporarily I’m sure, wary of takeout because I had a Bad Experience at a new pizza place we tried over the weekend. Super crowded, like an endless line of people going in and out; MULTIPLE staff members wearing their masks around their chins; at one point, ten entire customers packed into the narrow vestibule together; MULTIPLE customers not wearing their masks properly. I waited outside, which helped – I could feel aghast without feeling personally at risk. But then I also saw a person pick up a stack of boxes, leave the pizza place for an undetermined amount of time, return with the boxes, and hand the boxes back to the checkout person, and then the checkout person put them back in the warming cupboard. One of the customers said something about the returned boxes, and a different staff person removed them and, presumably, threw them away, while telling the checkout person that you can’t put food that has left the premises back in the warming cupboard and return it to circulation. A learning experience for all. But I think you understand why I am feeling a bit skittish about takeout after that. SADLY, the pizza was really good.)
In times like these, when NOTHING sounds good, not even cheese and crackers or nachos for beets’ sake, we turn to things we know we enjoy, no matter what. And yet… every single one of my tried-and-true, easy breezy go-to meals sounds revolting and vomitous. Okay. So we shift to meals that provide nourishment only, and don’t worry about the taste as much. And yet… contemplating a plain Jane meat-plus-veg formula makes me want to violently fling a chicken breast into a broccoli patch.
Nonetheless, after much feet dragging and moaning, I have dug up some recipes that don’t make me want to throw poultry. Plus, I badgered my husband into contributing two meal ideas. Let’s ignore the fact that one of those ideas is a food I refuse to eat and the other is out of season.
Dinners for the Week of April 6-12
- Beer Braised Chipotle Chicken Tacos: Tacos have yet to fail me. And this is a new-to-me recipe, so it has the novelty factor.
- Grilled Thai Pork Tenderloin with Soba Noodle Salad: This sounds interesting and summery. Let’s give it a shot.
- Southwest Salmon Salad: I can almost get a little excited to eat this.
- Fake Shack Burgers: The restaurant food I have missed the most during the pandemic has been A Really Good Burger. We have tried making burgers on the grill and in the instant pot, and – while both have their merits – they just aren’t the same as a thick, greasy burger from my favorite burger place. (Shake Shack, which I am sure is lovely, is not the place to which I am referring.) I just can’t see getting a burger as takeout. I think it would ruin the burger. So when I came across this recipe I thought maybe it would be The Secret to getting the burger I’ve been craving. We’ll see how it goes.
- Baked Feta Pasta (for my husband) and Gigi Hadid’s Spicy Vodka Pasta (for me): Who am I to deny my husband the experience of a TikTok fad, and myself a meal of delicious, delicious pasta?
- Persian Pomegranate Chicken: This is my husband’s other contribution to the meal plan. It does not sound appealing to me, but it does sound DIFFERENT, and sometimes different is just as good as appealing. Plus, I am all in favor of encouraging my husband to take part in the meal planning process. The thing is… pomegranates are not in season right now. And also this is a FALL meal. Even though I already said nothing sounds good and so this next bit might sound contradictory: I don’t want FALL meals, I want salads and things we can grill. But! Nonetheless, if I can track down some pomegranate arils and some pomegranate molasses, we will be giving this a shot this week. If there are no pomegranates to be found at this time of year, we will have, instead, Szechuan Stir Fry.
What do you provide for dinner when nothing sounds good?
Homemade popcorn. That is what I will have if nothing else appeals. Granted the nutritional value is low but that works every time.
I also recognize this is not ideal when feeding one’s family. But that’s all I’ve got…well, that and cereal.
OH! How about breakfast for dinner? I always loved that as a child.
I’m ashamed to talk about the number of times we have popcorn and scrambled eggs for breakfast when all else fails.
What I have been doing lately, when nothing sounds good and nothing seems worth the effort, is making PB&J sandwiches with sides of chips and fruit. When the kids were in in-person school, this didn’t work because PB&J is what they usually had for lunch. But now that they’re home All Day Every Day, they almost NEVER make sandwiches for lunch, and I have reclaimed it as a dinner option. SOMETIMES, to be FANCY, I will make THREE DIFFERENT sandwiches (PB & strawberry jam, PB & blackberry/cherry/raspberry/whatever jam, PB & honey), cut them into thirds, and give each child an assortment.
Other “I cannot even” options include: fried kielbasa, scrambled eggs, toast, fruit cups, yogurt; canned soup and garlic toast (by which I mean normal sandwich bread, toasted, with butter and garlic salt); Make-Your-Own Dinners.
Oh, and SNACK DINNER, wherein I put dabs of everything in the cupboards (particularly things we have, like, 1/2 cup of in the bottom of a bag) onto their plates! Pretzels, 1/3 each of a granola bar, microwave popcorn, cheese slices/sticks, spoonful of peanut butter, dried cherries/apricots, baby carrots, the snackfood that didn’t get eaten, yogurt, a side-dish box of rice/pasta/quinoa/couscous I thought I’d use but never did, etc.
I read that thing about the pizza boxes like three times, and I still am…what. What just happened. Someone took the pizzas and…returned them? Or…what even.
Anyhoo.
I am definitely on the Dinner Fatigue Train as well. I don’t even remember the last time we had takeout. Maybe I should get the boys to be in charge of a dinner, the last time I did that they made breakfast for dinner, and it was pretty good. Tonight I’m making tacos though.
A couple times in the last few months I threw some frozen pizzas in the oven (superstore has a really great dairy-free one for me) and took some pre-mixed salad greens and added some veg, and it was good for very little effort.
Our first and foremost go-to is Snack Dinner/Catch Your Own, whereas each person creates a small assembly of whatever sounds good to them. Mine is usually cheese and crackers, or if I’m feeling fancy, baguette with ricotta cheese and jalepeno jelly. Other options are BLTs, premade pot pies (not so much a spring/summer dish), or Smitten Kitchen dutch babies with a side of bacon or sausage.
I am usually starving by the time dinner comes around and I’ve never encountered a time when nothing sounded good. I can’t imagine.
We have been eating leftover chicken tacos and leftover Italian Beef for a few days. Happily it is time to break into the Easter leftovers. Have I mentioned that I love leftovers? I have ham in a crockpot on warm and sweet and sour green bean casserole on warm in another crock pot. Bam – dinner ready when people are ready to eat.
Coach grilled skirt steak Tuesday night, and we ate carne asada and now we have lots of that in our leftover stash as well.
Oh, and we still have some cajun dirty rice in the fridge from last week.
I will be all out of sorts next week when I have to actually make food again. I know we are ready for another batch of cuban pan chicken bowls. I might have messed up the name, but so good.
I have never ever not wanted to eat. I love food and love cooking but get so tired of deciding what to have!! It’s only my husband & I now, we eat very differently than when there were kids at home. Back then it was lots of casseroles, pasta, chicken – now it’s about 90% vegetarian. My husband is NO help whatsoever – every time I suggest that he decide what’s for dinner, or that he cooks – it’s always pasta or curry. No exception. No point in actually asking him. I do enjoy your What’s for Dinner posts — I get a lot of ideas from them! so thank you!
I am the main cook in my house, though I do have three other cooks. I plan three nights a week, the other three residents plan one each, and on Friday we have pizza (sometimes takeout, sometimes homemade, sometimes frozen). I can usually come up with three ideas. It was definitely harder before the kids cooked and I had to plan five nights a week. I try not to plan pasta on my nights because kid #1 always has pasta on his night and kid #2 often does, too.
I hope you enjoy your meals this week. I’ve been in this rut many a time. I feel I’m heading toward it now, in fact, but managed to come up with some ideas for this week. One is smoked sausage sheet-pan supper, with potatoes and broccoli. Tonight is homemade pizzas. I bought a pork shoulder and will crock-pot it into shredded BBQ later this week. You can do this with chicken breasts, too, if that’s what you have. Very little effort. When I ask my husband to contribute ideas, he always says Chili. And I am SO SICK of Chili.