the non-cook

I am going to admit something to you here. There is no recipe for this week because though it is already Thursday night, I have barely cooked anything this week. We made spinach ravioli on Monday and I put together seven layer dip for a pot luck my office is having tomorrow, but I'm not sure those count. The rest of the week we have either gone out or eaten leftovers of some sort.

This isnt necessarily typical. Though I work full time, I'm also a grad student and I have late classes two nights a week. Those nights it's practically impossible for me to cook, and even if I could, no one wants to eat dinner at 10 pm. Sometimes, I allow my exhaustion to turn into laziness during the rest of the week. This is unfortunate because when I actually make the effort, I usually enjoy what I'm eating so much more and I even appreciate the process. Even more importantly, the possibility of our health or values being compromised increases dramatically with each meal I decide not to hand make.

Luckily this is a pattern linked almost in its entirety to my education. I plan on graduating in November so I should be able to resume life as usual at that point. Until then, I have realized that planning is key. Not only to I need to meal plan and write a comprehensive grocery list each week, but I think I need to do some mass cooking on the weekends as well so that we have healthy, filling, delicious things to reheat even on my long days. I'd also like to come up with some fast and easy (but AMAZING) weeknight meals.

I'd normally say "and this plan starts IMMEDIATELY!" but in this case it doesn't. This time it is for a good reason! Drew's family is coming into town on Saturday from Columbus, Ohio. We plan on showing them the best Colorado has to offer from restaurants to meat and produce. My sister-in-law and I have already decided to make a big family dinner together while they're here (which I can hopefully document and share with you). This means my plan goes into effect next weekend, once they leave. I look forward to sharing my progress. Thanks for coming along for the ride.