How do you accomplish your evening meal?

[RunningBum]

Mostly 4, with some of 2, 5, 3, and 6. It's a 30 minute drive to the grocery store for me, so no daily trip to pick up the night's meal.

 

[citrine]

I cook sometimes but it is usually indian food that my Mom makes for me or leftovers from eating out. I usually go to places where I can eat the salad and bread for my meal and bring the actual meal home for the next couple of days. I cannot figure out how to plan the menu for the week since I never know what I will be in the mood for! When I do cook, I make a lot so it can be frozen for later as well.

 

[ls99]

Every so often provide input to DW on what I'd like.

Most of the time she makes splendid meals. Thanks that she is also retired and loves to cook, and is very good at it.

 

[Sue J]

I do a weekly trip to the grocery store mostly because I need salad, bananas, dairy, eggs, deli meat, etc. While I'm there I browse past the meat sections and look for markdowns and sales. I have a Foodsaver so I can buy in advance and freeze.

I cook Monday through Thursday and I'm a pretty plain cook. Sometimes I'll see a recipe on TV and look it up and print it out and try it. I keep typical ingredients in stock but if I'm trying something new I may have to buy an ingredient.

On Friday we get take-out as a family for all 4 of us. On Saturday and Sunday everyone is on their own, either leftovers or a salad and soup, sandwiches, etc.

My DH likes my plain, simple cooking, baked or grilled fish or chicken, beef or pork once a week. Cooked vegetable or salad and a simple starch side dish like rice or potatoes, yams, pasta, noodles.

Our sons, 22 and 25, hate my cooking so they are on their own, I keep soup and sandwich makings and things like frozen ravioli around so they can fix something.

 

[Orchidflower]

I'm moving in with Citrine. Indian is my favorite food almost...yum! Well, and Mexican..and Thai...and Southern American...oh, h*ll, I might as well admit I like just about everything...

 

[cashflo2u2]

I'm really into cooking (mostly from scratch) and good food and I often spend time on-line exploring new recipe ideas. I sometimes have so many interesting ideas of things to try that I actually have a list on my computer of new recipe ideas to work through. It takes a while to go through such a list.

Audrey

Audrey, I'm with you on this part. Good cooking from scratch is a new skill I have developed since I retired, much to the delight of my wife. I am getting a local reputation as good cook. So, what I do is cook meals for households where the cooking member is sick or has become temp disabled. I am not handy at anything so that is what I contribute.

 

[DangerMouse]

I guess I am different from most as I don't even have enough food in my pantry to cook a meal if I have to. My freezer is basically empty as well. What I do on a daily basis is evaluate what I feel like eating and how motivated I am and that determines what is for dinner. For example, if I am feeling non-energetic and it is a cold day I will likely make a slow cooker stew. I check for recipes on All Recipes, decide what I am going to make and after reading all the reviews I prepare my shopping list.

I do shop on a daily basis as I like my ingredients fresh. I don't mind as the supermarket I use is only a 5 minute trip away and is clean and not really busy. I only ever buy what is on my list, so my trip is normally quite quick.

I will often cook something that will last a couple of meals and we will eat it two days in a row. I am not a big fan of putting the leftovers in the freezer to eat at a later date because that tends not to happen in our household.

I never meal plan based on what's on special. I figure life is too short to eat something just because it is on special. If I can't afford to eat what I want when I want I am doing something wrong. That said we don't have expensive eating habits, I will admit in 16 years of marriage I have never cooked a steak. Our biggest extravagance is probably buying lamb which is a diet staple for Australians but so expensive in the US.

 

[cashflo2u2]

I tend to buy stuff daily as we eat it. Sometimes I wonder that may be cheaper than buying stuff in bulk and running around looking for sales because there is (I think) less wastage. When I do freeze I label and date it. My wife doesn't, so there is always mystery stuff in the freezer that eventually gets thrown out by me.

 

[Danny]

Slow cooked boneless beef short ribs with onions taters carrots garlic chicken stock cabernet and Dijon last night.

 

[vicente solano]

Accomplish evening meal? You¨ll all have to ask my wife. Never touch the stuff -cooking- that is.
I am a useless bum around the house chores. On the other hand I seldom complain. The least that can be expected from me

 

[DangerMouse]

I tend to buy stuff daily as we eat it. Sometimes I wonder that may be cheaper than buying stuff in bulk and running around looking for sales because there is (I think) less wastage. When I do freeze I label and date it. My wife doesn't, so there is always mystery stuff in the freezer that eventually gets thrown out by me.

I have to agree that by shopping daily I think there is less wastage. I was getting a delivery of organic vegetables every Friday, but found I was probably disposing of 50% of it in the trash because it would go limp before I got to it. When I was working and didn't have time to shop daily when I cleaned the fridge on a weekly basis I would be disposing of large quantities of food which cost me far too much money.

 

[cashflo2u2]

Accomplish evening meal? You¨ll all have to ask my wife. Never touch the stuff -cooking- that is.
I am a useless bum around the house chores. On the other hand I seldom complain. The least that can be expected from me

Vicente, you are a solid, clear cut #7 on my list. The first one I think!

 

[cashflo2u2]

dangermouse, we have it down to exactly how much to buy for a particular meal, For example, we have fresh haddock once a week and the amount is .50-.55 lbs. for the two of us. Not one bite left over and we both are satisfied. When I buy it and ask for .50 lbs and if they throw .60lbs. or more on the scale and look at me, at tell them to try again.

 

[calmloki]

I suck in my cheeks and look pitiful. If that doesn't work i struggle out to the freezer and pull out a Costco pizza or pot pie or whatever. I am capable of turning on the oven and, in a pinch, have been known to make really good posole or lasagna or meatloaf oh - and my blue cheese dressing is the finest. but mostly, pitiful and/or Costco prepackaged.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

When I retire, I will likely shop on a daily or every other day basis. I am not a freezer full of stuff gal...like to fuss with my food for whatever crazy reason. Something I inherited from my parents who cooked daily even though they both worked outside the home. They were first generation Americans but retained something of that "pick up whatever is freshest in the market" European mentality. Family dinner was a BIG thing with them both. I live a quarter of a mile from several groceries so shopping is not an issue. This eating homemade soup for 3 days in a row(which I do now) is something relatively new with me as my husband and son would never have relished it, to put it mildly.

 

[Orchidflower]

You don't save any money if you have to go far to your local grocery store each day, so factor that in also.
I'm lucky that I have 3 stores walking distance from each other; and my local WalMart I only do 1-2 times a month and is close to other things like Lowes, the Dollar Store and other fun stores. But if these stores were far from each other it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[unclemick]

Side question: Would anyone who was mostly #3 or #6 admit it here?

Plus I have two women who regularly offer to bring me supper - me being a mere man and all.

I am granted smoking, BBQ and grilling privelages out on the patio - once in a while.



heh heh heh - just kidding - with a little grain of truth but how much? My lips are sealed. .

 

[audreyh1]

Oh man unclemick, you have it made! No wonder we get all those heh heh hehs outta you!

Audrey

 

[toofrugalformycat]

Of course not!

Everyone here eats only freshly prepared grass-fed and/or organic foods prepared in a solar oven using natural stone dishware...

and don't forget the compost pile for the leftovers, which nourishes the organic garden providing food and habitat for endangered species!
Hey, I really try to do that. Except solar power is marginal at this latitude for a lot of the year.
I don't see a smiley with a halo or I'd use it.

 

[rockyj]

When you cook dinner on an average night do you:

2. Go to the store and buy what looks good and [-]hope you have[/-] keep whatever other ingredients needed on hand at home.

Interesting to see what others are doing here.

Like a number of others, I like to cook and have a number of basic themes around which various "recipes" evolve. We tend to cook almost all of our meals at home. We eat out only very occasionally or when travelling. Recipes revolve around an assortment of ingredients we try to keep on hand – chicken breast, shrimp, sausage, maybe some steak – onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli and carrots. Also salad – but that’s another story. We tend to stock up once a week, buy meats, etc., when on sale and divide into smaller amounts to freeze. It’s pretty easy then to whip up something different – Italian, Mexican, Chinese – just by picking the right main ingredients - using a different pan, different oils, different spices, salsa, pasta sauce, etc. – and serving it with or on something different - pasta, rice, sandwich roll, tortilla, pizza crust. Leftovers morph in to the next thing as the week progresses . So, following an Italian theme, for example, add some shrimp to the guts from Monday’s Italian sausage sandwiches, and serve with pasta and a side of broccoli on Tuesday. Leftover sauce/peppers/onions/sausage/shrimp goes with mushrooms and cheeses on pizza crust for Wednesday’s lunch. Then it's time to start out the next round with new stuff. So you grill the chicken and serve with rice and salad or vegetable for something simple. Leftover chicken gets cut up , saute some peppers and onions, add salsa, spices, cheese and tortilla for next days lunch. Once you have a couple of themes down, and with the ingredients on hand, it’s really pretty easy to have a lot of variety and not put too much planning or effort into whipping up each meal as you go.

 

[vicente solano]

Vicente, you are a solid, clear cut #7 on my list. The first one I think!

Clear cut 7? Don´t know what that is... Is it a good or a bad thing Am afraid to ask my wife...

 

[Alan]

7. Just sit down at the table and wait for DW to serve it up.

 

[vicente solano]

7. Just sit down at the table and wait for DW to serve it up.

Sounds a bit piggish male chauvinism to me.... I´ll have to change my ways, then...

 

[Alan]

Sounds a bit piggish male chauvinism to me.... I´ll have to change my ways, then...

My ways will be changing soon back to how we were before DW ESR'd, when we used to share the cooking duties. This last 5 years have been very nice as DW started doing all the cooking, cleaning and the ironing. I'm going to be more than happy to get back to doing my share of household duties.

 

[FIREd]

Actually DW would have picked 7. Just sit down at the table and wait for DH to serve it up. DW can't cook to save her life, so I became the cook early on (I have always been a pretty good cook, so it was natural for me to take the lead in the kitchen). When I met her she was surviving on rice, okra and corn. Now, she has become a discreminating foodie and expects some yummy dinner every night...