Save for Later

I love to cook. I just don’t love to cook all the time. There are days when I get home from work and all I want to eat is popcorn. If I were single that wouldn’t be a big problem. James requires food though. Meals and snacks through out the day and he likes to eat dinner.

When we were first married (really not that long ago) I was really good about making a menu and grocery list and sticking to a budget and all that. This past year that hasn’t happened as frequently. I feel bad when I can’t come home and whip up a beautiful meal for us to enjoy. And it’s usually because we are too busy, I forgot to thaw something or the fridge is empty. Eggs or cereal anyone?

James is great though because he doesn’t ever expect anything super fancy or multiple courses (thank God!). As long as there is protein involved he’s good. He is also very understanding and can tell when I am having one of ‘those’ days. He’ll step in and whip up something “James style”.

Since I love to cook (on occasion), I love to save recipes. If I recorded every recipe I wanted to try on this blog it would be insane. The ’starred’ section of my Reader is insane. I have tried a few of them already, some I have shared here.

I guess all this rambling is to say that I’ve realized it doesn’t have to be a fancy recipe with fancy ingredients to be good. It doesn’t have to even be about the food but about the time spent preparing it, the thought that goes into it and the time spent enjoying it with someone special. It makes me realize that even if I do complain about the process I LOVE the time I get to spend with James at the dinner table. Sometimes we talk a lot, laugh a lot. Other times we are tired and just stare at each other (in a slightly romantic way). Either way, it’s all good.

On that slightly sappy note, I’ll leave you with one of MY recipes. I concocted it this week from stuff I had in the fridge when I forgot to thaw something for dinner. It’s not fancy but it’s simple, good and the dinner conversation was great.

“What I Found” Tortellini

• Frozen cheese tortellini, cooked, drained
• Saute some purple onion in olive oil until soft.
• Add some leftover rotisserie chicken, chopped.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• At the end had a few handfuls of fresh, baby spinach. Let it wilt a bit.
• Add a few cherry tomatoes, quartered.
• Toss in tortellini, drizzle with basil infused olive oil and serve.

There aren’t any measurements because I didn’t measure anything. I just threw stuff in. What I made served 2. It’s a recipe you can copy or tweak using what you have in your fridge.

Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.