I really value this outlet and I appreciate everyone who has been following my spiritual journey, but right now I’m taking a break and I’d like to talk about some of my other adventures. Kittens! For one thing. And I have others.
One of these are the cooking marathons that Dragon and I engage in. I do it because homemade food makes me feel loved.
No, seriously. Not just more satisfied. Not just heart-healthy. Not just happy. Loved.
And providing homemade meals to Hubby makes me feel like I’m enaging in an overtly loving act. Ordering in leaves me feeling guilty. Like I’m not quite living up to my share of the marriage responsibilities. Honestly? That’s all me. Hubby never complains about where the food is coming from and doesn’t level these judgements on me. It’s internal.
Ordering in is also expensive. And calorie-intensive, more often than not. It usually means eating higher on the food chain.
Dragon wonders aloud why I don’t just buy frozen meals at the grocery store, or from Schwan’s. Love and homemade food are not inextricably tied up in her emotional universe. And I used to buy frozen food. Frequently. But that deep, down love was missing from the dinner table. In fact, after Bethesda died I did some housecleaning. Around food. I felt a strong desire to get rid of all the frozen convenience foods still in the freezer. I lied to hubby about how old some of it was. I felt the need to start fresh and that was what spoke to my heart.
So, in any case, last year Dragon and I began getting together every few months and cooking. At first it was just one day, then two. At first it was just enough to fill the kitchen freezer, but we quickly expanded to the deep freeze as we got the rhythm down. This week the marathon will span four days. We’ve gotten much better at it over time. Tailoring recipes to 5X quantities. Figuring out what doesn’t freeze well. Figuring what to prepare ahead to augment a meal otherwise full of fresh summer veggies, or just to pull out at the last minute to stop myself from eating lunch at a restaurant on a workday.
Dragon doesn’t like cooking, but she appreciates having homemade meals in individual frozen containers. She likes the way they taste. I try to plan for her favorites, so she has some real winners after all of her efforts. Her contributions are moral support, without which these marathons absolutely would not happen, chopping vegetables, and doing dishes. She also contributes toward ingredients.
But mainly? She’s just being a hell of a friend. Because the cooking marathons mean that I have weeks spanning into months of feeling loved, and like a good spouse. You can’t put a pricetag on either. And I simply don’t have the gumption to cook for four days straight without moral support. She’d just as soon eat a microwave pot pie and go on with her day. The cooking marathons are really “all about Snakelady’s needs.”
We take it at a reasonable pace. I’ve got a bad back and can only spend so much time on my feet. We take lots of breaks – for mid-afternoon popcorn and Diet Coke and to watch some Wimbeldon this weekend, for example. Dragon is a fierce tennis fan. We have tunes playing and we bop around. We don’t do so much at one time that we resent the workload, or get overwhelmed with the dishes. I plan the days carefully to balance what will fit on the stove and in the oven, what needs to be boiled and what needs to be fried, etc. so we can do it in large batches. We maximize our efficiency.
Here’s our schedule for the Fourth of July weekend that begins, for us, tonight:
WEDNESDAY eve:
- Pick 4 rotisserie chickens – we’ll use the meat for a lot of purposes.
- Crockpot a BBQ roast overnight
THURSDAY
AM:
Morning swim!! We plan to get there early enough to have the whole pool to ourselves. Then we’ll probably stop in somewhere for brunch on the way back to the house to begin the adventures.
PM:
- Crockpot hashbrown potato casserole
- Chop marathon worth of onions and other veggies
- Two double batches of mac n cheese (with cheddar and blue cheeses)
- Double batch of vegan, curried, split pea soup from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Moskowitz (this will make 4 dinners for me and Hubby with soup as the main dish)
Overnight:
- Mediterranean roast in the crockpot from Taste of Home (includes a whole jar of kalamata olives)
FRIDAY
AM:
- 2 Chicken pot pie fillings
- 2 Steak pie fillings
- 5 pound Meatloaf (still perfecting this one. Mine is consistently too crumbly. This time I asked my mom for her recipe. The fact is, I’ve forgotten how to make a decent meatloaf.)
PM:
- 1 stroganoff pie filling with mushrooms, broccoli, and corn (no noodles). This is Hubby’s recipe request.
- Lots and Lots and Lots ‘O Stroganoff and noodles with extra mushrooms. This is Dragon’s favorite takeaway from the cooking marathons.
- Venison casserole to take to Ludington when we visit family in August.
SATURDAY
AM:
- Chicken olé from Fix It and Forget It, a crockpot recipe book.
- 2 types of Burrito filling: venison (2 pounds) (for us) and beef (1 pound) (for Dragon)
PM:
- Banana bread 2X
- Chicken noodle soup
Each dish has the dry goods neatly bagged and lined up on our dining room table. I have tomorrow afternoon off and I’ll pick up the perishables and load them into the fridge. These marathons do require some pretty substantial planning and forethought.
Wish us love! ❤️
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