When Life is Like a Saucepan

This is roughly my cooking schedule for the family when I’m in town all week and weekend:

• Grocery shopping no later than after church on Sunday.
• Full blown, more-time-intensive-than-usual, dinner Sunday evening.
• Solid dinner on Monday night with all major food groups represented and made with fresh ingredients.
• Tuesday night dinner leftovers from Sunday and Monday.
• Wednesday night I phone it in with turkey tacos or turkey burgers and a side of frozen vegetables.
• Thursday night is simply staving off starvation with small growing people.  There’s minimal fresh new food in the house. Main course is a hodge podge of leftovers, if any, or frozen fish sticks or chicken strips or the stand by of spaghetti because every mom keeps a jar of marinara and noodles on hand (it’s like peanut butter and eggs, you never let your house go without a back up supply).

Well, I got sick of it. I was tired of phoning it in mid week and committed to trying to do better.  I received a great Better Homes & Gardens insert in a magazine with lots of yummy looking recipes (I love their stuff), and I decided to experiment.

Here’s the thing with my saucepan experiments, they can go one of two ways: Really yummy.  Or really not even very edible.

I’m a good baker.  I’m a decent cook.  I’m a recipe-following cook though, so new recipes can be fairly time consuming for me.

I led on Sunday with a delicious roasted salmon with herbs and yogurt and a perfectly fine spring onion alphabet soup with fontina toast as its accompaniment.  The salmon was gone in minutes and all that fresh basil and mint and dill made me long for an herb garden (if only I didn’t kill every type of plant life).

The next night was a solid three herb chicken and mushrooms that Bray and I ate up, but the kids only found passable PLUS I didn’t have time to make my preordained sides so it was a bit of a muddled meal.

The following night was an unmitigated disaster.  The recipe sounded like it had tremendous (unique) potential: carrot orzotto. A combination of orzo and matchstick carrots cooked in carrot juice and chicken broth and finished with mint and feta.  First, if you’re supposed to cook something in carrot juice and the store doesn’t have carrot juice, don’t use carrot mango juice. It is a BAD CHOICE. The pasta was too soft and the flavor profile was terrible.  I also cooked a pork loin which took way longer to cook than I expected, so instead of carrot orzotto and encrusted pork roast, the kids ate yogurt and frozen pizza rolls (did I mention yogurt as another staple – they could live on yogurt).  After an hour and a half of me cooking straight after a long day at work, that’s what I had to show for it.

Ugh.

Does your life ever feel like a saucepan in my house?

Some days are a home run.  Some days are mixed.  Some days are unmitigated orzo-cooked-in-carrot-mango-juice disasters.

And the thing of it is, the outcome is entirely unpredictable even when you begin with the best intentions and most extensive preparations.

I was reminded of that this weekend as I experienced equally uneven life and work and parenting results.  I’m zipping along with the best disposition and the most perfect plans, and I get thrown a complete curveball.

Instead of being a professional Chopped chef in the kitchen or in life, I let the sudden turn of events turn my disposition upside down and let my heart sink into my stomach.

So what’s a chef to do?

First, realize that’s how things work.  Shake it off.  Don’t let it sidetrack you. Even when you’re working your hardest, the other side of the equation is others.  You have no idea what’s happening in their life at that moment.  You can’t control it.  Don’t let it ruin your entire day or week.

Second, have a back up plan.  My life equivalents of peanut butter and yogurt are other supportive friends and family (I say other, because your primary person may be the one throwing a wrench in things), prayer (you can always count on God to show up with a break through performance), music (it clears my head and can connect me to what’s important if I listen to the right tunes), and time (instead of reacting, I need time to gain some perspective first).

Third, keep going. Don’t let a failed course stop you from trying new things. My failed orzotto only set me back a day or two.  Last night I made a tasty butternut squash mac and cheese which the adults loved and the kids tried.  I wish I bounced back so quickly in real life.  But I’m learning.  And trying new things and working hard and making an effort always pays off in the end.