This week, I have been trying to conduct an experiment: eat only the food we have in the house. This includes no going out to eat, and no running to the grocery store to pick up items for dinner. I have to admit that this has been an unusually difficult task. First of all, I LOVE GOING OUT TO EAT. I just do. I don't know what it is about dining out; the atmosphere, being able to choose from lots of different options, being waiting on; all of these things contribute to my love of restaurants. Besides, when I don't have to cook, the food somehow just tastes so much better :)
Aaron loves dining out, as well, and he loves food just as much as I do (if not more!). So, one of us has to be strong at all times to be able to conquer our restaurant addiction. However, in the past, we have both given in to temptation and ended the night with Chicken Express, Chick-fil-a, Sonic, a Chinese buffet, or (if we were feeling a little crazy) even splurging on Cheddars or Chili's.
I also just love to go grocery shopping. Well, I love shopping in general, but I feel that grocery shopping in particular is a necessity, so I generally don't feel bad about doing it. But too many trips during the week leads to major money spending, so I've tried to make do with what we have in the pantry and freezer already.
Breakfast and lunch have been easy enough; I always have either cereal or oatmeal, anyway, for breakfast and don't tend to deviate from those two options. And, instead of running to Subway or Blue Baker for lunch, I just made sammies for Aaron and I at home. Dinner has been a different story.
Sometimes I like cooking; sometimes I just plain don't feel like it. All of the leftover food from camping at the Frio this last weekend made it easy to survive off of hot dogs and hamburgers all weekend and leading into Monday. However, as the camp-food supplies dwindled, I tried to make myself cook several things to last through the week. I made a batch of whole-wheat pumpkin muffins for snacks Monday night and made turkey meatloaf Tuesday night, which made for pretty good meatloaf sandwiches for dinner last night.
I did splurge on Starbucks last night after Aaron and I both had pretty long, tough days. But I feel that if we cut out ALL indulgences, then life would become pretty ho-hum. (Yup, I just said ho-hum.) Am I just trying to find an excuse? Possibly. But, seriously, we've done pretty good so far, so I don't feel too bad about a Starbucks run.
In the past, I've tried this, and even though the experiment usually always ended in failure, I have become better at improvising in the kitchen. I've made my own spaghetti sauce, made a sort of chicken-tomato-pasta dish that came out pretty damn good, made my own alfredo sauce, and pounded up a package of Ritz crackers for bread crumbs. I mean, I'm not the MacGyver of cooking or anything, but I've become pretty good at finding substitutions for ingredients I don't have.
But anyway, the reason I'm writing this is because I'm having a restaurant craving and I'm trying to remind myself why I shouldn't give in, lol. Hopefully, if the devil on my shoulder finally convinces me to suggest to Aaron that we should eat out tonight, he will have the strength to tell me no. If not...well, I guess we'll be having Panda Express for dinner :)
This is so strange that you posted this because just yesterday I was in bed having an emotional break down because I've realized I'm an addict. I'm addicted to eating out and it's really messing up our finances. I've been trying to be okay with just eating at home, too. I haven't killed the random grocery store trips because I figure going to pick up something small to add to dinner isn't as bad as going out to eat and spending a crap ton on dinner.
ReplyDeleteOh also.. I have this really awesome recipe you should try. Get some pork chops and dip them in an egg/milk mixture. Then dip them in a mixture of parsley, bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. After that, brown both sides of the pork chops for like.. five minutes a side (though sometimes they brown quicker..) in a pan with just a thin coat of olive oil. After that, stick the pan and the pork chops in the oven on 350 for about 25 minutes. Check it, though, to make sure it isn't burning.. and sometimes depending on the pork chop cut it's quicker.. just make sure the pork isn't pink in the middle. Then, after that.. you're done. It's SOOOOO delicious. I made my own bread crumbs with some dried out slices of bread. I just kind of cut them up. They were thicker crumbs than you'd buy at the store.. but it actually didn't matter. The browned cheesy goodness that coated the pork chops was sooooo delicious!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's definitely tough to give up restaurants. We made it through the week and went out to eat last night...so we still ended up going out, but only once instead of multiple times over the course of the week, so I figured it was okay.
ReplyDeleteAnd that recipe does sound really good! I wonder if it would work with chicken breasts, too, b/c that's what I have. Hmm, maybe I'll experiment, lol...
Another thing that helps me is crock-pot cooking. Seriously. You can throw a bunch of stuff there in the morning and when you come home from work there's a delicious meal waiting for you.
Hmm.. I'm not sure if it'd work with chicken or not. Maybe if they're boneless? The thing I'm thinking is that if they are bone-in breasts that the meat might not have time to cook all the way through. Wouldn't hurt to experiment, though.
ReplyDeleteYes! We just bought a crock pot.. but before we did that I made a roast in like.. a broiler pot or something that we had.. I'm sure the recipe would be the same in the crock pot. So.. put a roast in the crock pot (after browning both sides in a pan with garlic and a bit of olive oil) with potatoes, carrots, onions, some Worcestershire sauce and a cup of red wine.. It is DEEEElicious!
Hahaha...I'm addicted to eating out, but that usually has to do more with other aspects than simply procuring sustenance. For example, eating out for lunch is usually the best time for me to have a social life outside of work. A quick trip to Chili's allows me communion with whoever happens to have a free hour or so.
ReplyDeleteAside from that...I've curiously taken to experimenting with foods I've never had before, like Lebanese or French. I like discovering international foods I've yet to discover (considering I really like Thai and Indian food).
But yeah...I need to stop eating out so much, too. I'm broke, miss, I'm broke! :-P