Reality Dinners, Day 1

Do you want to know a secret?

Are you sure?

I don't make fantabulous home-cooked meals every day.

I don't! Do you?

I like to post my favorite recipes, the fancy things I make and the delicious successes, because hey, we all like to brag a bit.

But this blog is called Reality Chef, not Sitcom Chef. Some days I make a dinner completely from scratch with produce I've grown myself, followed by a fancy dessert. Other days I rely on canned and convenience foods, cheats and mixes. Yet other days we just scrounge for leftovers or pull something from the freezer, and way too often we eat out.

Sort of the way, I imagine, that you all eat.

The point is, you don't have to make a grown-yourself, from-scratch, four-course meal every night in order to save money and eat more healthfully. You can make quick from-scratch meals some nights, and semi-from-scratch meals other nights, and sometimes you will still eat Steakhouse Burgers from Carl's Jr. and that's okay.

In the spirit of forcing this little blog to live up to its name, from now until Easter I will post at least a quick pic of every dinner I eat.

Sometimes I'll be sharing a (totally awesome, obvs) recipe. Sometimes it will just be a snapshot of some takeout. I might collate the posts so there's not one every day, depending on my schedule.

But for Lent, basically, you'll get to see this chef's really-real Reality.

Guten Appetit.

So what did I eat last night?

The wet dog-food looking stuff is pulled pork from the DDH's law school graduation party last May. I made two giant crockpots of the stuff and froze the leftovers in quart size ziploc bags. Over the last year, those little bags of pre-cooked pork have been my go-to desperation dinners. Sometimes I actually cook them up into a new dish; last night, the DDH reheated it with some barbecue sauce and that was that.

The DDH was off yesterday for President's Day. He went to Sam's Club and picked up the white stuff in the back of the plate, which is jalapeno artichoke dip. It was okay, though surprisingly spicy. I wasn't a huge fan, but he seemed to like it.

I was, however, a good girl and ate my dip with celery. The DDH? Tortilla chips.

Technically it was a half home-cooked meal--I did make that pulled pork, even though it was almost a year ago. The Internets suggest that making double of a dish and freezing the extra is a Good Idea, but this is the only time I've really done it. Guess I'll have to do it again when I run out. ;-)

It was just one of those days: work, meetings, running all over the place. At least we ate something, and I like to think it was marginally better for us than fast food. Certainly it was cheaper (though I refrained from asking how much he paid for the dip).

So there's Reality, Day 1: Frozen leftovers and store-bought dip.