Housewife.......?

As stated in my first post, I am not the best cook. My poor husband (bless his heart) never gets a good cooked meal after coming home from a long day at work.

Doesn't everyone feel sad for him?

I sure do.

This needs to change ASAP.

It's not that I have boycotted cooking. When I have the ingredients, recipes, and time, I actually enjoy cooking and I'm half way decent at it. But after a long work day and a nearly bare kitchen, I never have the slightest idea of what to make. So once Matt and I are both home from work, this is usually the conversation that takes place:

Matt asks, "What's for dinner?"

I say, "I don't know" or  I answer with "Pizza" or "I want [insert restaurant/fast food place here]"

Ew, I know. We live like freshmen in college and that is a problem. In my defense, I am a new housewife, but that really isn't an excuse because I've been living with Matt for almost four years now. And in those four years, I have come to realize that:

1) I have a very limited amount of ideas for dinner.
2) I need to learn how to meal plan.
3) Matt and I must get in the habit of bringing lunches to work.
4) Matt and I must get in the habit of NOT going out to eat for dinner.
5) Matt and I must get in the habit of eating healthier.

My problems are:

My ideas for dinner include (and ARE limited to):

1) Pizza (ha)
2) Spaghetti and garlic bread or some sort of pasta
3) Tacos
4) Hamburgers and fries
5) Chicken with rice or potatoes and some sort of steamed vegetable
6) Pork with rice or potatoes and some sort of steamed vegetable

^ This is incredibly sad and even more importantly SO unhealthy!

(Now everyone should feel bad for Matt!)

Sometimes, I'll stray away from these six meals and attempt to make a "new" one, but usually I realize it takes too long to make or I don't like the end result. I like to use www.allrecipes.com when I have a specific idea in mind, but like stated before, typically, I cannot think of new ideas for dinner. Another problem that I often run into is that I'm only cooking for Matt and myself. Recipes are usually good for a family of six. So what happens?? We put the rest in the fridge and wait until the food goes bad to throw away. Leftovers and I don't mix well.

Ideally, I'd love to find a blog/website/cookbook that has dinner ideas for young couples. The healthier the better.

Does anyone have any favorites?

Also, I love slow cookers -- but have yet to find a good cookbook/website for slow cookers. Oh, and I'm gone most days for 10 hours and most recipes call for cooking the meals for eight hours.

My next problem

I need to learn how to meal plan. Typically when we go grocery shopping, we grab whatever sounds good. A couple packages of ground beef, a couple chicken breasts, bread, eggs, milk, some veggies, fruit, lots of frozen pizzas,..... etc. Then after a few days, I have no idea what to make for dinner except our good old frozen pizza. You see, I'm not the type of person who can just throw ingredients together and make a masterpiece and I'm definitely not the person who substitute ingredients for the other if I'm missing something.

So when I get the rare idea to cook a meal and eventually look up the recipe, I realize that I'm missing an ingredient (or 4) and I have to drive back to the grocery store to go pick them up.

This is why I have to meal plan.

Ah, but its not as easy as it sounds. I need to think of seven meals, find seven recipes for those meals, write down all of the ingredients, figure out which ingredients I still need to buy, write down the normal weekly groceries I need, and go shopping to get all of it. Every week. And its not like I can make the same meals as I did the week before.

How much time will this take?

........Urgh, now it sounds like a part time job.

Problemo #3

As a new married couple, Matt and I have recently sat down to set up a budget:

X towards our mortgage
Y towards insurance
Z towards savings

and so on. And while doing this, we have realized that for the past million years, we have spent WAY too much money on buying lunch while at work and going out to dinner at night. During the days, Matt conveniently has a "food court" at American Family headquarters and I'm within five minutes of several yummy restaurants in Middleton. You've already heard our problems about dinner and add to it that we love to wine and dine on the weekends.

Ideally, while grocery shopping, we would meal plan (sigh) and pick out what we wanted for lunch that week and just make a lunch the night before work, but of course that never happens. I barely have enough time to make coffee in the morning -- let alone two lunches.

Laziness at its best.

I think the gist of this blog is that I need to get in a new habit. I just don't know how long it will take for us to make the switch. My long term goals would be to start making dinner every night, reduce going out to dinner to a couple times a month, take lunch to work everyday, and stop eating at fast food restaurants and stop drinking soda.

That way, we'd be more healthier and save a WHOLE boat load of cash.

The purpose of this blog is write it "outloud" so all of you can call me out if you notice me NOT going off of my new "food plan" -- and also to get everyone's suggestions on cooking dinners and meal planning. So, if you are an experienced housewife or just enjoy cooking, I'd love to hear your favorite recipes, cookbooks, meal planning ideas, etc.

My best friend hasn't gone a day without making her fiance a lunch for work and cooking him dinner at night. And here I am sitting on the couch and eating a cooked frozen pizza next to my hubby who is doing the same. Like I said, this needs to change.

Help! Recipes? Cookbooks? Websites? Meal planning ideas?

Matt will thank you for the rest of his life.     :)