My Mother, My Dinner.

So, I've become my mother in one more way. Damn it!
Not that Sher isn't fabulous. I just thought that I would be different. I would not become my mother.

But, now that I have El Kid in my care, I find myself acting like my mother. It could be worse.

For example, I cook dinner now pretty much every night. We go out to eat about once a month, otherwise we're home. I've always cooked. But cooking for one person to eat in front of the TV or standing over the sink is different than cooking for a teenage boy.
For one, the quantities have had to change dramatically. I just made meatloaf tonight that I thought would last a good 4 meals. Yeah. More like 2. Unless he gets up and eats it for a snack tonight. Then, just one meal. It was an entire pie pan of meatloaf.

Now I understand why parents make epic amounts of food. It goes away so fast.

Then there are the selections. When cooking for myself, I could make whatever I wanted. Often these were one or 2 pot meals and then I would eat it for days. I still cook a large pot of something but then, I feel like I need to put on a balanced meal. Thank god for bag-o-salad!
Tonight's meal as an example:
Meatloaf, squash, salad, watermelon. If it was just me, that would have been meatloaf and salad. Squash was my entire lunch today (El Kid was still asleep).

When I used to make spaghetti, that was the entire menu. Now, thanks to Sher's model, I must serve sides with it. When I can't think of what goes with the main dish, I use the menu from the lunch lady in Plummer. She has a lunch delivery service that is incredible. When SHE has spaghetti she always has a side of green beans. So now when I make spaghetti, I serve a side of green beans. It goes very well!
She serves mashed potatoes with meatloaf. I was going to serve that but El Kid tried squash earlier in the day and liked it and that was already cooked so that's what we had.

Actually, even the meatloaf idea was stolen from the lunch lady. She served banana cream pie for dessert that day, but I hate bananas and don't eat cream so that was out. We had the watermelon instead since it was on sale and I'm cheap. Also, the worms like watermelon rind so it was a treat for all residents of the apartment other than the hamster.

So what are we having tomorrow?
Probably thawed out blackbean and sweet potato chili, or pasta. Who knows. But for sure there will be bag-o-salad and a side dish. Damn you Sher with your square meals.