Kitchen Motivation

I do not love the kitchen. When Kenny comes home from a day at school and sits down at his computer to work on more school, I don't want to spend all my time in the other room. Another thing is I hate doing dishes. I love for the kitchen to look nice and neat and do not like to make a mess of it. This has lead to some laziness and has made things a little boring. I got in the habit of spontaneous meals, not planning out a menu for the week. Spontaneous is not bad, but when it forces us to sacrifice quality and sends us flying to the grocery store for last-minute items, it isn't good either. So a week of so ago Kenny confronted my lack of motivation in the kitchen and set about to solve the problem.

First, we agreed that the kitchen job shouldn't be all mine, but that I should delegate. If I need him to take care of a meal or two, I only need to let him know. He enjoys cooking. And if I need some help with the dishes, I need to let him know that too. Communication, of course. We also once again agreed to do dishes immediately instead of letting them sit. And he insisted that I sit down and make a list of the things I want to make in the coming week and make sure I have all that I'll need. This takes care of all of our meal-related problems: quality time, hating dishes, avoiding mess, boring meals. Yes.

So, embracing the new game plan, I set down with my Better Homes cookbook and made a list. Excited about a chicken lasagna, turkey tortellini salad, chicken Caesar salad, tuna noodle casserole, and picante pot roast, I set out for the store.

The tough part was then deciding what I wanted to fix for dinner. I decided on a 20-minute meal recipe, the picante pot roast. I'm not adventurous in the kitchen, so this was a big deal. The recipe called for couscous, which neither of us had ever had before. The meals indeed only took 20 minutes and in the end was a huge success. It was delicious and couscous will definitely return to our dinner table. Kenny loved it and I think he really loved my new found motivation in the kitchen. I even finished all the dishes after dinner while Kenny worked on school work at the kitchen table. Discipline feels good.