Everyday Food for a Week

We have a dinner problem in the household. Mostly, it involves what we are going to eat for dinner that night and whether we have any of the necessary ingredients in the house. Unfortunately, we usually only start the dinner discussion after Eno gets home from work and by that time we are both already too hungry to wait for one of us to make something. Not to mention our pantry is filled with dog treats and dried pasta. Not exactly the fixings for a gourmet meal.

We've tried several different methods in the past to combat this issue. My favorite includes "Dinner Dictator". Each week we'd switch off on taking on the DD role. Like our illustrious President, that person was the decider. The DD was to figure out and prepare each night for that week. Sounds great, but it never worked. Unlike other deciders, we just don't have that dictator spirit in us.

Which brings me to this week. I picked up the latest issue of Everyday Food and it had a special "All in One Bag" feature. The premise is that they give you a shopping list that you could presumably fit in one bag (took us 3 or 4) and you can prepare a week's worth of dinner with the ingredients. It cost us about $50 for the groceries, and we were able to use some of the produce delivered last week from og2u. It is designed to feed 4, so I we were able to get a few lunches out of it too.

We actually completed the whole week of food! I love the fact that I didn't have to think about dinner except to read the recipe. The food was pretty good -- not stuff that I'd think to make, really, like the Thai-style Steak Salad. Tuesday night's Mustard-crusted Turkey Breast was to die for; I'm making it again tonight.

Now, if I only had this plan every week...