lazy and carefree

I don't feel like making an effort these days. Not for many things and especially not for cooking.

I want things quick and easy. Short and simple. Short and sweet?

So why, when I do my regular grocery shopping every weekend, do I buy foods that require energy? Cleaning, chopping, seasoning, cooking and then cleaning the aftermath. Isn't that what takeout, pizza, canned chili and french fries are for? Oof, I can already feel my stomach percolating from just rambling off that list. Right. That's why.

Well, I've given in to the laziness as it's prompted me to start doing things like visiting the parental units in search of leftover chicken and then grabbing a bag of frozen sweet potato fries from the market to go with it -- the kind of behaviour I used to tsk tsk.

But I don't much care right now. It's cold and I want to bury myself in a bed full of pillows with a giant cup of chai within arm's reach. And if I can't do that, then the food I must eat needs to be done, done, done or take no more thought than turning a dial and walking away.

And, yes, I know that means a rapidly expanding waistline. Like I said. I don't care.

easy

More and more I'm liking things quick and easy.

[Yeah, yeah. Insert joke here.]

My patience isn't what it used to be and I just don't feel like making much time for things these days, cooking included.

Work is wearing me down and while not as busy as it used to be, it's still draining. Not feeling engaged doesn't help, but being unplugged certainly keeps the stress levels to a minimum. Defense mechanism. Self preservation. Call it what you want, it's how I'm getting by.

But back to convenient food fixes. I need to find more of those 30-minute and under meals. You know, anything to keep me out of fastfoodland.

I've got my favourite maple-glazed salmon and wasabi-laced soba noodles, and lately I've been making these char sui style pork chops...

Swift and savoury. They're just too easy and too tasty not to slip them into the rotation. But I want more or others, I should say. More, more, more. That's how I like it, that's how I like it.

the good fight

I keep talking about eating properly and having some discipline when it comes to food but I think I may be... a fraud.

Went to an outdoor art exhibit last weekend and wouldn't shut up about stuffing myself with street meat. It was hot out and I had a craving for carbs -- specifically, a giant helping of hand-cut french fries -- and maybe a spicy sausage from one of the trucks parked on the street.

Only one choice: the Original Bavarian Bratwurst Wagon. Oh. So. Good.

But rather than ordering the sausage I'd been craving, I caved to the idea that it might be too messy to eat then have to walk among the art with wurst-and-condiment-stained clothing, so I opted for a burger instead.

It was all good. All of it. The fries were still steaming for a good 10 minutes after she forked them over and they didn't leave a giant pool of grease collecting in the bottom of the container. Always a good sign. Talking about it now makes me want more. And maybe a sausage next time, too.

[sigh] Me likes me carbs. Why do I even fight it?

goodbye laziness

Maybe it was the salt and vinegar potato chips we snacked on. Or maybe it was the chilli we decided to have for dinner. Whatever it was, I feel... blah

Ours was a lazy choice and one made after a long day. A decision borne of the convenience of buying tortilla chips at the corner store where the lottery ticket that would take us to eternal bliss was waiting. We are paying for our lazy decision today. And the dream of eternal monetary bliss is no more -- not that it was a realistic or necessary one. Boo

How is it that we've gone from fresh, healthy foods to ones packed with artificial everythings, prolonged shelf life preservatives and polysaccharide-jammed dishes that we know are going to offend our stomachs? Oh right. Laziness.

Time to get back to making an effort.

So this morning, we began with a bowl of yogurt topped with fresh blueberries, strawberries and kiwi.

Onward we go.

pan handling

Okay, so nobody really likes to clean but the deal at my house is that if one of us does the cooking, the other does the cleaning.

I suppose in a household full of nerds, we should have defined "cooking" and "cleaning" before making this deal. Foolishly, I believed that cooking actually meant busting out the pots and pans, involved some slicing and dicing, maybe some simmering, baking or poaching, and most definitely meant managing a balance of flavour, temperature and timing. Cleaning meant taking those newly crusted pots and pans, soaking, scrubbing and rinsing them, and wiping down the counters and other cooking surfaces, as well as putting away anything that was used during prep and cook time.

Taking a pre-prepared meal out of a cardboard box and inserting it into the oven is not cooking. Dropping plates and utensils into the dishwasher, squeezing liquid detergent into the moulded pocket and turning the dial is not cleaning.

But knowing there's a sliding scale means I can claim the same cooking and cleaning activity on those days when I'm just too tired, or annoyed for that matter, to exert real effort. I, too, can heat a pizza stone, drop a pie on it and cut our dinner into 8 equally-sized thin crust wedges 15 to 19 minutes later.

And the bonus? No dish pan hands on those days.