Too Much Cooking!

Vince had requested tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches for our meal yesterday. The truth is that he would have been just as happy with a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and storebought bread but I have yet to learn, or accept, that it’s ok to serve that kind of food.

For the bread, I’ve been making the recipe for one loaf and used the shorter cast iron bread pans and making smaller loaves. The one loaf in those pans makes it really tall and that makes a huge sandwich. Often Vince will want two sandwiches and if I make two BIG sandwiches, he eats them both. If I make two smaller sandwiches, he seems fine with that. One of the smaller sandwiches is fine with me. We’ll probably eat on this bread tomorrow and part of Tuesday, I’ll take whatever’s left and make croutons or bread crumbs and make fresh bread on Tuesday. That’s kinda how we do it . . every other day I make two small loaves unless the croutons start stacking up but they don’t with us eating Caesar salads often. Now we’re going to have to be eating spinach salads for a few days (or weeks).

How long can it take to make the easiest ever recipe for tomato soup and plain white bread? Hours! That’s how long!

I almost always have a meal plan and I know exactly what I’m cooking for the entire week. We store almost all our food – canned goods, pasta, rice, etc. downstairs so usually on Sunday, I’ll bring up everything I need for the week. If I run out of salt or we need a fresh jar of mayo, I may have to go down to the food storage area and find something. Today, since I hadn’t planned on making bread or tomato soup, I had nothing that I needed upstairs.

Downstairs Trip #1: I went to get Prairie Gold flour to make bread because I had used all that I had up here; we had to buy more so I had been out of it for a while and had never refilled the canister. I couldn’t find the Prairie Gold bucket so I came back upstairs and asked Vince. He said he would go downstairs and get it.

Downstairs Trip #2: I went down with him. The buckets are stacked four tall with boards between them. He had moved all the buckets and somehow, the Prairie Gold flour was on the next to bottom, which meant we had to move two rows of buckets (four buckets per row) to get to the Prairie Gold. I told him . . that’s ok. I’ll just use the flour I have upstairs – it’s Wheat Montana White or all purpose and it’s fine for bread. I keep the buckets that I don’t get into often and keep the ones I do get into often at the top so he can get to them when I need them so all those needed to be re-arranged and neither of us had time to do it today. He was watching TV and I had already started cooking.

Downstairs Trip #3: I went back and grabbed the two cans of tomatoes, tomato juice and a can of water chestnuts for the spinach salad.

Downstairs Trip #4: I remembered we had used all the bacon yesterday on the brussels sprouts so I ran down to the freezer to get another package of bacon.

Downstairs Trip #5: I was sure I had bought two packets of fresh mint and one packet of fresh basil when we had gone to Food 4 Less. I had the mint upstairs in the fridge but where was the basil? Couldn’t find it so I ran down to see if it was in the downstairs fridge. Nope. Thankfully I had a tube of the basil that’s kinda like a sauce so I used that in the soup.

Downstairs Trip #6: I opened the can of water chestnuts, drained them and dumped them onto a paper towel. When I went to put them in the salad, I kinda squeezed the paper towel just a bit to shake off the excess liquid and they were mushy – like mashed potatoes. That’s when I realized I had grabbed a can of bamboo shoots, which I really do not like and do not want them in my salad. Ran back down, grabbed another can – this time it was water chestnuts and they were nice and crunchy.

I had already gone downstairs once to feed Boots and spend a few minutes with him. I don’t let him come upstairs while I’m cooking because he will come in the kitchen and I don’t want him in there with the gas stove going. I don’t want him ever in the kitchen and he does pretty good about not jumping over the gate . . except when I’m in there.

By the time dinner was served, I had made at least 7 trips up and down the stairs. That, alone would be enough to tire me out!

Tomato soup, toasted cheese sandwich and spinach salad. It was good but by the time we were done, I was tired. I told Vince I was going to clean the kitchen later but I knew once I sat down, I wouldn’t be getting back up so I cleaned the kitchen.

We’re having leftover prime rib today. Tomorrow we’ll have the leftover chicken, Tuesday we’ll have leftover soup and sandwiches again and by Wednesday I think I’ll be cooking again. Wednesday is going to be cabbage rolls and Thursday is going to be spinach meatloaf. Then we’ll have leftover cabbage rolls on Friday and leftover spinach meatloaf on Saturday. It’s a good thing Vince is not a picky eater!