To Restaurant or Not

To restaurant or not to restaurant, that is the question. Whether tis better to suffer life’s cruel forfeiture of gratuities or eschew forever all social ambiences? Whatever… can a near restaurant- grade meal be prepared by a culinary dummy (like me) at home?

Any idiot can boil spaghetti until soft, drain, and stir in a jar of spaghetti sauce. Serve with grape-cranberry juice, (cheaper than wine.) Butter French bread slices, sprinkle with garlic salt and put in the oven to toast. Light a candle and put some Italian tenors on the tape cassette player. Voila!...restaurant dinner at home and $20 saved.

My wife buys loaves of whole grain French bread at the “oops, we baked too much” sales in the grocery and throws them in the freezer. Pizza for Idiots consists of slicing these loaves lengthwise, topping with tomato sauce, browned ground sausage, mushrooms, and a heavy sprinkling of grated mozzarella cheese. Toast in the oven and you have deep pan pizza…good as any pizzeria.

Any knucklehead can cook brown rice: 2 1/2cups water, 1 cup rice, dash of salt, bring to a boil then cover and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally to keep the rice from sticking to the pot bottom. Next dice up and fry some pork in a skillet, drain excess grease, add a little canola oil and stir- fry in the cooked rice and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Add soy sauce to suit taste. If you want Chinese cuisine, serve with a jar of sweet and sour sauce; if you prefer a more Thai flavor, skip the sweet and sour and go with tabasco sauce.

As for sea food, fillet of sole never tasted any better than crappie. The super simple way of fixing crappie (assuming you performed your manly chore of catching and cleaning them) is to microwave the fillets for about three minutes, sprinkle with lemon juice and serve with a can of Boston baked beans and some rye bread. If you want to get fancy, dip fillets in milk, then bread the fillets in a seasoned cornmeal or flour mixture. Drizzle the fish with a little butter and bake in a 500 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Grate cabbage for coleslaw; bake a potato (actually microwave for 5 minutes,) add sour cream or make potato salad with mayonnaise and mustard. Be sure to poke holes in the potato with a fork and wrap with a damp napkin or the spud will explode.

Mexican food is as simple as opening several cans of chili con carne, heating in a sauce pan and mixing in some pre-cooked rice. Serve on tortillas that you bought pre-made at the grocery and top with salsa and grated cheddar cheese. How simple is that?

So dummy that I am, I believe I can prepare five restaurant style dinners. Still for the sake of our marriage and to limit cabin fever, we do need a date night out about once a week. We go to an inexpensive eatery about three times a month, (Does the phrase “$5 foot-long” ring a bell?). About once a month, and for all birthdays and anniversaries, we eat at mid-price restaurant.

There is a happy medium between going restaurant broke and never eating out. A final caveat, if you do fix your lady a romantic dinner at home instead of taking her out…you better plan to wash the dishes, Buster!

New Cook in House

“You are going to learn to cook, Mr. Retired Man!” Coming from my true love’s lips, it sounded more like an ultimatum than a request.

Throughout my working days, my spouse and I had an understanding that one of us would cook and the other would be responsible for the dishes. Since my better-half had a visceral hatred for dishwater, I normally had a hot meal waiting for me when I got home from a hard day. After a post-meal snooze on the couch, I’d pull my KP. My wife recently looked at my dishpan hands and lamented sympathetically on their chapped state. For an instant I thought her pity would translate into her taking over my sink duties. She looked into my eyes, paused meaningfully and said, “Wear some rubber gloves.” And that was that.

But as Dylan and Baez once sang, “The times, they are a changing.” Since she has become the sole bread winner of the family, I honestly think my spouse has begun to suffer from retirement envy. Perhaps it does not help that I greet her with a little jig when she drags herself through the doorway at night…or when she asks, “What did you do today?” I reply “I read a book.” Or perhaps it is that I call her “my little bread winner” (and several much worse terms of endearment which I cannot relate here on pain of losing all computer privileges.) Whatever… I’ve been put on notice that my darlin’ dear expects to smell the aroma of a hot dinner when she opens the house door at night…and, oh yes, I still have dishes afterward.

After years of my feigning ignorance and incompetence, I guess the jig is up. Oh well, it is winter and I really do have time on my hands to learn a new life skill; just last night I learned to brown hamburger. Besides, I need some winter material to write about in my blogs. Still all this role reversal and “I expect my meat and potatoes on the table” attitude bother me a bit.
I’ll keep you posted on my culinary progress… and oh yes, we simply must exchange recipes!