Background: Sometimes I just can’t. But then I do. Kind of. Mostly not.
Me: “I’m not making dinner tonight.”
Her: “You need to tell me when you are going on strike.”
Me: “I’m not going on strike this time.”
(Actually, I was going to go on strike when I decided I wasn’t making dinner that morning.)
“I’m just not pushing my dinner agenda on anyone tonight. There’s enough food in the fridge for everyone.”
(And, I thought, everyone knows how to work the microwave, which is conveniently now on a speed rack at kid height due to a microhood malfunction.)
“Sometimes the other things–emotional needs, more outside time–seem more important than my plan for dinner.”
Her: “Gotcha.”
“I haven’t eaten all day.”
Me: “I can make you fiesta Mac ‘n’ Cheese out of the Buttered Noodles I’m getting out for the kids.”
Somehow everyone ate dinner. Here’s how I pulled off this magic.
- Keep Buttered Noodles on hand in the fridge.
- Keep the sauce from Mac ‘n’ Cheese on hand in the fridge.
- Keep Pico on hand in the fridge.
- Keep All Purpose Crunchy Vegan Topping on hand wherever you want to store it.
- Combine the first three steps above.
- Microwave until it’s hot.
- Top with number four.
Why It Works
- It’s basically a casserole.
- I don’t tell her that.
- She doesn’t like casseroles.
- I think that’s a prejudice against my people because she loves lasagna and lasagna is definitely a casserole.
- Anyway, it has cheese and starch so it’s delicious. It has at least five different kinds of plants and no meat.
- It works because it’s fast and simple and cheap and vegetarian and delicious and it didn’t come from a box. It came from your fridge, your prep work. I mean, some of it came from a can a while back. And plastic wrapped American cheese. And, shit, there was a box in there. But there were also wild foraged onions in there so that’s like buying box offsets.
- Now it also has healthy protein from cashews and nutritional yeast and a few more kinds of vegetables, if you can consider fried onions, shallots, and garlic vegetables.
Mods:
- If you had time and energy for mods, you wouldn’t be making this.
- On the bright side, now you’ve used up the last of the queso, pico, and buttered noodles. You have fridge space and the marginally healthy food is gone. Your mod is actually trying tomorrow.
- Maybe you should make kale tomorrow. Then they will go on strike.