How, Do you do it?!?

How. Do you do it?

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question…well, I’d have some dollars.  Honestly sometimes I don’t know, life is so hectic as I am sure every one of you can relate, but this is a priority of mine.  So it gets done just like my glass of red wine gets poured, because it’s on the forefront of my mind.   

Think about it. In your life - what are the things that just matter? What is it that you get up out of the bed and think, today, ‘this’ is gonna get done.  I feel that way about this blog and even more so, about cooking.  

 

You get up early to go for a run? I get up early to plan a menu for the week.  You make time out of your schedule to have a happy hour, I have a happy hour while at the skillet.  (ok fine that was a poor analogy because when have I ever missed a happy hour?)  Forget that one.  You make time out of your week to read a book, or do the laundry, I make time to plan and cook meals that I am excited about eating.  It’s all about what’s important for you.  If making a bang out dinner only 2 nights a week is what you shoot for, that is totally fine!  If you want to plan a menu for every night of the week, amazing!  I take it week by week.  Most weeks it depends on my work schedule, and I find that if I spend some solid time on the weekend planning menus and grocery lists, my weeks are a lot easier, because I don’t stare in the pantry blindly for thirty minutes when I get home.  I get in there, get er done, and get eatin’.    

So I guess, my long winded answer to that question - “How do I do it?” - is really just that I care and I want to.  I WANT to look through cookbooks, I WANT to plan menus for the week, I WANT create things that make other people happy and feel at home.  

If spending a lot of time thinking about what you are going to feed your friends and family isn’t you’re idea of time well spent, then that is ok.  That’s what I’m here for.  There are ways to make amazing meals in no time, with little planning involved.  Take last night for instance.  I have been cooking and planning pretty late every night this week, which I didn’t mind, but needless to say, it left me feeling like I didn’t have time to spend 3 hours cooking dinner when I needed to prep for blog entries, Friday night’s dinner party, and clean our messy apartment.  Sound familiar? You all have a million things going on.  You have kids, you have work, you have demanding social schedules, you study for school, you spend quality time with your family.  The point is, I took a look at this week, and I knew I would need some quick, no time to fuss dinners.  Sometimes that means ordering pizza. Sometimes it doesn’t.  

I just want you to know, that you don’t have to stress about dinner.  In just 15 minutes of prep, I made one of the better dinners I have had in 2 weeks.  Literally, it tasted like I had fussed over it for 6 hours straight, and do you know what I did? I put it in the slow cooker while I was at work, and when I got home, I was greeted with a warm wafty hug from Mr. Pot Roast.   15 minutes, sometimes, is all you need.

Picture it, it’s challenge week 2 and you not only have social plans EVERY NIGHT this week, but you have a birthday cake to make, menus for a dinner party to create and design, blog entries to write, pictures to take, and DUH how could we forget, just normal dinner to make every night.  Your dear friend Max is coming over for dinner, so you really want it to be a nice dinner, but damn it if you aren’t busy!  Cue the pot roast.  It literally wraps its lovely arms around you as if it were your grandpa.  And you only spent 15 minutes on it. 

The best Pot Roast you ever ate.

1 3to 4 pound pot roast (chuck)

1 pack of lipton’s dry onion soup mix

¼ cup worcestershire sauce

1 cup of beef broth

2 cups of carrots (chopped or baby, whatever)

2 onions chopped

Salt and pepper

Salt and pepper your meat very well. Put the soup mix, broth and worcestershire sauce in the crock pot and mix well.  Add the onions, carrots and meat, cook on low for minimum of 8 hours up to 12.  

(obviously, it's served over garlic mashed potatoes, so fine, judge me and add a few more minutes...)

When you get home, put a fork in that meat and swoon when it just behaves like a pillow, and ever so gently caves and separates underneath it.  It’s like a scared moment. Just picture “I hope you dance” playing in the background, that’s how sacred. (ok even I just laughed out loud at that.)

And you spent 10 minutes.  So when you know you just don’t have time, or when you just don’t care, Pot Roast kids, Pot Roast.  It will remind you why you love to cook.  It certainly reminds me.

And for eff’s sake vote for Amuse Bouche for Project Food Blog here. You are so late but Mom forgives you.

Love,

Whit