Sunday, March 27, 2011

Pantry Day

Attempted Menu: Homemade Spinach-Ricotta Ravioli with Tomato Sauce; Arugula Salad with Strawberries and Goat Cheese

Actual Menu: Pasta with Tomatoes and Herbs; Garlic Bread; Arugula Salad with Strawberries

Lesson learned: if I don't want to go to the grocery store, I probably don't have to.

For whatever reason, I couldn't sleep last night.  I've been cranky, irritable, and lazy all day.  I had plans to go to the grocery store, but I could barely keep up with the things I had to do here at home.  So, dinner was improvised.

I think many people try to minimize trips to the grocery store, especially in my situation.  I don't, for two reasons: (1) I'm always in need of places to take the kids, and (2) fresh produce.  The garden's in between seasons right now, so that second one is even more important.  So it happens I still had tomatoes and strawberries on my counter, plus the Italian herbs and arugula still in the garden.  It was good enough.

We cooked a pound of pasta and did a little customizing.  John thinks that plain-as-plain pasta is a treat (don't ask me, I have no idea), so I put half of it aside.  In the other half, I mixed in olive oil and lots of bread crumbs with Italian herbs.  Then I took some out for the kids and put it on their plates with some marinara from a jar that probably only had a couple of weeks left at most.  For me, I mixed in the fresh tomatoes, fresh herbs, garlic, onions, and some Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Sophie only ate strawberries and garlic bread.  Ben ate strawberries, pasta, and some bread.

UPDATE: I was wrong about the kids' marinara being good for a couple more weeks.  When I went to put it away, I noticed a patch of mold on the inside rim of the jar.   So despite all my efforts to feed my family well, it turns out that sometimes I serve my children moldy food.  I guess there was more than one lesson I needed to learn last night.

2 comments:

princess granola said...

thank you for posting such a real life post. a few days after i had zola grant fed me moldy pumpkin pie for breakfast. he had put cool whip on top and didn't notice the mold until my mom pointed it out all over the rest of the pie in the pan. i survived. :)

Renee said...

Ugh, I hate finding mold on the spaghetti sauce lid! It's happened a few times to us because it gets shoved to the back of the bottom of the fridge and forgotten about for awhile.