Night #2: Le Menu

Okay so no gourmet feast tonight, but there were actually four children under the age of five here up until about a half hour before Mark got home. And I was the only person over age five.

• Spicy Tomato Burgers on Potato Buns
• Ore Ida Crinkle Cut French Fries
• Left Over Green Beans (Mark made these Sunday night)
• Left Over Orzo (Kate only–while waiting for her burger to cook)

Not to besmirch the merits of a burger, since a great burger is a great thing. But I feel the need to defend this dinner offering based on the fact that there are so many other things I could cook, but the damn dairy restriction seems to significantly whittle down my options. Just needed to make that disclaimer.

My round-up of tonight’s meal:

Prep stress level: Not bad considering at any moment toddlers could have been starting the curtains on fire in the other room.

Percentage of meal I did all by myself: Like last night 98%, since I asked Mark if he thought the burgers were cooked enough. (I needed to give them another 30 seconds.)

Orchestration of all elements: Good! I fretted a bit that the fries wouldn’t be ready with the burgers, but my project management skills must have somehow kicked in. I hit my deadlines, nailed my milestones, and took the critical path to getting everything on the table at once.

Taste: Mark rated it as “very good.” (Aw shucks.) He liked the little horseradish kick in the burgers, as did I, and said they had “excellent color.” I hadn’t even thought that was something the judges were looking at. Kate also seemed pleased with her un-spicy burger, and enjoyed making herself little sliders by sticking her cut-up meat between a bun she tore pieces off of. All this said, I should point out that neither Mark nor I touched the green beans that I reheated from the other night. I guess I don’t get points for trying to make a balanced meal if we eat an imbalanced one. The fact that they were leftovers made them more easy to ignore, I think. Plus Mark had a multi-course work lunch.

Familial groove from all eating together: Excellent! We sit there and talk about what we all did during the day just like the Cleavers! Just two nights into this new eating together routine–versus our previous one of feeding Kate, putting the kids to sleep, Mark cooking, us eating, me trying to pry myself off the couch to clean up but more often than not just falling asleep and Mark doing it even though he also cooked…. Wait, where am I? Let me put it this way: It’s 8:30PM now and instead of Mark and I just sitting down to eat, we’re already digesting! The kitchen is sparkling! And Mark is now using the living room rug as a work shop for a bunch of greasy bike parts. Uh, progress, right?

A solid dinner overall. But now watching Hillary Clinton speak on CNN is giving me indigestion. Oy.