eating out of the box

I found myself thinking outside the box again tonight. After a very busy week of work conferences, late nights, tee ball practice and chinese language class I finally found the time to catch my breath this afternoon and take stock of my kitchen. I am not going to lie- we have eaten like crap this week. I can't even remember what we had for dinner Monday and Tuesday. Or Thursday. Good Lord. Last night we ate out - burgers and yummy ice cream after Matthew's tee ball game. Oh yeah, they play a game. Hilarious. After numerous attempts the batter finally hits the ball off the tee and the entire opposing team runs to get it. Usually the ball is pretty much just a few feet in front of the batter, but that doesn't stop these small team mates from charging towards it at top speed. All you can see is a wave of red shirts moving as one across the field. Even the little dude way out in the outfield runs in for the ball. Hilarious.

I reigned in the meal plans and made dinner out of the box tonight. Matthew helped me make organic oatmeal cookies - I rarely make cookies but these were really good! Oats, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, eggs... so good.

After I cleaned up the cookie crumbs I made beef stroganoff for dinner. Local ingredients- they really are cheaper! No sour cream in the sauce, so it was much lower in fat. Nothing from a box, all local, all whole foods. All healthy. And yummy!

The only part of jumping back into my whole foods experiment that didn't go so well is the mess afterwards. We came home from a concert Thursday night and the babysitter had towels spread all across the kitchen counter. There was water just lying on the counter, and she was trying to keep it wiped up and away from the phone and computer at the end of the counter. Turns out our faucet was leaking, so Brad had to turn off the water to the kitchen sink. No dishwasher, no water for coffee. I keep running back and forth between the kitchen and the bathroom fetching water like we are living on the prairie. I half expected Laura Ingalls to show up at my kitchen table for dinner...

So my sink is now full of dishes. And the oven is full of dirty pans. And the plumber is coming Monday. But we ate out of the box tonight so it was worth it.