Lazy is judgemental. But it’s catchy and it’s good shorthand for what I mean which is reduction of effort. Also, why the judgement, anyway? Why is it a bad thing to fail to be bowled over by bloggers who get milk out of chickens and eggs out of cows before spending the day spinning their own children and canning a half acre of prime farmland? Screw them with their own homemade screws that they mined and cast before giving birth to dinner, publishing a recipe book on homemade paper, and blogging the night away.
Cooking dinner is a big effort that can cast a pall over the earlier part of the day. Effort reduction is key, so make one do the work of two as follows: I made a tasty lentil salad last night. I admit there was a fair amount of effort involved because I had to wash and chop ingredients that I had purchased earlier in a wide-eyed state. Lentils had to be rinsed and boiled (20 minutes usually plenty). Coarsely chopped onion because that was last and I was tired and my eyes hurt. A little garlic so I could finish the shrivelling head. A surviving plum tomato from a previous incarnation – I keep the fridge very cold so few things change state rapidly. Those little cucumbers that were on sale, pain in the ass to peel them so I didn’t. Dark green skin must be nutritious. Good mommy. What else? Oh, yeah. The family member who hates brussels sprouts and spinach was away so I included those. Frozen sprouts. Easy. Fresh spinach in microwave bag. Also easy but I rinsed it after because I am insanely suspicious (though three minutes in the microwave should be an adequate kill step, right?) A moment sufficed to make my own special salad dressing using a packet of Good Seasonings Italian and a lot more vinegar than the instructions recommend. Mixing different vinegars is fun, like wine, balsamic, and cider. Especially if it helps finish a bottle. I do use olive oil but not EVO because it sounds like a washed up band or a sexually transmissible condition).
We ate, we enjoyed or pretended to, we watched a K-drama while so doing. And we had some left despite my efforts to sell it. The next day the family member who does not appreciate most of the ingredients in the lentil salad healthy as they are, returned to her native home. Suppressing my guilt at not making her a festive return dinner that she might actually like, I added ingredients to the leftover salad in order to stretch it out and maybe get stuff in there that she could pick at. Half a box of macaroni enabled me to get rid of said half box. And a block of feta cheese. I had cucumbers left because I got fed up with chopping them the previous night. Newly energized by my idea of recycled dinner, I added these too. And, in order to make the whole more palatable, a lot more salad dressing. And so, we ate once again.
And I wrote a food blog!
the great unread 