Menu Planning for Single Ladies

another day, another instagrammed picture of food

In case this isn't abundantly clear, I pretty much live to make plans. I love goals, I love knowing what's ahead, I love thinking that if I have a plan I can control everything. So really I don't so much live to plan as I do live to learn that I cannot in fact control everything. However, this is not about my issues with trusting God... This is about menu planning for single ladies, a task that I feel worthy to undertake yet know I have failed to master.

First of all, I am in love with my new cookbook/memoir - Dinner a Love Story. In the very beginning she graciously shares that each recipe is meant to serve about four people because well that's how many she regularly feeds. Rosenstrach and her family tested all the recipes so you can take comfort, knowing real people (including two very real children) ate them and loved them... and you probably will too. With great excitement I finished reading through DALS this Friday and eagerly looked at my calendar to see how many recipes I could test out over the next two weeks. I figured I had seven days where I would be home to eat dinner and then found four recipes I wanted to try first. And then of course, I added four other meal ideas to those recipes.

Saturday was a perfect Grand Rapids day. I hit up the Fulton Street Farmer's Market and Meijer. People were kind and helpful. I bought local and organic when I could. And then I came home and made that delicious shrimp dish pictured above (served over white basmati rice). It was so good I ate way more than I should have. And yet, when I put it away, there was clearly enough left for two or three more servings.

And herein lies the single lady problem --> there is always way more food left than I originally planned on and this throws my "menu plan" out the window. If I can now seemingly eat shrimp for my next three meals this means I don't need lunch and dinner on Sunday or lunch on Monday... but I have ingredients for dinner on Sunday... now I need to rearrange things... use what needs to be used first so nothing spoils. But Sunday's dinner sounded so good and how many times in a row can I eat shrimp? Let's be real, all I actually want is a pizza. But that's not on the plan.

Side Note: If at any point someone invited me to eat a meal with them (and let's just hope it's pizza), I'd gladly join them. Can you imagine what that does to the "menu plan" and food budget?

What I need to come to terms with is that when that Friday Pay Day rolls around, it's best to pick like four meals I can make in the days ahead. See how far they stretch and reevaluate as needed. This house is never without it's staples... I'm never at risk of starving. So dear self, be patient. There's lots you want to buy, cook and taste, I know. But there is time, just wait and see.

Any tips for single ladies who love to cook but really only need to feed one person? I'm open to advice.

what i want to remember.

i've been writing out this blog post all the way home. i just got back from hearing shauna niequist speak at ada bible and my mind has been buzzing the whole time. november 2 is a date i have been looking forward to for weeks. and it was even more than i anticipated it would be. while i should probably let the night percolate a little longer, there are a few things i'd like to remember in the meantime.

- so much more is possible for my life than i imagine for myself
- discipline is important and necessary. (this point has been driven home twice so far this week and it's only tuesday)
- life is bittersweet... not just this season.
- when you're in a creative job, you need to be able to draw on inspiration at any time... you can't just wait for it to hit you. to do this you need to be really careful about what you fill up your life with, what you allow yourself to take in. this means reading good books, surrounding yourself with great people... making sure your life is full of inspiration from many sources.
- i want to read: a moveable feast by hemingway... and more ruth reichl... and i should definitely start reading the help... i feel like i need some kind of retreat where i just go somewhere and read and pray.
- it's just becoming very apparent that it's really easy to sleepwalk through life. (it's also becoming apparent that i'm big on superlatives tonight)

... there's more to say. i'm sure i could go on and on. but there's a taco truck calling my name. (and it's not every day you can say that in GR, so i will answer)

and the world spins madly on...

tonight i saw the weepies in concert at calvin. while i had been anticipating the show for weeks, i didn't expect it to be such an emotional experience. it's hard to put into words why, but i found myself tearing up before every song. (sadly, i only got to see about 1/3 or 1/2 the show- however i was grateful to take part in the artist's conversation after the show as well.) calvin brings amazing artists into grand rapids and we are truly blessed to experience shows of this caliber. the respect they have for music is contagious. i especially loved what ken had to say in preface to the artist's convo. i highly recommend you seek out future conversations/concerts at calvin.

the weepies have been a favorite of mine since discovering them in this post by ali edwards back in 2005. and so for nearly 5 years now they have been a part of the soundtrack of my life. listening to them live tonight was like reliving so many stories. it was pure joy to experience the music, the art, the life of these two talented people... i didn't know how badly i had been waiting for this opportunity, but i'm so grateful for it.

i will not forget how fast i walked to make it to as much of this as i could. i won't forget laughing past the point of hysterics at the kid who was viewing a slideshow of best dressed celebs during the conversation with the artists. just when i thought i could do the laugh silently and rock back and forth thing, elicia rocked against me and i snorted so loud i expected everyone to turn and stare. oh the good times. God is good and He has greatly blessed my life.

a favorite peek into the daily lives of others.

habit is a simple collection of daily photos collected by various women to reflect the habits of their daily life. in their welcome the creators share that-

in some small way, we are hoping to capture the collective life of a community of women who are artists and writers, photographers and bloggers, mothers and sisters and daughters and granddaughters, and thinkers and seers and wonderers.

i definitely believe that they achieve this goal. i enjoy seeing the collection each morning pop up in my google reader. it inspires me to capture a bit more my own daily habits. as this quote suggests, there is certainly something to be celebrated in these moments that make up our life.

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.

Gertrude Stein