365: Day 342- Cooking One Day Ahead

12/9/13: The first snowfall of the season fell on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Monday was more of a "wintry mix", but it was enough to get S&Z very excited first thing in the morning!

The first snow of the season calls for one thing: hot chocolate!

And marshmallows!

Mmm mmm mmm!!

*****

I took the day off from work on Monday in order to do some Christmas shopping. While the kids were at school Derek and I ended up getting ourselves a Christmas present. Behold the Technivorm Moccamaster!

Derek did a bunch of research until he found this, the Cadillac of all coffee makers. It brews the best cup of coffee either of us has ever tasted! In < 8 minutes!

*****

Cook's Notes: The issue for me with cooking during the week is that because I'm a single parent most nights I can't really start making dinner until the kids go to bed. By the time dinner is ready it's between 8:30 and 9:00 and I'm absolutely starving. I end up eating a bunch of junk to tide me over until dinner is ready, and then I still end up eating too much at too late of an hour.

For me cooking on the weekend is the best solution to this problem. This weekend was so busy, however, that there was no time to get anything more than food shopping done ahead of time. Starting the week with a meal-free fridge, I realized there is a next best solution: cooking one day ahead. On Monday night I made a salad for dinner when I got home, and then prepared Stir-Fried Shiitake Mushrooms and Napa Cabbage to eat on Tuesday for dinner. On Tuesday night I ate the stir fry when I got home, and then made Turkey Bolognese after the kids went to bed, which was dinner for Wednesday night. This "one day ahead" approach seems to be a good compromise for weeks when "cooking for the week" is not realistic...

How do you handle feeding yourself/your family amidst the weekly grind?

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