Time Well Spent

At this point, I think I'm known as someone that will just throw things together and hope they turn out edible. I mean, really. How efficient is it to head over to the grocery store EVERY time I want to try something new? It's not, unfortunately - and I never have the energy to do it (ok, maybe sometimes). I have a stack of recipes that I would love to try, but who knows if I'll ever get to them. I can only drool at the photos and imagine what they might taste like.

The reality is - we're busy. Everyone's busy. We don't always have the time to spend an hour or more making a meal. In fact, I just read the other day that Americans, on average, only spend about 30 minutes on meal preparation - as opposed to other countries that spend about 2 to 2 1/2 hours on a meal. I'll tell you what - give me an extra 2 hours for every dinner, and I'll use it. I would love to have that time to make something awesome;  homemade pasta, fresh - homemade bread... I could go on for a while. I can only do this on weekends - if I'm home.

What would you make for dinner if you had an extra 2 hours to create it? Would you invite people over for dinner more often? Would you take more time to actually eat your food, versus scarfing it down? When I started writing this post, it was not my intention to talk about our food eating habits, but it's part of our everyday lives - and it just came to me. I have half of a bushel of peaches sitting on my dining room table - that we bought on Sunday. I haven't touched them yet. I also have a reusable grocery bag full of cucumbers and yellow peppers that we picked in our 'community garden' (shared with two friends) on Sunday - they're still sitting in the kitchen. And what about that giant zucchini I just got from a co-worker today? I should probably do something with it. My problem is that I easily get inspired, and then I run out of time. Especially during Shark Week.

Where was I going with this? Well - my husband travels a lot and sometimes I end up with random leftovers in the fridge that don't really accumulate to a meal. I typically fry myself some eggs when I'm home alone and call it good. This time, I got inspired. I had some fresh broccoli, tomatoes, fresh thyme, bacon and 1/2 a box of pasta. Remember when I was working on creating my own pan sauces? This was another attempt. I added some garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and leftover white wine (leftover wine? I'm not sure how that happened either).

It was ok. The bacon really added a lot of flavor, as usual, and the broccoli really soaked up the juices well. Like I mentioned in the past post - practice makes perfect. I'll keep practicing.

Whether I liked it or not, I ate it for lunch for the next week. It's tough cooking for one or two!