July 06th, 2017

The refrigerator seems to be a little leftover heavy right now.  It happens sometimes.  People have different attitudes about leftovers, I know. Usually I don't mind.  In fact there are some things that taste better after an overnight sit in the chiller.  Soups and stews come to mind immediately.  But I don't see any soup or stew here in these depths.

I see that there are three different salads in there right now.  A green tossed salad, a fruit salad  and a macaroni salad. That seems a excessive to me.  I love salad but how much of it can I eat at one time?  Tim likes salad too but we all like variety.  Maybe that's why there are three of them in here?

 There are little red-topped containers of this'n'that.  One of them has olives in it.  I suppose I could put the olives in one or the other of the salads.  Another leftover container has a piece of already cooked chicken in it. Exceedingly Ho-Hum.  I'm not certain what's in the other container. I'm afraid to look.

One of the bowls has boiled eggs in it ready to become egg salad sandwiches perhaps, or again, added to a salad or just eaten solo.  I  am not especially happy with these boiled eggs because my "sure-fire, never-fail, easy-to-peel cooking method" failed for the first time ever.  Usually the shell just slides right off for me. This time, I have to laboriously chip away miniscule bit by miniscule bit and the egg ends up looking like it has been struck repeatedly by meteors.  They taste fine but look awful.  I happen to know that the other bowl has Hershey kisses in it.  That's the best kind of leftover.

The saran covered plate has two sad leftover pieces of pizza on it.  They are especially sad looking because someone who shall remain nameless but whose initials are Sam Humphreys already cut the crust off and ate it.  A tragic end to a good pizza.  I should probably just throw out the remainder.  What is the point of pizza without crust?

I stood in front of the fridge this morning, thinking about what to fix for dinner tonight and kind of sighed. Tim is not a complainer. Whatever I set in front of him, he will eat without a single word of criticism as long as no mushrooms or artichokes are involved. I'm the pain in the arse about food, not him. So, for him,  I try to get creative with leftovers.   If it's meatballs with spaghetti one night, it might be meatball sandwiches another night.  Roast a chicken and I have meals for a week, of all different sorts!  Versatile thing, chicken. 

Personally, if it's something I really like and rarely have, I could eat the same exact thing every day for a week without tiring of it.  For instance, stuffed shells Florentine!  Yum!  I love that so much and almost never make it. But when I do, I can just savour it every single day until it's gone. Perfect as it is.  Leftover pizza?  Love it, in fact I love it cold right out of the fridge.   But usually, I do make an effort to make a leftover NOT appear to be an actual leftover.

Today, just not feeling inspired.  I will think of something. I always do.  But it would be nice to feel that definitive, " Okay, that's what I'm going to make" , decision already in place.  Then I can go about the rest of my day, doing all of the other things I need to do without that niggling question in the back of my mind. 

I guess tonight's dinner will be a surprise not just to Tim but to me also.  And that reminds me of when we first got married.  Every morning I would ask Tim what he would like  me to fix for dinner and every morning he would answer, "Surprise me".   Then he would come home and ask, "What's for dinner?" and eat whatever I presented with appreciation and gusto.  After months and months of that on repeat, one night he got home from work, walked in the door and said, "Hey what's for dinner" as he always did.  I turned to him with a big smile and said, "Nothing.  Surprise!"   To his credit, he laughed. We ate out that night.

That is sounding more and more like an option.

Whatever you have for dinner tonight, enjoy.