she-ra
I didn’t take a picture of last night’s dinner because I made a whole chicken and butternut squash and quite frankly, you’ve all seen cooked chicken and squash before.
But maybe you’re looking for a recipe. OK then:
- Sprinkle some Mrs. Dash on a whole chicken (I used the one in with the teal coloured lid, I think it was garlic & herb? I have a few)
- Cut the squash in half
- Scoop out guts
- Throw butter in gut-hole
- Place in 350 degree oven
- Go fart around on the internet
- Have a bath
- Read
- Take it out in about an hour and 20 minutes.
- Eat
Not rocket science, right? Which is kind of the point of this post. It is not THAT HARD to eat well.
Oooh look at me on my second day of this diet, I’ve MASTERED THE EATING UNIVERSE ET CETERA!
Actually, I said it before – in general, we eat quite healthily. This dinner is nothing out of the norm for us. It’s what we consider healthy, affordable and it fits our schedules. We like to eat like this.
But dude(s), honestly, I like crap too. My favourite food groups are burgers, French fries, pizza and ice cream. I know I can’t eat that stuff every day and expect to feel good or look good or be healthy. But I am SO an “everything in moderation” girl. SO MUCH. I am eliminating these things from my world for a while, until I lose some weight, but will I eat them again? OH HELL YES. Life is too short not to.
That’s my philosophy (our philosophy, really. Andrew and I feel very similarly on this). Like I said earlier, we’ve fallen into some bad habits lately. Our dinners are usually fairly healthy but we do (oh boy do we) splurge occasionally. For the next few months, we need to splurge less and I need to concentrate on making my lunches and breakfasts as healthy as our dinners are. A little preparation on my part has made this seem almost effortless.
But back to my point. Our dinner could not have been easier. It was no harder to sprinkle some herbs on a chicken and throw it in the oven than it would have been to to wrestle a pizza out of the shrink wrap and throw it in the oven. And it was probably cheaper too. We found chicken on sale for $12 for a package of two*. The squash was about a buck. Factoring in butter and the herbs, our dinner cost less than $10 and there was enough chicken left over for Andrew to have for lunch today.
Easy. Not expensive.
We do have a food budget. We may spend more on food than others do, but that’s OK with us. We enjoy good food and it’s a priority to us. Sometimes it IS cheaper to eat crap and sometimes people don’t have a choice – that really bothers me. I’m not judging anyone who makes their food decisions based on economics, but this dinner wasn’t expensive, I hope by most people’s standards.
I also know I have a bit more time on my hands than a lot of people. I have no kids, a one bedroom apartment to take care of and I live five minutes from my office. But I also know there are some days when I would rather claw my own eyes out than figure out what to make, shop and then cook when I get home. The freezer section may call out in these situations, but I need to remind myself that the meal I prepared last night was no more difficult to make than throwing pre-made food into the oven is.
Anyway. I’m not writing this because I think I’ve solved the world’s eating and meal planning issues. Time, money and scheduling all play parts in it, I know. I’m not saying I’m right or anyone else is wrong. I ate a fucking chicken for dinner last night. It was good. It was easy. It was inexpensive. I liked it. I think you might too.
* Obviously not organic. More on that later. That shit is expensive, yo.
In: general · Tagged with: "primal eating"