Called Out After Only Two Strikes

I'm not a great cook.  I'm not a fancy cook.  I'm just a mom who has to figure out something homemade to have on the table for dinner every night, while trying to stick to a tight grocery budget.  Can you relate?

Tomorrow is also pay day and, thanks to being out of town last week, Mother Heidi's cupboard (and grocery budget) are bare.  I thought I had things figured out and was good to go until the grocery envelope gets re-filled Friday.

WRONG!

Recently chicken thighs were on sale at the grocery store so I picked them up to make this super yummy Herb & Citrus Roasted Chicken.   I took the package of thighs out of the freezer earlier today with plans to have the citrus chicken tonight.   Well . . . at 4pm I realized that not only were the thighs still frozen, they were still SOLID.  Hmmm.  I know from experience the grocery store wrapping isn't water proof and the package was too big to fit into a Ziploc so defrosting the meat in water wasn't an option.

Time for Plan B.  With a bare cupboard. Difficult, but not impossible.  Strike 1.   I put the chicken in the fridge and figured we'd just have that tomorrow night.

Hmmm . . .

About that time Stacy from Stacy Makes Cents was asking what everyone was having for dinner on her Facebook page. I scrolled through the comments for last minute ideas. One person commented she was making tuna noodle casserole.  Hmmmm . . . .  Well, it's not my favorite, but I figured it would do in a pinch.  (I'm very fortunate that my husband isn't very picky and he would've taken one for the team, even if he didn't like it.)  I started searching recipes and realized I didn't have all the ingredients.  My mind started going and I finally decided I could make an impromptu variation.

I cooked the pasta, I made my homemade cream of soup mix (I keep a quart sized mason jar full of mix in my cabinets), added the mushrooms and went to the laundry room (my kitchen doesn't have a pantry so I use a linen closet in the laundry room to store my dry goods) to grab a can of tuna . . . only to remember that I donated all the cans in my pantry during my church's food drive last month.  DOH.

By this time it was 5pm, the kids were already bathed and in their pajamas since we'd just gone swimming and I was still in my swim suit.   Going to the grocery store wasn't an option.  Having my husband swing by the grocery store for a can of tuna on the way home wasn't really an option, either because I'd still have to bake the casserole for 30 minutes after he got home and that would make dinner (and bedtimes) VERY late.

Strike 2

I put the cooked pasta in a plastic storage container and covered it with the homemade cream of mushroom soup.   Since I already have tomorrow night's dinner defrosting in the fridge it looks like I'm assembling a freezer meal tomorrow AFTER I buy tuna at the grocery store.

I called myself out of the kitchen after the 2nd strike.  I texted my husband and asked "About 15 minutes before you're ready to leave work can you call and order a pizza?"  (We're fortunate our grocery store has a pizza kitchen where we can get a 16" pizza with 2 toppings for a decent price)

I'm sitting here frustrated that we're spending money on pizza. I'm frustrated the chicken didn't defrost in time.  I'm frustrated I didn't check to insure we had tuna before I started cooking.  I think the thing I'm most frustrated about though is that we're having pizza and I STILL have to clean up a mess in the kitchen since I already started cooking.

The good news is I have a couple of meals already planned, meaning I can extend next week's meal plan out a little bit :)