Working and Cooking

I think one of the many hard things about being a working mom is figuring out dinner. I enjoy cooking. It's theraputic, and unlike most areas of my life, I get to be in charge. I like to try new recipes, shop for all the ingredients, make lists, make a mess if necessary.
But when you're rolling in from the daycare pickup at 6PM and you've got to get your coat off, your 2 year old's coat off, pick up the mail, turn on the TV to entertain the 2 year old, then take the dog out and feed her... then you have to get the 2 year old's dinner ready because he's ravenous... then your husband walks in and it's 6:30... and you haven't even started making your dinner but thank god the two year old is fed...
Well as you can see it can get a bit chaotic.

Much to my own dismay, I've fallen back on convenience foods. Not in abundance. But I enjoy frozen pizza, the bagged Bertoli pasta dinners (though we usually need 2 bags, and only if they're on sale), and taquitos. They are used occassionally to buy me another night of not having to do the dinner time shuffle. The Pillsbury dough boy and Prego help me out occassionally too.

I do a lot of pastas with sauce, or ground beef dishes because they're easy and quick. I try to make my own spaghetti sauce most of the time. I'd say 75% of the time I make my own sauce. I also try to cook big on Sunday and/or Monday so we can eat on the leftovers for a couple of days. I also have to announce before we start eating that "This (fill in the blank with whatever I'm serving) has to last us 2-3 days... so don't snarf it down!"

A lot of people swear by their crockpots. I love mine (I have several) but I'm usually never organized enough to throw the contents of a dinner in there before I leave for work. Mornings are super-hectic as is... but that's a whole other blog! I enjoy a good crockpot meal here and there. I'm going to try to post a couple of my favorite throw-together-in-a hurry recipes here over the next couple of days. And I'd love to see some from other people as well.