All week I have had this notion of a nice pot of (chicken) noodle soup in my head. I make a big pot of it and Edie & I can eat it for a few meals, I can freeze some and pull it out again in a month when I don’t feel like cooking again. I just haven’t gotten around to it, with work and girl scouts and swimming lessons and you know, life happening, because this version I have in my head has to be a certain way, it’s going to need time. We had pizza one night with friends, mystery container from the freezer another night. Edie was slightly freaked out by that- I had no idea what it was, I knew it was recently enough, and it didn’t look freezer burnt, but it wasn’t labeled, so I wasn’t really sure….so I pulled it out and threw it in a pot, thawed it and served it, with a grilled cheese on the side, just in case mystery container was not good. About three bites into my soup, I muttered, “Oh, beef stew” and at that point I realized my child realized I had no idea what I just served her.

“Mommy, did you not know what this was?”

“Uhm, not exactly. I knew it had dumplings in it – did you get one yet?”

She was so NOT buying it and definitely slightly horrified by it.

Tonight’s pot of soup got bumped by wandering down to Betty’s for a cup of tea and staying longer than I had intended and I realized I just didn’t feel like cooking tonight. When I suggested something from the freezer, even with the disclaimer that I would only grab a clearly marked container, I got a look, so we had daddy style mac & cheese. Which is from a box. It is the one processed food I still keep around. I love me some box mac & cheese, we all do really.

As we were sitting there at dinner, I mentioned tomorrow I’ll make that pot of soup. I got a suspicious look. I said, well, maybe I’ll start it tonight and then if I’m tired when I get home from work, it’ll be here.

“Oh, so we can actually have dinner tomorrow?”

Clearly she is not happy with my dinner efforts this week, but at least she’s been polite about it.

I have a bad habit of putting stuff in the freezer with the intent of pulling it out again next week, so I don’t need to label it, and with having so many containers looking alike, I just don’t always know what I’m pulling out. And things stay in longer than next week. I’ll admit it. Mystery beef stew was definitely a strong argument for getting better about that.