Hot Dogs are only good if they're grilled.

My dinner tonight was not only disappointing, it was bordering on disgusting.  I try to cook during the week.  I feel like I go through spurts, where I'll cook three days in a row, and then go five days living off of either leftovers, random findings in the fridge or ordering out. 

As a child, I grew up with my mother putting a delicious meal on the table every single night.  Dinner that I could smell from the street, riding by the house on my bicycle.  Chicken Marsala, Breaded Chicken, Steak Pizziaola, Baked Scrod, Macaroni and Meatballs, Pasta Fagioli, pizza, spinach pie, you name it, my mama made it.  And she made it good.  And I'm talking no shortcuts.  The very first time I ever ate frozen pizza was in college.  The first time I ever had jarred "pasta sauce" was after college.  Oh, and by the way, we never called it "pasta."  It was either macaroni or spaghetti.  I don't understand where this infatuation with the work pasta came from....Pasta was homemade, macaroni and spaghetti came in a box.  But I digress...  If we ever "ordered out," it would be on an occasional Friday when my mom was tired or not feeling well and we protested against leftovers.  I mean, seriously.  My kindergarten book was entitled, "We all love food."  Only that can come from a house of food lovers.

As I am now older, living away from my mother and married, I find that I would much rather bake cookies and cakes than cook a wholesome dinner.  And I'll tell you, it's formed some habits that I don't really like (that after tonight's dinner, I have made a mental promise with myself to change).  The thing that gets me, is I figure that if I buy the cookbooks, I'll end up cooking more....But all I can really say about that is that I have more cookbooks than what fits in the cupboard over the microwave.  And I never use them (this is also going to change).

Tonight, my dinner consisted of yogurt and saltines (before my husband got home), a baked potato with a dollop of sour cream on it, two fat free hot dogs and a salad with goat cheese.  So I have a number of comments about this:

• The yogurt has been sitting in the refrigerator for over a week.  I go food shopping every couple of weeks, and while my intentions are always to fill up the cupboards and refrigerator with healthy food, I often end up throwing it away.  I decided when I got home today, in order to fulfill my hunger, I would have a yogurt.  It was good.
• Saltines.  Seriously gross.  I mean, if you have some cheese or peanut butter, they're not terrible, but I ate them plain.  Yup.  Drinking a lot of water right now.
• I could have spent the 30 minutes between when I got home and when my husband got home preparing something for dinner.  Instead, I ate my yogurt and saltines while watching the end of "The Prince & Me, II" on TMC while waiting for Twilight:  New Moon to come on.  (Terrible, I know).
• When Scott did get home, and he asked me, "What are you feeding me," and I thought, "What am I feeding myself?"
• Scott suggested hot dogs, and I figured potatoes would compliment them OK.  There is a shared grille for the condo, but the neighbors have really abused it, so we really try not to use it.  SO.....
• Boiled hot dogs?  NO.  These are fat free hot dogs.  The last time I boiled them, I was happy I had a lot of bread to mask the flavor of them.  While they're good grilled, they're terrible boiled.
• So I cooked them on the griddle.  Yes, I did.  Needless to say, two hot dogs (minus one bite) made it into the garbage can.  I don't recommend ever doing this.  They were worse than the boiled hot dogs and I had no bread.
• I needed to replace the hot dogs with something...So I opted for salad with goat cheese.  This was a much more acceptable choice.

So, boys and girls.  What needs to change?  I need to actually USE my cookbooks and decide what I want to cook throughout the week.  Then I need to go food shopping accordingly.  I'll update you with my progress.