CynthiaWVirginia
Posts: 1915
Joined: 2/28/2010 From: West Virginia, USA Status: offline
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At one of our dollar stores, I found compartmented containers with lids. Think deep dish tv dinners with three compartments. Mom and I both made homemade tv dinners one night per week...it made the week easier to get through. There are crock pot recipes for layered lasagna, where the noodles go into it dry. You can throw in a pork roast, shred it when cooked, and toss it back in for a while with some BBQ sauce. I went several years without an oven, just using a two burner camping stove, some crock pots, and a food steamer. With the steamer, I'd do six potatoes at a time and then use them over the next four to five days. There are crock pot recipe books, some even with few ingredients that are very easy to make. Psst...you can even "bake cake" in a crock pot. It just sounds to me like she is tired. Doing up a family type balanced meal is different from slopping some stuff from a can onto a plate, so I'm in agreement with others that the work is getting too much and she needs a break. Offering to do the dishes and kitchen cleanup afterward as well as other chores around the house would be...nice. If you have a tv dinner type tray table, ask her to put you to work on some of the meal prep while the both of you watch tv. Peel potatoes, core strawberries, tear lettuce and slice stuff to put on top of it. I taught my son how to make dozens of waffles with a waffle iron and then freeze them. We nuke one or two at a time, serving it up with some fruit on the side and maybe some pre-cooked Jimmy Dean sausage, or some pre-cooked bacon. Add a coffee and six ounces of OJ and it looks like a feast. Make a nice crock pot full of chili, put it into the larger slot in the "tv dinner", buy a can of Mexican style corn and put some of this in one of the smaller slots. Bake (we used a toaster oven) some Jiffy cornbread and cut a square and put it into the remaining slot. When reheating this, remove the cornbread and put it back into the tray only during the one minute, or else you will get a dried out rock hard brick. Talk with her. She might want all of this from you, some of it, and/or a day or two to herself per week. In CollarMe's recipe area, I wonder if anyone has posted that recipe for "fiesta salad"...
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