Too Busy To Cook? Not An Option For Me

"As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again!" -Scarlett O'Hara

Say what you will about this iconic scene in an iconic film (it's ok. We can say the film and the book it's based on is extremely racist, among many things) but I really identified with Scarlett this past week or so.

Here's the play-by-play:

After my surgery in August, I came home and got to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. A lot. Lots of thumbs. Lots of sun. Lots of spending time with friends.

And then, the party was over. Time to get back to business which, for me, included a huge soar in business combined with part-time grad school AND some other side gigs that make my heart happy. READ: booked schedule. No time to shop, no time to eat (3 night meetings in one week) and no time--no time--to cook. This, my dear readers, is not an option.

About mid-week, I found myself facing this plate (brace yourselves):

that's canned tuna and frozen spinach (warmed-up)

You know what that's called? Pathetic. Yep. Pathetic.

That's what happens when I don't make time to prepare real food for myself. And guess what else was happening? I was shoving anything I could find into my face because I was starving (real food has the nutrients we need, so technically I was starving myself while also being ravenously hungry) which led to two realities:

1) I was gaining weight
2) I was pissing away a lot of my hard-earned money on a fraction of the food I could make myself

When I peeked into a pot of chili in a store and heard myself say aloud, "I could make that. And better, too." I knew it was time.

You might have thought the canned tuna on a plate would be the rock bottom. It was damn close.

So, I woke up bright and early today and prioritized work that needed to get done, emails that needed to be answered, friends who I had plans to see (love love) and, most of all, cooking myself some damn food for the week. I did some simple math for a recipe which you can find right here: TURKEY 2-BEAN CHILI. About 8 oz of it at a cafe or another locale cost me ~$5.00-$7.00. The last place literally made me cry. About 5 oz of broth, a few pieces of meat and some corn. $5.39 I can't get back.

Here's the breakdown of my meal:

TURKEY 2-BEAN CHILI

2 lbs fresh dark ground turkey meat: $11.00
1 can organic diced tomatoes: $2.69
1 can black beans: $2.39
1 can adzuki beans: $2.39 (the Eden brand costs a bit more, for good reason. Their cans are safer and they add kombu to their beans, adding to their nutrient density)
1 onion: $ .67
1 carrot: $ .28
=
$19.42 divided by about 9-10 servings is------------ $2.15 per serving.

This is why being too busy to cook isn't an option for me.

The sheer savings of money, alone, is good incentive to say nothing of the pleasure I derived from taking charge of my damn health today AND filling the house with incredible smells and some damn fine food, if I do say so myself.

That panicked feeling of grasping for crap? No more of that, thanks.