Casserole Wars
Posted by: SueMy husband is very very good about frugality. He goes along with most things without complaint. He comes up with a lot of frugal finds on his own. He seems to get as much of a kick out of frugality as I do, and he definitely likes the results – especially the “more money stays with us” part.
Still, there’s been an occasional rebellion along the way. One in particular comes to mind. For background, you need to know that my husband is casserole-phobic. Too many tuna casseroles while growing up, combined with the fact that his mom was, well, maybe not a contender for the show “Worst Cooks in America”. But she freely admitted that she never liked to cook. I remember her telling me, in an excited voice, about some new instant meal in a box that had a can of meat product in it so you didn’t even need to buy meat to add, and wasn’t that a great invention? She even served it while we were there once, and it was pretty much a salt lick with some chemicals thrown in, or so it tasted. But as a result of eating so many hot dish type meals while growing up, my husband hates what he perceives to be traditional casseroles – which I initially assumed meant anything that has “cream of” soup in it. Fine, cream soups very rarely darken our doorway. I kind of like casseroles myself, but I’ll do my best to accommodate his preferences. But here’s the thing: it’s not only things containing “cream of” that are casseroles, at least to my husband’s way of thinking. He also calls other things “casseroles.” Things like chicken cacciatore, chicken divan, beef stew, chili - but those are casseroles that he’s willing to eat. Not all the time, mind you. But he’ll eat ‘em, and he does love my quickie chicken cacciatore. I mean, he really loves it. And chili, he likes that, too. Of course, that could be explained by the fact that I make chili with chunks of beef or pork, not ground meat. Apparently there are different grades of casserole, in my husband’s way of thinking. Some casseroles he is willing to eat. Others, not so much.
That’s the background story. On to the rebellion. This rebellion came when I attempted to serve Buffalo Chicken Spaghetti AND Turkey Paprikash in the same week.
Husband: That’s two casseroles in one week. Plus leftovers. So casseroles every day this week.
(Note: I had already froze the Buffalo Chicken Spaghetti leftovers, so at that point I wasn’t sure what he was talking about with the “every day” bit, or the leftover part.)
Me: No, we had sliced turkey on Monday, and we’re only going to have what you call “casseroles” twice. That’s not every day in my book.
Husband: We had casseroles every day last week.
Me: Wait, what? What casserole….
Oh, shoot. At that moment, I remembered that I made a BIG batch of paella last week. Apparently that’s the casserole in question. We had it for dinner a couple nights, and my husband WILLINGLY took it in his lunch a few days as well. But still…paella? That’s hardly tuna casserole. I always thought it was sort of gourmet, myself. Oh, yeah. Did I mention HE was the one who found the recipe and said “This looks good. We should try it.”? If it’s a casserole, why did he want to try it?
I think when my husband was a kid, he said to himself “When I’m a grownup, I won’t have to eat casseroles.” Or something like that. If he could, he’d just eat huge chunks of meat for dinner every night, with a salad and maybe a potato. Yeah, that would be good for the food budget. And his health. No wait. It wouldn’t.
So, we compromise. My husband said he’d rather have a sandwich for dinner than a “casserole”. So the next day, I took a couple of rolls out of the freezer and toasted them, took a container of homemade soup out of the freezer and heated it up, and we had soup, salad and ham sandwiches. And my husband was just as happy as a lark. Wait, I don’t think I even know what a lark is. Happy as a loon comes to mind…
Anyway, the following night, he was perfectly content with turkey paprikash. The soup and sandwich meal apparently broke up the string of “casseroles”. To head off a repeat of the casserole war, I started involving him more with meal planning. Because I needed some guidance, since I am not always clear on what constitutes a casserole. Paella - which has meat, seafood, veggies and rice - is a casserole. But stir fry, which has meat and/or seafood, veggies and rice - isn’t. I can’t for the life of me figure this one out on my own. But since involving my husband in meal planning, there hasn’t been a meal rebellion that I can remember.