Necessity really is the Mother of Invention in the kitchen

Not the kind of book you might expect me to write; a book about my kids, my dogs, or MacGyver. I’m gonna write a cook book.

I’m still working on the perfect title, but here are some ideas:

Crap I Found in my Pantry and Turned Into Dinner

Crap I Found in my Fridge and Turned Into Dinner

Crap I Found in my Pantry That I Put WITH the Crap I Found in my Fridge and Turned Into Dinner

Hmmm…I may have to write sequels.

Wait! NO! I GOT IT!

Desperate Dinners

That’s PERFECT! (by the way, I just put that under copyright, so don’t even try to steal it)

My cookbook, Desperate Dinners ©, will be crammed full of tasty, quick, easy pantry-purging meals that will satisfy extraordinarily picky teenagers and a husband who’ll eat anything to make you happy.

The inspiration for my new venture stemmed from my 21 years of poor planning. I know people who actually go to the grocery store WITH A LIST. Not only is it organized by aisle, it’s comprised of products they actually intend to use. I love that concept. Not enough to fully embrace it and learn the art of meal planning, but I sure do admire my BFFs who can pull it off week after week.

My romps to the grocery store typically take place AFTER one of my Desperate Dinner © nights when I have rendered the pantry and/or fridge completely devoid of anything edible. Maybe I’ll write a book called Desperate Grocery Shopping (also just copyrighted, thank you), too. It could be a prequel or a sequel, depending on how you look at it.

So, Desperate Dinners are the result of poor planning and nearly barren shelves. But as School House Rock alluded to, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.,” and, by gum, some of my most desperate dinners were my best!

Until I get my act together, however, and actually compile the recipes in some sort of book, I’m going to do my darndest to document them here. That way, when my kids say, “Hey, that was actually pretty good. You should make it again.” I won’t have to look at them with a frozen, horrified stare realizing I have no idea what ingredients I used to make it. (I have literally rummaged through the garbage before looking for the empty cans that might have gone into that night’s recipe.)

Here’s to Desperate Dinners with a nod to Mother Necessity. “Mother Necessity With her good intentions, Where would this country be Without her inventions?”