What To Not Cook For Dinner

A couple of weeks ago, Steve and Charlie spent a long boys’ bonding weekend camping in Canada. Me? I gladly volunteered to stay in the city with Vivi and Jack, putting my new recycling tote to good use (see above).

It’s not that I’m anti-camping. There was a time in my early 20s when I actually enjoyed camping—at least the kind that expressly involved s’mores and beer. It’s just that I’m at a loss to come up with one good reason why camping with my five year old, three year old, and 15-month-old would be fun. Hell, due to a mysterious gas leak in our apartment building, Con Edison shut down the gas in the whole building last week for an indeterminate period of time, and that’s camping enough for me.

Actually, I feel like I’ve been involuntarily conscripted for an extreme parenting reality show: Earlier this summer, ladies and gentlemen, we tore out half of our contestant’s kitchen and took away her running water, but threw in an army of water bugs just to make things a little more interesting! This week, our contestant must come up with three square meals a day without the use of an operable stove! Will she be able to survive without her lifeblood of Kraft macaroni and cheese and Applegate Farms chicken nuggets? Can she go a week without breaking down and ordering take-out every night? Tune in and see…

We’ve either been out of town or subsisting on leftovers, bowls of cereal, Popsicles, and frozen waffles, but here’s what the little three and I came up with to not cook this week:

Peach and Prosciutto Salad with Yogurt, Feta Cheese, and Herbs

(from Dannon advertisement in “Better Homes and Gardens”, June 2009)

Ingredients:

-3/4 cup Dannon Plain Yogurt

-1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

-1/4 cup sliced scallions

-2 tbsp. chopped parsley

-2 large, ripe peaches, halved, pitted, and sliced

-1/4 lb. prosciutto, julienned

-salt and pepper to taste

-6 cups arugula leaves

Directions:

-In a bowl, combine yogurt, feta, scallions, and parsley. Mix well. Add peaches and prosciutto. Toss to coat and season to taste.

-Top arugula with peach yogurt mixture and serve. Serves 6.

I just hope that next week’s parenting challenge does not involve pulling out our indoor plumbing. I mean, this is fun and all, but that would be really, really fun.