I just heat and serve.
I didn't cook dinner tonight. Not really.
The bulgogi taught me something about my evenings.
Tonight I made bulgogi for the kids. Well ...um... "made" ... Trader Joe's made it.
Weeks ago, in a kitchen I'll never see, somebody sliced the beef, mixed the marinade, and let it sit exactly as long as it needed to.
My whole job tonight was to heat and stir for 12 minutes and put it on plates.12 minutes. And the kids ate the whole thing. I used to feel a little guilty about nights like this.
Like, it doesn't count as cooking if I didn't start from raw ingredients and a cutting board.
Here's what I actually thought about, standing at the stove. The hard part was already done. Somebody did it in advance, at a time I wasn't tired, so that tonight, kids hungry, me still hours from clocking out of my actual day, I only had to do the easy 10% of the job.
That's not cheating. That's the whole idea.
Most nights, I don't get that lucky with my business.
Most nights, the kids go down and I sit at the laptop and start deciding. What do I work on?
What's the priority?
Where did I leave off? I'm doing the slicing and the marinating and the cooking, from scratch, at the exact hour I have the least energy in me to do any of it.
That's not a discipline problem. That's a prep problem.
The nights my evening routine actually works are the nights I already decided, earlier, when I had more in the tank, what the one task was going to be.
The laptop opens to it. I don't negotiate with myself at 9:15. I just heat it up and go.
The nights it doesn't work are the nights I show up to a cold stove with raw ingredients and forty minutes I don't have.
Here's the practical version of this, if you want to try it tonight:
Pick the one thing your evening routine makes you decide over and over, what to work on, what to post, what email to write. Pre-make the decision once, in advance, on a day you're not exhausted. Write it down. Leave it where future-you will see it.
You're not asking tired-you to cook from scratch. You're asking tired-you to hit reheat.
Small kitchens, small hours. Same idea either way.
Until then, take care!
Adriel
P.S. The kids already asked for the same bulgogi tomorrow. I'm already planning on it, but then, it's a short day at school, so maybe not. That's the other thing about pre-made, it's allowed to become the routine. (especially if it's somewhat healthy and they love it)