At the mercy of the food police

I am a self-admitted bad cook. Okay, not a terrible cook -- I can bring water to a boil without scorching it -- but I'm definately an uninspired cook.

That's the real reason I have 31 meals pre-planned that I use on a rotating basis. What? Me come up with something creative in the kitchen? Sorry, all that creative energy just got expended on my main characters!

We eat okay, but nothing to write home about -- or to write to school about. So imagine my panic when The Kiddo divested her bookbag of one (1) weekly food survey.

It was a chart, and The Kiddo was to fill it out with what she has for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The point, of course, is to teach healthy eating habits. But, oh, my, I'm about to get busted for enabling The Kiddo's Lucky Charms addiction.

Luckily The Husband in a stroke of complete serendipity prepared a grilled cheese sandwich for The Kiddo for breakfast yesterday morning, and supper was chili and cornbread, so I looked good, if I do say so myself.

This morning, though, The Husband said, "Now that they're checking meals, you need to cook healthier stuff." He proceeded to fry the child an egg.

It's not that I'm loading The Kiddo up on deep fried chicken tenders and french fries (I don't.) It's just that ... well, vegetables that I can afford bore the stew out of me. What is there in the frozen foods department besides baby limas, green beans, and turnip greens that are fit to eat? I've tried frozen carrots (yech), frozen broccoli (double yech) and the brussels sprouts are pretty much hit or miss.

Couple that with The Kiddo's strong propensity for noodles, and sometimes the only vegetable on the table will be the chopped up garlic that I used to season the pasta sauce (I know, I am a bad, bad mommy.) She likes salads (as long as they're caesar with no hint of carrots), but my grocery budget sometimes won't stretch to the arm-and-a-leg price tag on romaine lettuce.

I miss fresh summer squash and eggplants and sweet potatoes. Those are the interesting veggies. They also tend to be the expensive veggies that The Kiddo, most conveniently, won't touch a morsel of. Sigh.

Well, maybe the lack of those Happy Meals will make up for the lack of veggies? But if the food police come and arrest me, will someone bail me out?