learning to un-plan

Last night was a wonderful example of good things that can happen when I don’t plan all the time!  Chris invited his dad and step mom over for dinner last night.  We were going to try to make some seared tuna that his step mom had given to us, but it wasn’t even close to being defrosted since we took it out of the freezer too late.  Ok, move to plan B. . . 

I made some lemony tofu pesto pasta the night before on Friday thinking I was going to take it over to a friend’s house for a little pot luck.  Chris ended up getting home pretty late from a meeting, and their house was all the way across town, so I decided to skip it to be able to wake for the gym the next morning (I hadn’t made it to the gym all week so I was getting a little antsy and felt the need). 

So . . . I thought I’ll just heat up that pesto pasta and pair it with some balsamic marinated chicken for tonight!  ‘That will work, but I don’t really have any other stuff, what if they won’t like it that much?  It has tomatoes in it and Chris’ dad hates tomatoes.’  Then Chris invited two other friends to come over last minute.  ‘Wait!  I haven’t planned for this, I need to have things all situated, more appetizers, need to clean, do wash, aaaaahhh!’  This was my inner self talking and feeling a bit out of the comfort zone lol  But I humbly agreed and hoped we would have enough food and the day old pasta would be ‘good’ enough for my guests.  I want them to really enjoy my food and come back! 

Turns out the dinner party went pretty darn well!  I mean the pasta wasn’t perfect, got a little cold and was slightly not as bright green as the day before, but it tasted pretty darn good.  That’s all that mostly matters, right?  Chris BBQ’d the chicken and it was a little chewy, but it was still pretty tasty.  I had other munchies like cheese and crackers, along with pretzels and nuts, but I think people secretly wanted to have a little more food.  I should have made something like a salad, but we ended up making smores and having some vanilla ice cream with a drizzling of cabernet (you have to try this!), so that worked out.  Who doesn’t like a little dessert?  Sorry no picture :(

We ended up going through 4 bottles of wine!!  And everything’s better with a little wine, right?  lol  We also played a fun game of Cranium into the night.  I love this game, but I am terrible at it lol

Overall success!  Should I have worried so much about not having everything perfectly mapped out?  No, it’s really not that big of a deal, but you know that is something that I’m working on and when something like this happens on a whim it moves me forward in the right direction :)  It’s weird because sometimes I will just do things spontaneously that I normally wouldn’t and it’s really cool, but other times I think about it too much and that’s when I get into a funk.  I say just go for it, whatever it may be!

Home Goods is the best for fun, cheap serving bowls and all kinds of other stuff for the home . . .

So here is the recipe for lemony tofu pesto pasta.  It’s a great dish for at least 6 people as a side.  And hey, it’s even not bad the next day!  It won’t be as bright green, but it’s pretty darn tasty in my opinion :)

 

This time around, in addition to the version above . . .

• I used two lemons because the ones I had were pretty small
• added 1/2 an avocado to the sauce to make it extra luscious. 
• cubed some fontina cheese to add in at the end to get slightly melt-y
• instead of home made linguini, I used boxed farfalle pasta, and you can use any kind you like really 
• I had about 1/2 cup of pesto leftover to use in other things like sandwiches, yum!

For the chicken I used a really simple, but flavorful balsamic marinade that gets really sweet and slightly tangy.  In a bag, along with about 1.25 pounds of chicken breasts, you add:

• balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, olive oil, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and that’s it! 
• You can also reserve the marinade, reduce it down slowly and baste the chicken with it and serve it on the side as a drizzle sauce. 

So I say let’s not plan for once, just go out there and do anything spontaneous!  Who’s with me?

What have you done today that was spontaneous and fun?