What's for dinner? Meal planning for the unemployed

We were walking in the Hundred Acre Wood this morning- my husband, the dogs and me- taking in the full glory of its crisp, Fall-fresh promise. The sun cast an angular glow across fields of gasping emerald green grasses (hanging on to life) and the brittle tan who'd succumbed. Baxter Thor and Finnegan raced across the lot, tromping both the living and the dead, focused on gaining the advantage- any advantage would satisfy. Pike's Peak hung hazy above the horizon as my feet crunched rocks and sand on autopilot. I was contemplating the meaning of an interrupted dream.

In the midst of all this reverie, my husband asked, What's for dinner?

I did not invent the above scene. I was snapped from contemplation into bafflement. (Is that a word, bafflement? Because if it is, I will have to select another.) I was completely buffooned, transported into stunned no mans land, treading airy fairy ground, where I hung like a hanged woman, before cutting the noose and taking the Fall.

What's for dinner? A far distant occasion at the end of a day I had yet to occupy. Breakfast and lunch hadn't graced my stomach much less tweaked my synapses, and my husband was asking about dinner?

"It's something to look forward to," he muttered.

AH. It hit me: the vague ambivalence of a day unemployed; the vast caverns between mountain tops of possibility; the rare human touch of a resume world.

Food was sensory salvation in the midst of struggle.

I resolved to plan a week of meals that would titillate his senses, give him reason to render himself vulnerable over and over, as with each cold call came the possibility of rejection.

And so, I began my research.

I wanted to plan a week of meals that satisfied three constraints:

1. Meals must be inexpensive, considering we had no income. (And I mean NO income. Because my husband was asked to resign, the relief of an unemployment check was moot.)

2. Meals must be packed with nutrition; empty calories cost money. I wanted ingredients that kept our bodies healthy and our minds motivated, versus sluggish.

3. Meals must be appealing, which meant tasty and varied.

I found a few informative links that fit my menu constraints and I listed these below. But before you examine them, click on How to Become An Urban Food Forager, or watch some of the videos I added to this hub. These sites illustrate the creativity of a population determined not to be flattened by the insensitive words, You're fired or You are now one of the unemployed or We don't need you anymore. They transform the question, What's for dinner? into something beyond adventurous!

I am so distracted by innovation! My adrenaline pumps me up and I want to dive into a dumpster myself. Or dig up some hidden turnips. Still, I have before me a blank shopping list and nothing for tonight's dinner. I need to move ahead with an immediate plan of action.

Focused on the need to find some suitable solution to my husband's question, What's for dinner? I wrapped myself in the research effort and in all the foraging, forgot a couple important issues:

1. I need to work within a budget. I will have to price this out at the grocery store and insert substitutions where necessary. Shopping healthy on a budget is a full time job.

2. Our printer is not working. I will have to download it onto a disc and take it to Office Depot to print. Ugh. Or, I can send it to my cell phone. The wonders of modern technology...

3. My daughter needs the car to go to work at 3:30. I have roughly two hours to get the shopping done! With the store fifteen minutes away, this gives me an hour and a half to deposit my budgeted money in the bank, find the items and return home successful.

I believe I can do this. I believe I will do this. Because if I don't, we will have store-roasted chicken for dinner despite "The Plan."