My grandmother had a plaque in her kitchen that I never really understood as a child. It said:

The faster I go, the further I fall behind. (or is it farther? I always mix those two up).

But as a kid, I could never understand how doing something faster could take longer than doing it slowly. Apparently the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare was also lost on me.

Lately, I’ve found myself repeating that old saying, particularly as I find myself short on time with an almost-full-time job, an always full-time toddler, a never-ending to-do list of house chores, houseguests, travels, etc. It’s true that when I try to hurry through something, let’s say making dinner, I always make a mistake that ends up costing me time in the end.

DadJovi proved this point this weekend.

On Easter, we were quickly trying to get the green beans into the crockpot before heading out to Blizzard Beach for a couple hours. He was rushing around the kitchen like a whirling dervish. I tried to get him to chill out once, but it didn’t work. He gets crazy eyes when he wants to finish a task quickly.

He was looking for diced tomatoes, so he rushed over to the pantry, grabbed the first can of tomatoes he saw and opened it. Too bad it was a can of tomato sauce. 32 ounces of tomato sauce, to be exact.

“This isn’t what I wanted!”

Back to the pantry he ran. This time, he opened the next can he saw. It was closer this time. This time is was whole tomatoes. Again, 32 ounces of them. After he started to look for his third can of tomatoes, he realized he could cut the tomatoes up for the green bean mixture.

By the time the beans were on, I was left with an open can of 32 ounces of sauce and about 30 ounces of whole tomatoes in sauce.

When rushing husbands give you tomatoes, what do you do? Make marinara sauce, of course!

Since I had to take the afternoon off work yesterday because E’s school was closed (a teacher workday for preschool? Whatevs), I decided to use that time to whip a giant batch of tomato sauce. So I chopped up a bunch of carrots, onions, celery, and garlic, sauteed them, added all the tomatoes and let it simmer all afternoon.

And it made for a quick and easy dinner tonight! The rest is waiting in the freezer for another day.

Mmmmm, marinara:

A little bit of browned turkey and it was a hearty, thick sauce. Yum!

So I guess in this case, we got behind on Easter dinner but ahead for a weekday meal. We’ll call it a wash. But I’m on the hunt for a plaque just like my grandmother’s