What do you forget as part of dinner

OK. This is the time for self examination. Maybe it is only me.

Rice !!! Regularly I am 4/5 through preparing the dinner and then I realize I wanted to serve this over rice. Everything is then put on hold and I have to cook the rice. Hopefully it is a meal that can be held without problems.

Toppings for after plating - I chop everything that needs to be sprinkled on the dish after everything else is plated. I set it aside, but to far aside and totally forget it until we start to do the dishes and it appears. I just knew that dished was missing something but I thought I blew the preparation.

Both of these are regular problems in my house.

Anyone else want to admit to these problems?

Last night, I roasted asparagus ... for four hours. Since many of the dishes were leftovers, the vegetable was not missed at all.

In the past several month with the lockdown, it has been one of my goals to get rid of some of the older items in my pantry. There for I generally sit down and write down what I plan to cook for the next two days to ensure that I have all the ingredients and that I do not forget things - especaially those things that I need to use up.

Also, when we have guests, I always complete a menu so that nothing is forgotten.

I always want to put some small amount of fresh fruit on the table for breakfast. For the longest time, I would forget it until I was landing the main breakfast plate on the table -- eggs, oatmeal...oh yeah! the fruit! I finally gave myself a motto to remember: "fruit first!"
After coffee was made and consumed of course! The motto for coffee is: Drink your coffee first before helping other passengers with their beverage.

As to remembering and planning meals, I occasionally get short bursts of inspiration regarding food and what is in the fridge and pantry. At these times, I will write down a list called "Eat This!" which will include all the combinations that are inspiring me at the moment. Then when I need to create something for us to eat and my brain is tired, I peruse the list. Oh yeah! We have that fresh spinach and a small piece of feta cheese! (spinach and feta omlette for breakfast). Or I found the golden raisins in the back of the pantry! (oatmeal raisin cookies or just a bowl of oatmeal). It is a welcome nudge that keeps us from having to do take-out.

I do realize this is not exactly what you were asking about. But you know, that missed ingredient can hide in different ways.

lougourd-

You are not alone. The starch component, if not integrated into the dish, is often forgotten by me until later in the meal prep. I frequently skip over steps in recipes when reading them, then am unpleasantly surprised that the skipped step adds an hour to the cook. I recently made a spiced roasted carrots with avocado and yogurt recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Totally forgot the avocado until we were almost done.

There's nothing like spending an hour sauteeing, simmering, sieving, and stirring a sauce, to have it left in the refrigerator forgotten for the dinner party. Happened more than once.

Its not that I forget. I run out of energy. I try to have three things. A main dish, and a vegetable or salad and a starch but sometimes one gets left out because I just don't have the ability to stand that much and cook.

For me, it's definitely warming up, buttering and salting bread to go with the meal (often pasta, in which case I add garlic to the bread too). Even when I buy a good fresh loaf hours earlier, it's not until I've topped the pasta with grated Parmigiano that I realize the warm crusty buttered bread isn't on the edge of the plate.

We make a lot of Thai, Vietnamese, Szechuan dishes and I often forget to start the rice in the rice cooker BEFORE I start cooking the main dish(es)...

I had a dinner party for someone's BD,
as I was putting away the leftovers, I opened the frig to find the giant beautiful salad I had made staring me in the face

Oh well
we had salad the next night
E