Is it OK to Cheat?
Absolutely yes - as long as you have the meal at home.
Sometimes it is just too much to cook a meal from scratch. Long ago we discovered the cooked 'deli chicken' in the local supermarket. Grab one hot from the oven, bring it home, whip up a quick salad and voila! A home cooked meal with no one the wiser.
More recently we discovered a wide assortment of inexpensive, gourmet, cheats. Pre-packaged Indian meals, cioppino in a can, chicken taco filling. All you cook is the rice, pasta, or beans.
Make too much (by Mr. Dr. Sue)
I always wondered why Dr. Sue made so much food. Dinner for our family of four often served six or eight. We sometimes had unexpected company, but was it that often? I knew she did not go hungry as a child, but maybe she had been starved psychologically? When I asked once why she made so much food, she said, 'Oh I don't know. I always make too much food.' Well I knew that!
After many years, so many that I am embarrassed to say, I figured it out. The too much dish of one night was reincarnated as another dish later on in the week. Not the famed 'tover' dish ('tover' as in 'leftover') - but another dish entirely. Monday's extra string beans wound up in Friday's salade nicoise. Wednesday's extra rice from a chicken dish wound up as Saturday's curry. Saturday's extra blueberry pancake batter turned into Monday's blueberry muffins.
Only lasagna was recycled as a leftover - and we all know how much better lasagne is the the next day!