Food, Family and Flavor

I have grown to love cooking but I'm picky still on what it is about it that I do love.  I'm not the talented kitchen superstar that can take seemingly nothing and create a master piece.  I'm not overly creative in coming up with my own unique creations either.  I usually start with a recipe and spring board from there to make my own unique dishes.  The more I learn about food and what is healthy and what is not, the more my creations evolve.  It is rare that I make the exact same dish twice.  They may be close but because I do a lot of toss this in, shake a bit of that in, a pinch here and a handful there, the tastes shift from a bit to a whole new creation at times. This is what makes cooking so interesting to me and helps keep me from getting so board in what I'm eating.  My taste buds must be highly sophisticated.

Family is a hard part of cooking.  We all have our individual likes and dislikes and I refuse to fix more than one dinner at a time.  I'm the mom that puts it on the table and you either eat it or don't eat it.  I figure if someone gets hungry enough, like it or not, they'll eat it.  So far no one has starved to death.  But, I do like for my family to enjoy what I fix.  There is a great satisfaction to be had in not only my kids cleaning their plate and asking for more, but for my husband to do so as well.  Put fast food down on the table and there's not much fuss to be heard however, put something healthy in front of them and they may be sitting there for a few hours until they finish it.  If I'm going to slave over the hot stove and oven, sweating and crying and bleeding....ok, that might be a bit dramatic but I have done all three at some given point in time or another....I want them to eat it.  I hate throwing food out.  I was raised up to think about the starving children around the world and while it's usually just another one of those gimmicks parents use to manipulate their children into doing what they want them to do, it really did impact me deeply and is something that I do use as a tool to teach my children and to help train them up to be thankful for what they have.  I don't want to have to feed my family garbage in order to keep their plates clean so looking for flavor combinations that will make the taste buds do a jig and the body grow healthier and stronger is a constant goal of mine.  I've had some amazing winners lately (pizza made with cauliflower crust for instance) and some absolute disasters (spaghetti squash with browned butter and garlic; great concept but something went terribly wrong and it has something to do with how I cooked the squash).  But I keep on keeping on and one day, I hope to put together a cook book for my children to take out of the home with them and into their families filled with recipes and pictures of not only their favorite foods but of them enjoying them over the years.  Gotta put my photography skills to work somewhere.

Money is a huge factor in eating and the ability to feed my family is growing harder and harder.  Some moms rock the couponing thing.  I don't get it.  I got the basic concept but even then it just wasn't worth it.  The burden of going grocery shopping was added to the burden of how much money we'd not only spend on groceries that would feed us for less than a week but also the cost of feeding the family dinner as we rushed home at almost bed time after getting those groceries.  We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on fast food and my spirit hurt every time I saw my children eating it.  We'd get the "healthier" options but I knew that not only physically was the fast food bad for us but financially it was as well.  If I'm going to ask God to bless us in our finances, I have to be wise with what He already has given us and aside from a once in a long while treat, fast food is far from wise.  I had played with meal planning before but for a lot of factors, I got away from it and I kept meaning to and intending to but procrastination was just so much easier.  I had enough though and did it.  It took me several hours to put together my meals and grocery list for two weeks of food but I felt a sort of high when I was done and the bill was even more to celebrate and we didn't eat fast food that night either.  In fact, I did two weeks of grocery shopping all on my own with four kids 6 and under!!!  Yeah, I'm a superstar at that!  So, four weeks of two meal plans and what ever short runs up the road to buy a gallon of milk here and there cost, we saved a load of gas and time and money.  We spent about $460 for a month of food for 6 people and that is huge for us.  And even better, the fast food has not been a part of our diets for the past month and that actually brings tears to my eyes.

Being a mom is a huge responsibility and one I do not take lightly.  I got lazy with my parenting in this area and my children's lives are impacted by that.  I want to make sure that my children love food, are healthy and that my husband is blessed with a bit of peace when it comes time to do the check book.  So, for love of food, my family and great flavor, I step out on this adventure, this discipline and a new lifestyle to make sure that my family is happy and healthy as best is possible.