Ugh, I don't really like cooking from scratch. I enjoyed it for about 10 years: from age 18 to 28. This coincided with joining the Vegetarian Co-op in college where we made all our own food, mostly from scratch, instead of using the dining hall. Then after that I was at AEI for grad school and we made all our own food, mostly from scratch, nearly always on a camping stove set up outside our tents. Then I was in Los Angeles, eating mostly the food prepared for me at work and spaghetti. And finally in MD, working as an environmental educator and cooking complicated dishes with friends for fun. At age 28 I had my first kid and cooking from scratch was just too much time and effort.
I have resurgences of cooking for fun, and they coincide with getting a bit of time and energy for myself. Once when my first child was around 2 and gaining independence I started cooking again. But then my second child was born. And now that she's 2, I feel I can start cooking again. It's a factor of how much can you get done at one stretch without needing to tend to your kids. Long enough to make a pot of spaghetti? Or long enough to peel some potatoes and start measuring ingredients?
We finished our granola bars and need to make a new batch bc they were awesome. The yogurt is half way gone but we ran out of our boxed granola, which is essential for plain yogurt. So next up: make our own granola! I'm going to use this recipe and add some almonds.
I borrowed my brother-in-law's bread machine and we made a loaf of bread. The kids loved watching it through the window on top. The bread was good but I have to wonder about the added expense of the electricity of running the bread machine for several hours. Environmentally, there's no shipping involved in getting the bread to my house, so other advantages aside, this one is a huge benefit to the environment.
Making peanut butter and making our own macaroni and cheese sound like great ideas! I'm going to try them, for sure, but I'm a little nervous of the outcomes. These are staple products in our house, used daily. I hope I can convert the kids away from "their kind of macaroni and cheese" (which is the purple box of white cheese shells made by Annies).
I made a butternut squash yesterday and I enjoyed it but I was the only one to eat it. Jeremiah has vegetarian sloppy joes and the kids had ham and cheese sandwiches. I wish they would eat more vegetables but all I can do is have them around as an option. Although the kids were clamoring for corn on the cob and we had to hold the line that that's a summer food and they can only have frozen corn kernels until then. Vegetables are seasonal, dang it.
I totally blew out my back 2 days ago and am eagerly awaiting muscle relaxers from the pharmacy right now. There will be no cooking for me today.
I'm not a big of cooking, but have found it much easier to do once I started staying home full-time with the kids. I also have the cookbook "The one-armed cook" that I love. It's recipes that you can do easily with a baby in your arms. Most prep is less than 15 minutes or easily made ahead to finish later. I've been using the recipes since L. was born and they haven't gotten tired of them yet. I'll share it with you when I see you again.
ReplyDeleteThe Joy of Cooking has a good recipe for mac and cheese. They have several, but the one that my two mac n cheese eaters love is their stovetop mac n cheese. It's pretty easy and J. could help with the stirring part, with supervision. We don't have boxed stuff in Australia so we've had to adapt.
ReplyDeleteI make my own bread, without the bread machine. It is actually a really kid friendly activity. Sam loves to mix ingredients and then to help knead. Google Waldorf bread recipes for some great kid friendly bread recipes.
You can always refer to my cooking blog for recipes, my cheese sauce makes an appearance in a lot of recipes. The gnocchi is also a good option. I think that B. Kingsolver mentions the amount of environmental drain the bread maker contributes in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It is in a section where her husband contributed because he is the baker.
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