Feature: Tasty Food

Today I'd like to talk a little about a subject neat to everyone's heart - food. Having three children with another on the way means that we spend a large part of our time devoted to the simple acts of preparing food, shoving it in our faces, and then cleaning up afterward. This is the first in a long-running and semi-irregular series on cooking in our house. One of my goals for this year has two parts. First, I want to do more of the cooking. I like to cook, even though I'm not any good at it. That will improve over the course of the year, but I have to actually cook more first. Second, I want to try one new recipe a week. I'll post those here, along with some feedback as to how the cooking went and if the food was tasty.

Coincidentally, my wife went grocery shopping last night. She returned with twelve paper bags full of primarily breakfast and lunch foods, along with a smattering of fruits and veggies. Oh, and five pounds of ground beef and a ROAST! Woo-hoo! We love roast.

Okay, on to the cooking stuff. We have now two crock pots. I'd like to think that we'll use them maybe twice a week for roasts or chicken stuff or what have you. There are six one-pound bags of different types of beans in the larder. I'm dying to try out a slow cooker bean recipe. One problem - the baby and I are the only two people in the house that eat beans. What I really need is a way to cook beans so that they don't have the texture of beans.

We usually keep a couple of pounds of frozen veggies. There's almost always frozen chicken breasts too. I wonder if you could stir-fry frozen chicken and veggies at the same time and have it come out right. There's an avenue of research.

We love fruit and vegetables. Often, a bowl of fruit becomes a meal. Another recipe that I'm dying to try out involves a steamed veggie plate. I could be bad and add cheese to it, to make sure that the kids eat it. Or, I could just wait until they're really hungry ;-) Fruit salad should be a weekly thing in our house, but I don't know if it's substantial enough. What would one pair with a fruit salad? Would you put salad in your fruit salad? Inquiring minds want to know.

I think that we maybe eat too much red meat. Rather than have it four or five times a week, I want to cut that down to once or twice a week. That should help with our health and with our budget. If I could figure out how to get everyone else to eat beans, I'd be home free. Beans are a prime red meat replacement. Maybe I'll just have to wait and make the bean-things for my lunches.

There's another topic for discussion - lunch. The Pickle gets her lunch for free from school, but she usually doesn't like it. I want to send her lunch with her, but it needs to be inexpensive. Sandwiches are only palatable for so many consecutive days. Maybe she'll start taking leftovers once or trice a week. Pizza, chicken, and roast are all good cold, and she loves them all.

Okay, I'll admit that this isn't my best post ever, but it will get better. Tonight, the missus wants to make a roast. Tomorrow, I'll try making something. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Until then, bon appetite.

Cheers,

-- Zach