There is always room for easy cooking AND a little "Martha Stewart" or Emeril.
From every angle of our lives as women, homemakers, working women and moms, aunts, grandmothers, etc. There are high expectations that either push us to frustration or make us just give up. This is even more true when it comes to the kitchen. This is so sad. We are hard enough on our selves with out having to endure more fuel to our kitchen woes fire. Food is what brings families together. In some families, it is all they do together. If your choice for feeding your family is a bowl of cereal for dinner or eating out, every single night.... well, you're either trying so hard you can't live up to your expectations so you quit, or just not trying at all. Yet you also don't need to spend hours cooking and creating, make a gorgeous center piece out of what once was belly button lint to add to an $80 meal your kids won't eat.
When I became a wife and mom, I knew how to make very few things. Sure, I had enough basics to follow a recipe and I knew a few basic recipes by heart. It wasn't until I began gaining the collective kitchen knowledge of the family my hubby and I had and our more artsy-foodie friends, that I began to realize how much variety and availability each household and situation has. Not to mention the camaraderie in cooking with other women. Some of my best friends have shared a kitchen and their table with me and I have been honored to have them at mine. We can all learn from each other is we put aside those crazy expectations of perfection and just be one of the girls who knows her way around a kitchen.
Some nights you are on the run; some mornings you just don't feel like making a big fuss. There are those days when you are so sick of coming up with lunch ideas that you want to scream and call the pizza guy. Then you look at how much you've already called the pizza guy and how much you could have spent eating real food. Here is a place you can grab an idea and whip something up that enriches your family, your health and your confidence as a homemaker. Now, if you have time to make it look amazing, then more power to you.
A woman who loves to feed her family is a woman who thinks about other people and what is best for them. The secret is she doesn't have to break her neck or the bank to do it.
So YEP! Canned is great if that's what you've got. Because, be it pie filling or veggies or cream of something casserole, it sure beats Del Taco for the umpteenth time this month, is more nutritious and your family will think you care about them... particularly if you make it look nice. Think about it. If you take your kids to a fancy restaurant, tell them to order cheap or split a meal so you can eat nice, it isn't the same as making that same meal in the all you can eat form for 8 people at the cost of one plate at the restaurant. That makes your kids and hubby happy and you have more money left to do an activity with your family.
I have a load of recipes that make my family feel loved and special and it only takes a little elbow grease, 30 minutes and 10-15 dollars to do it. And they all agree a place setting is so much more personal than the gift bag full of greasy, who knows what's really in it, here just eat, "food."
Happy Cooking, Ladies! Oh, and to Anonymous: Eating good food makes you less grumpy. You should try one of our recipes. ;)
