Renewed Passion

I love cooking. If I had it my way, I would stay home raising my son, crocheting/knitting, and cooking. Since I don't have it my way yet, I improvise. Crocheting/knitting is basically neglected (although I did make myself a hat yesterday). Cooking is something I can't totally neglect. Besides, we do need to eat. With all the breastfeeding and pumping I do, food is very important to me. I'm starving all the time.

In order to have a home cooked meal everyday without killing myself every night at 7 pm, I try making a big meal on Sundays that will last me pretty much the whole week. Now, I can't make any sloppy thing. Remember, we'll be eating this basically every night. So, I've become creative.

Last week, I made a cheeseburger mac & cheese from scratch that was just delightful and a vegetable soup that was very savory. We spent all week eating it. On Friday night (I was home sick), I made a chicken fricassee (Cuban style) that was to die for. We'll probably have this dish again on Monday night. We're going to a wedding today, which will hamper my cooking (but well worth it).

I've been getting great recipes off of the Food Network. While I nurse the baby, I put the Food Network on and get great ideas. Besides the recipes, watching the shows on there just opens up my mind about cooking. I never realized how easy cooking is. There are so many ways of making a good home cooked meal that are just simple.

Now what I do is experiment. For example, every time I've made mac & cheese, I've changed the recipe up a bit. I've made it plain, with bacon, with beef, and I plan to make it provencal style. It doesn't matter which style I make it because they're all good. Cooking could become boring if you cook the same foods all the time.

So when you're running out of ideas, hit the Food Network. You'll end up cooking something very yummy!