Yes, its true, the magic of cooking dinner has somehow faded after nearly 10 years of cooking dinner for my family... I'm looking for some suggestions to rekindle the passion, but first, some parameters:
-- I am lazy -- this means I prefer pantry stable items like canned beans, jarred sauces, etc. I only grocery shop once a week, so fresh meat is not used often. I keep frozen chicken breasts in the freezer and have been known to cook ground beef and freeze it.
-- I have young children. This makes cooking a bit difficult. The best recipes seem to be those that bake for awhile or crockpot dishes -- I seem to have a hard time spending the last half hour before dinner cooking, but if I can spend the half hour earlier in the evening and then let the dish bake for awhile, its easier.
-- I prefer lower fat dishes, so I avoid those with lots of fattening ingredients in them like canned soups and cheese and sour cream.
Oh, heck, maybe I just hate cooking dinner, but I'm hoping if any of you out there could offer a recipe, cookbook or link that I might find something to perk me up.
6 comments:
Hmmm--I have often thought of starting a recipe blog. But I just tend to read Jamie Oliver instead. Working ridiculously long hours, I am often starving when I get home and have little energy to cook. So, to avoid a fate of fast food drive thrus and over salted lean cuisine frozen dinners, I end up binge cooking once a month, cooking things like chicken pot pie with grilled chicken, lasagna, mac and cheese primavera, and if I am ambitious my own version of shepard's pie. Then, I freeze them in my handy-dandy corningware, so I can bake it or microwave it later. There ya go, it wasn't a specific recipe but how I handle my own fading enthusiasm when I have spent my cooking energy elsewhere. -Julie
Sorry Marjorie. My fav recipe is chicken & shrimp Alfredo using Asiago (HIGH FAT) instead of parm. I use whole wheat noodles if that helps.
My co-host on another site has published a low-carb cooking cook book. April's book's here and her picture is here.
Our co-hosted discussion forum is here. Its for people of faith who are writers. I think you blog(s) count if you wanna drop in.
You comment on pre-diabetic made me think of her book. The fact I've put on 5 pounds over the holidays helped too :0)
(P.S. I put a trilobite on the bottom of my blog just for you).
You said,
"the magic of cooking dinner has somehow faded after nearly 10 years of cooking dinner for my family."
Well my wife, after 47 years and 10 days, can get the most unimaginable meals with the least unimaginable effort. Life gets better as you go ahead.
Blessings to all.
Thank you all for your suggestions. Julie, I have thought about bulk cooking. A few years ago, I glanced through some cookbooks regarding Month at a time cooking. Its an interesting idea and something I might try when the kids are a bit older and can help. I actually found a book that focussed on week at a time cooking, which was more my speed and from which I took the idea of buying ground beef, cooking it and freezing it in small portions.
Kwakersaur, asiago cheese sounds yummy! Some fat is important and if its serves with plenty of lower fat side dishes, that could work for me. I had been avoiding the whole low-carb fad, but I should probably look at it and take from it what is useful.
Anne -- I forgot about your enchilada casserole, I found the enchilada sauce too spicy for me, but made the dish without and its really good (I call it easy beany). I have your lentil recipe if you need it -- I had forgotten about that as well! Great ideas, thanks for reminding me.
Eggs, a good idea and you could always use egg substitute for part or all of the eggs to reduce fat. My hubby doesn't like eggs, so thats a bit of a barrier, but he's willing to eat what I cook.
Tofu, we had one dish, hubby made it, it was delicious. But on my second helping the concept of tofu was disgusting to me. I think maybe if it was sautee'd first I would have liked it more. Too mushy.
As to a hot kitchen, crockpots are supposed to be one way to avoid heating up the kitchen.
Whoops, sorry Larry, I meant to address your comment as well. Happy anniversary to a lucky, lucky man! I'm hoping Ellie will write a cookbook or at least blog some of these unimaginable meals for unimaginative minds like mine!
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