Sunday To Do List

Sundays are my day to cook.... I usually make some kind of soup and I try to prep my lunches, and a few for the Hubs, for the following week. I used to neurotically plan out 7 dinners for the following week but realized after wasting quite a few meals that our life sometime doesn't follow my color-coded plan. Now, I plan for 4 meals for the work week including 1 basic recipe that can change to accommodate the left overs on hand and 1 night for "clean out the fridge dinner." Basically anything leftover from the previous days goes into a bowl and that's dinner :) The last night is usually breakfast for dinner or delivery pizza to give us a break.

On tap for today:
   * All veggie Minestrone soup for the week (clean out the veggies heading south)
   * Green eggs and ham roll-ups for me for the week (egg and pureed garlic spinach    crepe/omelet wrapped around a turkey sausage and a sprinkle of cheddar)
   * Already made biscuits and gravy for Sunday sleep-in late breakfast :)
   * Cranberry & Almond Granola for the kiddos to snack on all week
   * Turkey, ham, spinach and Havarti roll-ups for lunch with leftover soup

** What are you doing with your lazy Sunday? **

Why I love this time of year

The holidays are over allowing me to breathe in the cold wet air and cook my heart out. My mother instilled in me at a very young age that cooking a meal for your family is love at it's purest form. Caring about every little detail, making sure the seasoning is right no matter that it may take hours and your picky children my push it away, wrinkle their nose and say something to the effect of," why broccoli? You know I hate broccoli!!" Cooking is therapy. Cooking is creative and heartwarming and passionate and emotionally charged. It provides me with a creative outlet to create healthy comforting meals for my family and center myself.

When I moved out of my parents' home and in with my hubby, he actually did most of the cooking. In the beginning I was worried I'd screw up and burn something or make it too salty, etc. It took a lot of practice and a little self-confidence and now I do about 95% of the cooking in our house... Daddy will take about a meal a week to lighten the load for me and allow me an hour to chase the kids around the house or build a fort with them or play legos, which I appreciate immensely.

Though they may grab their nose and refuse to even try my creations occasionally, I know in my heart that the time and energy spent feeding my family meals that I've made is well worth it. Knowing that it didn't come out of a box or from a drive thru window is very comforting and reassuring to me. Don't get me wrong, we do order pizza a few times a month, but I hope to teach my children a love for cooking just like my mother did for me.

Happy Thursday! Go make something yummy!