my time in the kitchen

homework 6.3 Travelin' Oma's School Days seminar

I mostly went the inspired route, while taking from Oma's prompt: Suggest cookbooks, web-sites or blogs that promote a healthy lifestyle.

This is the corner of my kitchen where I keep my cookbooks and binders full of recipes I've collected.
I am not a cook.
I try to be.

I thought I was doomed to a life of macaroni & cheese and ramen noodles for dinner for the rest of my life. (My dad pointed out that those seemed to be the only things I was capable of making and, for the most part, he was right.)
I didn't even start attempting to cook after I was married. Okay, sometimes I made spaghetti, or some other sort of noodle, with plain sauce. Occasionally I would throw the prepared noodles and sauce with some cheese on top in the oven for 15-20 minutes and called it a baked ziti.
Once I tried making Shepherd's Pie, but Mr. Boss doesn't like green beans, so he made complaints. Then the leftovers went to waste (he wouldn't touch them, because of the green beans, and I couldn't eat it all myself.) I've never tried to make it since.
I've had successes, too. I created a pasta salad once. After making it a few times, I had it perfected. I made it every other week for a while. (The leftovers were good.)

But, lately, I've felt a need a desire to prepare regular and healthy meals for my family. I've been working on this for the past couple of months. I make 2-week meal plans and try to stick to them, but I seem to get thrown off, somewhere along the way, every time.
On top of that I was rotating the same group of meals every 2 weeks. Nearly every single one was a meat based meal.
I enjoy meat, really, I do. But I'm not an obsessive carnivore. If anything I want to decrease the amount I am eating and feeding my family, so that it only takes up one or two nights of the week, instead of 5 and 6.

At Costco, just a few days ago, I found a cookbook called the essential vegetarian cookbook. I was tempted by some of the other books as well, but this was the one that made it home with me.
I am not trying to turn my children, or my family, vegetarian. I am simply looking for healthier meals. Too many children these days are overweight due to fast food, pre-packaged stuff and poor exercise. I don't want that for my kids. For now we don't have a TV that picks up channels. It is only good for movies, and I try to limit those. But that is only half of the equation.
Enter my attempts at cooking healthy meals. So far I haven't really gotten started. Last night I prepared noodles with plain sauce and black beans, but I was the only person who ate. (Well, Mr. B ate some noodles, but he's just not a bean fan.)

I cracked open my new cookbook this afternoon, made a meal plan for the week using mostly recipes from it. Then I went shopping. By the time I got home it was getting late, but I decided to try and make the nights dinner anyway.
9:30 came and went, but I wasn't finished. (I feel like a failure.) I decided to let my efforts cool, put them away, and bring them out tomorrow to finish what I started.
Conrad got applesauce and raspberries for dinner.
I'm trying, I guess.

But what I was trying to get at was that this cookbook, the essential vegetarian cookbook, seems like a good one if you're trying to eat better, or go vegetarian altogether. Even though I have yet to complete a recipe (and who knows if it'll even turn out! Just kidding, it will. It's an easy, albeit drawn out, one,) I still want to recommend it.

So that's it.
Go to Costco and buy it.
The end.