After a while, I added a True Food Confession to my Friday food posts. Here I would talk about our eating for the week with a goal of cooking more and eating out less. I hoped that public accountability would help me here also. This had hit or miss results. Since cooking is a chore that I don't really like, it was easy to be distracted and often not get around to it until it was too late. Granted, there were good reasons like frequent migraines, but there were plenty of not-so-good reasons, like talking to my sisters on the phone, that kept me from cooking more. Ward likes to cook less than I do, so he was happy with ordering out. So public accountability did not really help in this area.
Now I'm going to try a new tactic. I'm going to post positive things about food and eating in our family. I am going to use the same formula that I do in a Second Look each week where I look at the interesting and the beautiful and ignore the chores that didn't get done and the negative things I see. Doing a Second Look has been very good for me and how I see my yard and maybe it will do the same for me in the kitchen. Instead of feeling guilty about not eating as I think we should, I hope to see things in a more positive light.
This Week's Look Around the Kitchen
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| Theo's Birthday Dinner |
Theo's birthday was this past weekend and we had a birthday dinner for him that included a smoked pork shoulder that Ward smoked in our homemade smoker. I'm not that big of a pork eater and I really liked it. The males loved it. We also had a Greek salad with 6 kinds of greens from Uncle Billy's garden and roasted cauliflower. We grilled pineapple and asparagus (some of the last from Uncle Billy's garden). And for dessert-vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries once again from Uncle Billy's garden. Uncle Billy's garden sure did give Theo great birthday presents.
We spent all day cooking this meal starting in the early morning with the smoker moving on to picking and cleaning vegetables, but boy, were the results good. We all enjoyed the meal, and we were able to send Theo home with enough leftovers for a couple of meals. At this point in his life, that was a perfect birthday present for him.
It looks delicious, and I totally LOVE the new approach. Down with negativity!!!! :-)
ReplyDeleteEating and cooking is one area where I still compare myself to others and always come up short in my mind even though in the big picture, I know we're doing okay. It's interesting that I sat down to just post pictures of some fun birthday food and came up with this post. I love the new idea also.
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ReplyDeleteThe meal looks delicious! There are days when cooking just doesn't work or even begin to happen. I am a huge fan of take-out or just eating whatever can be taken from the fridge, put on a plate and called supper. (Almond butter stuffed celery sticks and an apple works a lot of times for me)
ReplyDeleteHaven't had stuffed celery sticks in a while. Those sound good. And I've never had almond butter. While I like almonds, I don't like almond extract. Do you think I'd like almond butter?
DeleteThe almond butter I buy is just plain ground almonds with nothing added. It tastes pretty much like almonds with a different consistency, but can be a little plain. Since it has nothing to stabilize it, it needs to be taken out of the jar and mixed well before storing it in the fridge. I generally put it into 2 jars, one completely plain and the other with a hint of salt added. It tastes nothing like extract, which I find tastes like cherries rather than almonds anyway.
DeleteThat's it. Almond extract tastes like maraschino cherries which I don't like either. I hear so much about almond butter these days that maybe I should try some.
DeleteThat does sound like a delicious feast! And I'm sure that Theo really appreciated not having to cook for a couple of his dinners.
ReplyDeleteDoes Uncle Billy live vey close to you? You must feel so fortunate to receive his garden extras.
Uncle Billy lives about four miles away. Yes, we are very fortunate to get some of his produce. We try to help him out some, but he and Aunt Martha do most of the work.
DeleteOoh, that looks similar to a meal we had here a couple of weeks ago. My hubby likes to smoke pork shoulders, too, when he buys them on sale. Pork and chicken are the most economical meats to purchase in our area and we like a lot of pork, but fortunately, we all like it. We've also been eating a lot of roasted asparagus, which is by far my favorite way to eat it.
ReplyDeleteI think you are on the right track with your positive approach. I think most of us could benefit from celebrating our good efforts and not getting so hung up on our "failures".
There are only certain cuts of pork that I like, but I did like this smoked shoulder. We may be doing this again.
DeleteHave you been getting asparagus from your patch this year?
No joy with the asparagus. Good thing there's a lot at the farm market. :)
DeleteLovely idea,but I think Uncle Billy's garden should be raided more often. :-) I don't like cooking much any more because it's just me and so I prefer quick meals over cooking.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping for a few more raids on the garden. I know they have more greens, but it's going to take us a while to eat what we have.
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