Wordless Wednesday

My Cooking Aha Moment

In our family I am known as the baker. I love to bake for my family: breads, cookies etc. But when I comes to cooking meals, my husband is often the chef.

He enjoys cooking and explains that with cooking you don't have to be exact in your measuring. In baking you need to have specific amounts of things in order to make it work. With cooking meals there is more freedom and creativity.

I enjoy cooking now and then....with a glass of wine, some nice music, in a clean kitchen, with kids occupied happily somewhere else....except for of course the kitchen kid of the day who does all the dishes....... And if it can be cooked ahead I am so on it. I am the crockpot/baking on Saturday queen on this homestead.

But the dinner hour of the day is a crazy time here. We are getting ready for the next day, kids are doing chores and many times we are in a rush to eat and be done so we can get out the door to the evening's activities. This is not the wine/music/peaceful atmosphere I crave when cooking. Add to this the fact that when I cook a meal I usually have to refer to a recipe. Add to that the sock/book/toy/pencil/paper/lego my child(ren) must have or cannot possibly find on their own during this time and you get the picture.

With all that being said I had an aha moment.

My Bestie makes Indian food. And she's good at it. But she wasn't always. She found the need to make it because there is 1 (one) Indian resturant in town that's rather $$. So she learned to make it at home. That's a lot of chopping and measuring and pre planning. She said the other day...."I can almost make it without looking at the recipe."


Aha! That is it! I need to make dinner meals often enough that I can do it without looking at a recipe. Then it becomes automatic. Do you think my wonderful grandmother had to think about it when she made bread for her family every day? No....she only wrote the recipe down for me because I asked for it.

By doing it automatically, I can enjoy the process and save the mental exertion for the aforementioned lost and absolutely necessary Lego Iron Man/DarthVader/AnakinSkywalker etc.

Maybe I can even get good at Indian food! mmmmmm Naan....

Happy Fall

Sunday's task: experience the fall.

Last weekend we went out to the farm to buy roasted chilies. We could easily buy them at WalMart but we love the drive and experience of going to the source.





Yesterday we decorated for fall.





And today we celebrate cooler weather by feasting on home made cinnamon rolls.






Happy Sunday!