Not sure what to eat? How about a head of lettuce, miam miam 😋
Throw in some cherry tomatoes for a kick!

I’m kidding and I’m not.

I rarely feel like cooking now and having pre-washed and prepped fresh veggies on hand is super helpful. It’s not creative, it’s actually quite dull, but it’s healthy and filling.

I once thought of becoming a chef and opening up a restaurant. But that seemed like lots of work so I thought of opening up a catering company instead.

That idea quickly vanished when I had kids.
Now, I don’t want to cook nothing.

I feel incredibly guilty and like a terrible mother when I say this, but cooking for kids has sucked the joy of cooking right out of me.

It started when they were babies. They obviously can’t help, they can barely get the food into their mouths, so they aren’t going to help you chop vegetables or clean up afterwards. I had to prepare their meals, 3 times a day, everyday. And it was very dull food. I’m not going to serve roasted stuffed chicken breast with a sauce of creamy digonnaise sauce reduced with white wine, a side order of sautéed spinach and crispy garlic home fries. They aren’t going to like it. Trust me I’ve tried, anything with spices and flavour they would throw back in my face. I could of kept trying, force them to refine their palate. I could of continued to spend over an hour preparing fancy meals while simultaneously taking care of kids. Exhausting myself to only have it thrown back in my face and deal with a hungry crying baby while also trying to eat my portion before it got colder. And sometimes I would get a phone call from Dean saying he’ll be late. I would sit there with my fancy meal going cold, half of it on the floor, a crying baby (then 2) and a mountain of dirty dishes and wonder “why am I doing this to myself?”

So the meals got simpler, quicker, plainer, kids would eat, no tears were shed (most of the time) and I fell into a routine where I just cooked for the kids very dull and boring palate. Everyday, 3 times a day. Sometimes (if I had the energy) I would also make something for the adults to eat. Something fancier, more flavourful, something you could actually crave. I would try and get the kids to try it, sometimes they would and spit it out, sometimes they wouldn’t even try it. But it got tiresome. 2 separate meals, piles of dishes, a floor and kids to clean. So in order to conserve my energy I almost never cooked anything I actually craved. Meal time became something I almost loathed.

As they got older they would accept more ingredients into their repertoire. After 10 years Audrey is much more adventurous. But my desire to cook has almost completely dissolved by now. I’m exhausted, mostly from coming up with meal ideas. You want to know what it’s like to be in a relationship/family. It’s wondering every day, multiple times a day, what people want to eat. I miss not having to worry what everybody else wants, and just doing or eating what I want. Eating paleo doesn’t help either.

So I grab some romaine lettuce, some baby carrots and just stuff my pie hole.