My Precious Little Kitchen Helpers

Since becoming a stay-at-home Mom, I have worked on having a family dinner every night. I remember growing up and having dinner at my great-grandma's every day at 4:30pm. It was a daily ritual, one that as I look back now, I cherish very much. My great-grandma was 70+ years old when I was born and after having 13 children of her own (with 4 sets of twins in there), she helped to raise her grandchildren and finally some of her great-grandchildren, including me, my younger cousin and younger brother. The rule of the house regarding food was that you had to try everything at least 1 time. You could not say you didn't like a food if you had never tried it. Once you tried it and did not like it, she would not make you eat it again, thankfully, especially since one of her favorite meals was liver and onions (yuck!).

It is a tradition I plan to carry on with my family. However, I do not like to cook every night. I was purchasing meals at Super Suppers so my family could have a healthy meal without me having to prepare it every night, but as time passed, the portions were getting smaller and smaller. (If you haven't heard of Super Suppers, it is pretty cool...you go into a store where they have all the ingredients for 12 different meals and you assemble them, place them into freezer bags or trays and take them home to freeze. The menu changes each month so you get a variety of food and you can split the orders so that 12 meals become 24, which worked out really well for Fred and I because the 1/2 order would feed 2-3 people...at least in the beginning). After the portions started getting smaller, I purchased one of their cookbooks and began picking a day to cook non-stop so that I could freeze the meals, then take one out to reheat for dinner each day. It makes my life so much simpler, especially with 2 little boys...and, I discovered during this go around that my boys really like to be in the kitchen with me right in the middle of everything.














It was actually fun doing it this time involving Garrett (and Brett) and I look forward to making many wonderful memories with my family during our cooking days and around the dinner table.