Life is too short for fake food. I like real food. My mother cooked everyday. Her mother cooked everyday. My Granny canned and “put up” food. My mom prepared and froze meals to be fixed or reheated later. I work outside the home and find it hard to cook everyday, but I have learned in the last 2 years that slow food is faster than fast food. It tastes better. The meal is less stressful. It may not always be lower in fat or healthier, but there is benefit in sitting down to dinner in the privacy of your own home.
It takes more time and energy to go through a drive through or eat at a local franchise than to come home and figure something out. We now eat almost every dinner at home. My husband likes to price my dinners. If we cannot figure out what to do for dinner, I feel challenged to come up with something. When I present dinner, he likes to compare what I make with what we might have had at a local restaurant.
I have come up with a variety of clever ways to insure my family has “homemade” food. I make larger batches of cookies. I scoop the dough into cookie shapes and freeze them. That way I can bake 1-2 cookies for each person to have after dinner. Otherwise, they’d eat 6-7 Oreos. I make muffins and quick breads. We try to eat fresh as much as possible.
Tonight we have one of our favorites with a little twist. I made a large platter of Romaine lettuce. I topped it with slices of chicken marinated in Yoshida’s and grilled. I added sliced roasted red and yellow peppers, fresh yellow corn, black beans and feta cheese. I top that with a variation of my Caesar salad dressing that is kicked up a notch with cumin. The side was the new twist. I peeled and cubed to Garnett sweet potatoes. I tossed them in olive oil, sea salt and garlic powder. I baked them for 40 minutes in a 450F oven, half of the time covered with foil. They were sweet and savory and carmelized.
Everything was bright and colorful and fresh.
The fresh chocolate chip cookies just came out of the oven. Serve then with a tall glass of ice cold milk or a small ramekin of coffee ice cream. Yummy!
Dinner for 4? Easily $52 plus TIP.