I am so not Canada's Top Chef

For a long time I thought I hated cooking.  I seemed to avoid doing it like the plague yet when the mood struck me I would spend hours in the kitchen making 5 or 6 different recipes and then freezing them so that we had home cooked meals in the freezer for the next few weeks.  It wasn't until about 2 years ago when I was following Weight Watchers that I realized it wasn't the cooking I hated.  It was everything else before the cooking and after the cooking I hated.  You know what I am talking about.  Planning the meals. Doing the grocery list. Going grocery shopping. Putting it all away. Prepping all the ingredients. And then the worst part, the clean up after the fact. That is what I didn't like.  The actual cooking part was fun and allowed me a sense of accomplishment, especially when I went a whole week cooking meals at home and not getting take out.

Growing up we always had home cooked meals.  Always.  My mom was a single mom for many years yet it never seemed to matter how tired she was or how late we got home we always had a home cooked meal.  I can honestly only remember eating out a few times as kid and often was when we went to visit our grandmother and she would take us to her favorite little restaurant in Truro called Murphys. Eating out was just something we didn't do. We had family meals every night when I lived at home and Sunday night dinners were always a typical big Sunday dinner.  I have no idea how she did it because once I had kids I seemed to struggle to make sure I had home cooked meals most nights, never mind every night.

I never thought much about how much work went into making sure we had good meals until I had a family of mine that I had to cook for.  And even then I still seemed to cheat in making meals - Kraft Dinner from a box, Hamburger Helper, frozen chicken fingers, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I often made a more balanced meal then that but the reality was there were a lot of convenience foods available to me and I took full advantage. As the kids got older and their lives got busier it seems we easily ate out two or three nights week.  Subway on the way home from hockey, pizza Friday night because it was the end of the week and I didn't want to cook, etc. It suddenly became easier to grab something on the way home then it did to come home and make something.

The problem with that is it is expensive and it means you never have food in your house so then you just keep eating out all the time because you can't find anything to make.  So it becomes a vicious cycle.  A few years ago I finally decided to do something about my weight and realized I couldn't continue to avoid cooking so I started making meals at home.  And it was all going well until a few months ago when I seemed to fall off the "cooking is wonderful" bandwagon and found us once again relying on take out for most of our meals.

Part of my commitment plan for 2014 included making more meals at home.  And I am proud to say that it has been 12 days of cooked meals and no take out.  To most people that isn't a huge victory but to me it is huge.  And having a husband who helps me is a big part of that.  We meal plan together, go shopping together and do all the prep work together. And since I do the cooking he does the clean up which is the part I hate the most!  And the bonus?  There is always leftovers in the fridge for everyone to have for lunch. Most days I actually have a choice of what I can have for lunch. Imagine!

The plan is to go all of January without eating one meal out. We are almost halfway there.  Wish us luck!!