JenniferJulia's Profile

I think it comes down to priority. If you prioritize the need to cook real food for your family, you will do it more often and get better at it in the process. Even without the fancy or organic ingredients, you are better off than eating processed food...even if it's variations of pasta six nights a week.

We eat our avocados almost exclusively in daily smoothies (avocado, mango, banana + lime) so this would work well for us.

I've had way more Pinterest recipe successes than failures, but I know what I like and how I like to cook so I don't heed everything in a recipe if it sounds dumb. The biggest failure is that awful breakfast cookie recipe with bananas. Yes, rubbery and not cookies at all.

I was thoroughly embarrassed when an older friend corrected my only-read-in-cookbooks pronunciation of cumin. I said "come in" and was devastated to be be schooled like that in front of our friends. Of course, the thousand times I've been wrong since have made me realize I likely do have more to learn.

I feel guilty throwing scraps in the garbage, so even in the thick of winter with 4 feet of snow out the back door, we continue to compost. We bought some big bins with lids that sit outside the back door. Every couple days our stainless steel bucket with handle that sits on the counter gets full, dumped and washed. It's never there long enough to smell bad and in the winter there are no bugs. I suppose it would be nice to have a lid, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'm still growing a repertoire of plant-based recipes that keep us well fed and my husband excited about what's for dinner every day. And truthfully, I get excited when I think about the new, awesome dish I made and will get to take leftovers of to work the next day. So yeah, I usually try 1-2 new recipes a week, but I don't put pressure on myself. Some weeks we just eat perogies, waffles and spaghetti. I tell the kids it's because I want them to be happy...but I really just need a break.

We gave our first kid pre-packaged food because we were just so worried that she wouldn't eat. Cut that out with the second when we cut out 99% of our processed food. Now the only pre-packaged food that enters our house is the occasional box of crackers. Now I don't care if they don't eat (what I think is a delicious and easily edible) supper because maybe the tenth time they see it, they'll try a bite. They only have good choices for bedtime snack, breakfast and lunch so it all evens out.

We stopped buying processed foods, too. The only downfall is the time it takes to prepare vegetables. Washing, peeling and chopping onions, carrots and potatoes takes a long time! But I'll take that any day. I used a cup of frozen veg (in anticipation of returning back to full-time work) in a root veg pot pie the other night and they were totally tasteless. Thank goodness for the time I spent peeling and chopping the sweet potatoes that also went into it. Time is a luxury and the more of it I use to prepare meals the better we eat.

That's what we do! We started for financial reasons. It actually makes it a special event for our kids, but we also have no idea where to go... Since I've been cooking so much I've gotten really good at it and find we're disappointed at the quality (and super saltiness) since everything from scratch tastes so much better. There are worse problems to have! That's why we usually choose sushi since we rarely have the time to make that.

We have the Jamie Oliver Professional Series by T-fal - Hard Anodized for induction and I love them. They're heavy, have shown no signs of wear over the past year and hold heat really nicely. But they were regularly priced at about $700 or $800 CDN.

The ones on Amazon look cheap.