Explanation of This Cookbook

I am a huge fan of eating dinner together as a family each day. Over the years, we have been pretty good about doing that on average at least 5 times a week. I think it makes a big difference in our family. I heard the following quote years ago and it reinforced my commitment to do this.

"The number of those who report that their 'whole family usually eats dinner together' has declined 33 percent. This is most concerning because the time a family spends together 'eating meals at home [is] the strongest predictor of children’s academic achievement and psychological adjustment.' ³ Family mealtimes have also been shown to be a strong bulwark against children’s smoking, drinking, or using drugs.⁴ There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: what your children really want for dinner is you."  Dallin H. Oaks

1. 3. Anderson and Doherty, Family Relations, 54:655. 4. See Nancy Gibbs, “The Magic of the FamilyMeal,” Time, June 12, 2006, 51–52

But the main purpose of this cookbook is not the whole idea of dinner together. Nor is the purpose to show off my excellent cooking abilities - or my kid's. That will be pretty apparent if you delve into it! It's pretty ghetto. I think we eat a lot different than most families. And at first glance, they probably look pretty unappealing. Our diet has evolved quite a bit. Some of these meals I use to make with meat and then when we (most of us,) went vegetarian a few years back, I just converted a lot of our same meals to be meatless. Also, as our family has grown, I have gone from making things more from scratch, to whatever is quickest and easiest. Having toddlers hang on your legs while you cook is a real game changer. So a lot of this is not even really cooking, just throwing things together.

The real reason for this cookbook is to help my kids remember the meals that they grew up on and how to cook them.

About a year ago I started putting my children in charge of dinners. Each of them being in charge of planning, cooking and cleaning up one dinner a week. It has been a good experience for me to spend this time in the kitchen one on one with my children. A couple of months ago, I decided that it would be a good idea to document some of these memories. Then I thought, that it would be good for them to be able to each have their own cookbooks to keep for when they move out of the house. So I put all this on this blog and plan to publish it when I feel it has the majority of the meals we eat. We still have a handful of meals to include here. But we're on our way!

To see all the recipes, you will need to click on the tabs above, then on the names of the recipes.  Those are links to those recipes.  There are different tabs for different categories.