What's for Dinner?

I have answered that question so many times and received less than appreciative responses so many times that I now respond to that question with, "Yuck! I hate that." It is not a specific recipe, but just a way to prepare the kids that I am cooking and if you don't like it, oh well and you can wait until breakfast. And they have held out. At 2am when they wake up with hunger pains and are told the kitchen is closed for a couple more hours it is a sad time and I empathize with them, but maintain the rules.

Sometimes cooking is fun and other times I get in a rut without inspiration and look upon it as a dreaded but necessary task that is criticized and unappreciated. My daughter has food allergies so I cook from scratch a lot and we rarely order pizza or go out to eat as a family. I also go to several different grocery stores to get safe foods for her. It is a part time job reading labels and shopping for soy and dairy free products. A few of the stores I frequent are Fresh n Easy, Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Fry's, Costco and Sam's Club. I might be able to get by shopping at Whole Foods all the time, but there is a reason it has been dubbed "Whole Paycheck" and why I go to the other stores and stock up when I am there.

My husband doesn't necessarily like the "safe" foods, requiring his own brands of certain items and went so far as to label my daughter's items as "bad tasting stuff" on a Google grocery list he created earlier this week for "our" benefit. Opening this list made me wonder what his real intention was since he has been scanning food cartons to track his diet online. And let's just say these were not pleasant thoughts that entered my mind. Visions of him wanting me to scan food as I buy it and then again as I throw it away entered my head. Thank heavens that wasn't his plan. It had more to do with using a list when shopping and a conversation regarding sardines and other random items and their quantity in the pantry that don't seem to circle through our diet as frequently as they greet him in the cupboard and his concerns about waste. The sardines were bought when my daughter was eating them a couple of years ago and they have yet to expire. They are a good source of calcium, but like most little kids they like something and then they don't.

Last night in an attempt to circle some stuff through the pantry I used cans of garbanzo beans and made falafel. One kid liked it, one kid didn't. I can't wait until sardine night, it might be one where we all say "Yuck, I hate that" especially if I serve them with mustard, diced green chilies and maple syrup which by the way I have too much of also.