Cooking for Your Family, Even When It's Boring.

It's that time of year.  I don't know what it is about the last week in December that makes us naturally start thinking about what we want to change in our lives.  I mean, seriously....is a resolution any more meaningful on January 1st than if we make it on March 23rd?

But, like most people, I am falling in to the trap of making New Years Resolutions.  One of them is to finally accept the fact that I have a family of picky eaters...and no amount of gourmet food is going to change that overnight.

I'll let you in on a little secret.  Remember the baking extravaganza I was supposed to have?  Well, I threw a fit and quit midway through the 96 dozen cookies I had planned on making, ensuring that I did not have the "proper" selection to assemble "the right" cookie tins to pass out.  Why did I throw a fit?  Because when I was on the 5th variety of cookies and my children refused to try a single one, proclaiming "I don't like those cookies", I screamed "Well then what the hell am I doing making all of these cookies?", turned the oven off and promptly started ranting about how nobody appreciates when I cook for them...how they would rather have Betty Crocker Au Gratin Potatoes than homemade scalloped potatoes...how I could marinate a steak for 3 days and Brad would still put ketchup on it.  It wasn't pretty (and there is a slight chance that it was hormone-induced)!

After I had calmed down (thank you Pinot Grigio), I started to think....who CARES if my family won't eat Linzer cookies made with blackcurrant jam?  Yes, sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies are boring, but they go nuts with happiness when I pull them out of the oven.

I realized that I had fallen in to a trap that I have so often urged you not to.  In an effort to counteract the perception of couponers, I was determined to take my free and super-cheap food and turn them in to gourmet meals.  I thought that by turning Betty Crocker potatoes in to SuperHoityToity food, then I wouldn't be one of "them".  One of those women who feeds their children nothing but processed junk.  Except there was one problem with that.  My family doesn't LIKE gourmet food.  (and hey - it looks like I can blame this one on my husband!)

The truth is, I should have finished my baking, as I was really making cookie tins for friends and family.  I could have just made extra stupid boring sugar cookies and silly ugly chocolate chip cookies and saved the good ones for the tins that I was passing out.

But that wasn't good enough.  I wanted to turn my children (and mostly my husband.  in the 18 years we have been together, the only green vegetables that he will eat has been lettuce and green peppers) in to something that they are not.  They love comfort food.  They love BeefARoni (although at least I have never bought the cans).  They don't care how cheaply I got the shrimp, fontina cheese and heavy cream.  They want cheese lasagna with red sauce, not seafood risotto. 

And the sooner I start learning to cook for their taste (while making it as healthy as possible), the happier I will be.

But I am drawing the line at the fondue night my husband wants.  There will be NO hot dogs dipped in Velveeta in this house!