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cooking sucks

okay, well, not exactly. but i'm really frustrated right now. browsing a cookbook seems to be the fastest way to depress me lately. it's not that i hate to cook. i actually enjoy it for the most part, as long as i'm prepared. ie, i have to have planned what i'm going to cook and i have to have all the ingredients for it. but when i feel like i've exhausted my somewhat limited list of recipes and want to find something new, i can never seem to find anything that would actually work for us. either it sounds good to me, but i know it's spicy or something that will make the kids not want to eat it. or it's full of weirdo ingredients that i don't have on hand or usually buy which would leave me with a bunch of stuff i bought for one recipe and will never use again. or it's really complicated to make and tells me to do stuff that i don't know how to do because i haven't been to culinary school. it's like there's no such thing as a cookbook for normal people with not too boring, not too interesting food that is easy to make, doesn't cost a fortune and calls for ingredients i might actually buy. oh, and my kids will not take one look and go 'eeewww.'

is that too much to ask?

Comments

  1. twinmommyJune 12, 2008 at 8:33 AM

    I'm so there with you! I'm actually a decent cook, but sometimes 5:00 rolls around and I'm looking in the cupboards thinking to myself, "What kind of a miracle am I going to pull off tonight?"

    We had manicotti last night... a pretty safe kid meal, but tasty too. You can hardly go wrong with pasta, cheese and marinara sauce. Add a salad and bread and you're good to go.

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  2. BrendaJune 12, 2008 at 1:34 PM

    Campbell's makes a series of cookbooks with family friendly meals, a lot of them under 30 minutes, and some are even 1 dishers. Back when I could afford it I relied a lot on Schwan's. All I had to do was take the components out of the freezer and cook according to the packaging, and the stuff was awesome! Especially the stuffed shells, cause you added your own sauce so you could switch it up. Marinara one night, alfredo another. We never tried a pesto, but because I knew the kids wouldn't eat it.

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