I love food!
“We” love food!
When I left home at 17, my step father was worried I would starve.
I could use the microwave and the toaster. 🙂
I studied hotel management and had cooking courses. I learned how to cook and appreciate food.
I have 1 rule, try it once.
When I met Jonathan in 1996, he was a chef!
Yeah me!!!
He hasn’t been a chef in many years and only shows off his mad cooking skills when we have company.
😦 I miss his cooking but let’s be honest! I have some skills too.
When Emily was little, she couldnt drink, didn’t know how to swallow and not one doctor believed she would ever learn to eat solid food.
We made all her purées except for meat. Store bought puréed meat was gross but once mixed in our veggies, you couldn’t tell it was there.
I (we) tasted everything we gave Emily.
Everything was puréed but delicious!
We gave her flavors and textures. We had bite size pieces of food on the table for her to play with and hopefully try to eat.
We never forced her to eat anything.
But really slowly, she started to grab pieces of food and tasted it.
She chocked on everything. Milk, water, juice, purées, non-purées, everything.
Everything!
She got to the point when she could make herself regurgitate on demand if she was chocking.
We never lost hope that one day she would eat.
We won! She eats! She will try anything and has a really short list of things she won’t eat.
Once a week, I will do my best to tell you about our food. Our vegetable basket we get from a local farm, what we ate, what Emily tried, what she liked and so on.
On boring weeks, I will go back to old pictures and tell you what Emily has tried over the years.
Last week, I wasn’t feeling well. When I am not well, I make Frittata with whatever I can find in our fridge.
This always makes me feel better and Emily loved the added avocado.
Monday was cold and wet. We got a lot of rain so I made the 10-spice vegetable soup with cashew cream from the “Oh she glows” cookbook. I had to switch some ingredients based on what I had available but it is still delicious.
Emily doesn’t care for chickpeas but my soup received an “amazing” qualification. Emily ate all the chickpeas.
Monday night, I also made a watermelon, feta cheese and peppermint salad.
Emily had plain watermelon. Fresh herbs are sometimes too much for her and feta is not something she likes.
Tonight, we picked-up our first vegetable basket for the season. I am so excited, I love fresh produce but can’t stand our over-crowded Saturday market. So, this weekly surprise basket is awesome.
The strawberries are so good.
Last but not least, tonight, I made a Dorito Taco Bake!
I saw the recipe on Facebook and decided to give it a try.
I again, made some changes. Mostly, I added vegetables in the cooked meat (onions, celeri and mushrooms), fresh avocado on top and I put way more cheese than the recipe called for!
Emily loved it.
And now, she wants me to teach her how to make this!
Did I tell you she finished Grade 10 Culinary Tech with a 90 mark!?!?
Lessons from my daughter 
And …. It appears you add a dash of perseverance , patience and will to every recipe which is how you got Emily to eat in the first place ! Don’t forget that you alone add that ingredient .
Thanks!
That’s wonderful! Love it!
Thank you
yay, you are a whole family of chefs! that will be great, if emily starts to help make the food, i’ll bet she’ll try more things and step out of the food comfort zone she’s in )
Emily doesn’t have a comfort zone for food. She will try anything. I love it.
I loved seeing the pictures and am very glad that Emily enjoys eating such a variety of foods. Your cooking skills make me jealous although I think my wife could probably master almost any of this. I have always tried the speciality whenever we traveled. Thus I’ve had haggis in Scotland, Bourbon sauce in Kentucky, plaice cooked with caviar in England and many other fantastic meals. Some I loved, some I won’t eat again. Our Allie will eat almost anything. Even things that I’m not interested in. She loves strong flavors and enjoys yellow banana peppers, olives of all kinds, onions, lemons, limes (rind and all). She much prefers vegetables to sweets and that’s a good thing.
Allie and Emily have much in common! Cooking needs the love of food and the willingness to learn 🙂 once you have this, you can learn to cook anything.