Cooking | Lessons from my daughter

Emily is starting grade 11 on Wednesday!

I can’t believe my baby is 17 and going into grade 11…

So as of today, we need to get into our school routine and one thing we absolutely need is food!

Homemade meals for lunches and dinner.

So today, we cooked…

Before we tackled this cooking, we had to eat so hubby made us breakfast

Toast with bacon, egg, fresh tomato and avocado covered under mozzarella. You gotta love a man who can cook!

I made one of Emily’s favorite. Shepperd’s pie! Only corn, no peas and carrots…. If you make yours with peas and carrots, it’s perfectly fine with me. Should you invite me for dinner and serve Shepperd’s pie with peas and carrots, I will eat it and love it but mine is made with corn.

Last week, I discovered Shake N Bake… How did I go 40 years without knowing I could do this with chicken is puzzling to me… So today I made chicken fingers. Easy to make, good on their own with dipping sauce and succulent in sandwiches.

Jonathan made his biscuits…. yummy delicious and oversize biscuit. Good with fresh jam, nutella, peanut butter and bananas or with soup…

Speaking of soup I made a yummy Potage Parmentier. Mine is a really simple recipe. Leek, a little garlic, potatoes and vegetable broth. Once it is all cooked, it goes in the blender. No cream required!

Today we added a small amount of mushrooms because they were chopped 🙂

I can make many yummy meatloaf but today, Jonathan decided he was making a meatloaf inspired by a recipe in his new cookbook: The Ketogenic Cookbook

I say inspired as we didn’t have all the ingredients…

I call this, his caterpillar meatloaf…

Regardless of the look of it, it’s delicious.

I made my zucchini-banana bread loafs (minus the nuts) into muffins so Emily can take them to school!

I also have chicken salad for sandwiches, lots of veggies for crudites and dip, a variety of cheeses, some fruits and many snacks for the lunch boxes.

Oh, and I still have everything I need to make another one like this!

Today was a good day, except for the part where we hit 30 degrees celsius which is 86 degrees farenheit and we have a tiny AC unit that didn’t quite cool down the kitchen, even with a fan on…

Tonight I deserved some of my favorite food!

I try not to complain about my many aches.

My body hurts, all the time but not enough to stop me from moving along and finding my happiness.

For my 40th year (this year) I decided to start taking care of myself…

The physio helped my lower back than I went to a massage therapist for my arm and when my massage therapist said she wanted a chiropractor to have a look, I followed her recommendation.

I have visited the chiropractor 3 times this week. Monday, I came out of there with my left side from my ankles, to my fingers, to my ear and my head hurting. I was exhausted.

On Wednesday, I was tired but managed to get some work done after my 2nd appointment

This morning I woke up with a headache but went back this afternoon for more.

I think it’s working… I am not as tired and although my head and ear still hurts, the rest of my body is feeling different. Not necessarily better but definitely different.

So why my title?

After 3 visits at the chiropractor, tonight, I deserved some of my favorite food.

So tonight, we ate grapes

And a baguette, some of it sliced and some of it diced 🙂

Dipping oils. I don’t believe Emily ever dipped bread in oil or vinegar before but she gave it a try tonight. I love this about Emily. This little girl who wasn’t supposed to be able to learn to chew and swallow food on her own due to her cri du chat syndrome, eats a more diversified diet than most kids her age.

Emily will try anything and loved almost everything.

Tonight, her favorite was olive oil infused with white truffle 🙂 Quite a strong flavor, trust me!

I prepared some cheese (Boursin, Brie, Gruyere, old cheddar and marble cheddar) and veggies than made Emily’s favorite dip.

Many of my favorites 🙂

But a food fest wouldn’t be complete without an Angel food cake. Tonight, I didn’t want to bake it so I bought it already made and got some strawberries and whipped cream.