oh she glows | Lessons from my daughter

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!?!?

I don’t understand why so many people “hate” Mondays.

First, I try to not use the word hate, as I feel the meaning of it is more powerful than any dislikes I might have. I am sure that I am capable of hate, but I hope to never feel it.

Second, if we didn’t have Mondays, whatever day would follow the weekend would be getting all the harsh comments so this is a lose-lose situation.

I don’t mind Mondays, actually, today, I loved it.

1st. I woke up to the sun lighting my room and the birds singing nearby my house

2nd. Emily and I had pancakes for breakfast. When I make pancakes on the weekend, I make too many that way we can have leftover pancakes on Mondays.

3rd. I love my job! Going to work was a break from the chaos when Emily was a baby. It keeps me sane and balance, I love getting lost in my work knowing my family is ok.

As a child, I saw my mom love her job. She was a kindergarten teacher and she LOVED it. She studied at night to better herself and spent some of her own money to better her class. She was a single mom with 3 kids… I never heard her complain.

4th. I love my life!

I take after my mom, she loves life and taught us to appreciate what we had. We were far from being financially rich but we were rich with love. We were rich in essentials. We had a really nice house, we had food, clothes and everything we needed. Not all we wanted… All we needed. As kids, we sometimes felt cheated of things our friends were getting but as an adult now, I can’t believe how lucky I was and still am to have my mom.

5th. Hubby is now working day/evening instead of overnight. He is working from home so Emily as a safe place to be during summer vacations. After 3 years or so on overnight, it’s nice to have him home and to be off together on the weekend. It was nice to wake-up next to him on Monday morning when the house is quiet as opposed to waking-up to the dogs barking when he was getting home.

6th. Over the last week, hubby and I crossed stuff off our to-do list. Still lots to do but this not sleeping all day (for him) on weekends is awesome! I see the light at the end of the tunnel! He even started our small vegetable gardens. This is all really exciting.

So, today was awesome and tomorrow will be awesome too because I will make it! I (and you too) have the wonderful power of being happy. Mom always reminded us of situations worst than ours and to this day, I can find my happy place anywhere.

On a side note, my new notebook (journal) above will help me document my blog…

I am more a journal person than a computer person.

After 2 years of blogging away without a plan, I have realize that I’ve lost track of the stories I told you. 😦

I will take time to document the posts I have written, I will make copies and store them somewhere safe and I will list all the stories I still have to tell you.

That way, I can cross them off as I write.

And because I can’t go to Chapters and only buy 1 thing… (My new journal)

I got a notepad to help me make a plan, 1week at the time.

And a book about decluttering…. hopefully this will give me good ideas on how to organize us a bit more 🙂 And a book full of really interesting recipes.