My relationship with food is pretty simple: I LOVE FOOD!
I’m not sure if I would call myself a foodie per se. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a foodie is a person who is very interested in cooking and eating different kinds of food. Though I thoroughly enjoy food and eat it for pleasure as much as I do out of necessity, I’m not sure I am adventurous enough to be considered a modern-day foodie.
Labels aside, I can definitively say that I enjoy what I eat, and I eat what I enjoy. I also enjoy cooking and I have learned over the years that cooking what I know I like is essential to keeping me happy in the kitchen.
Enjoying Food
To me, food is more than just fuel for your body. Food adds to your quality of life. It’s not only something that you can enjoy for yourself but also something that helps you enjoy your time with others. The feeling of being able to bring someone else pleasure at a meal is incredibly satisfying.
Unfortunately, food can also easily become a source of stress. Today’s wellness culture definitely knows how to suck the life out of enjoying a meal. The push for eliminating certain foods as a blanket solution, criticizing and shaming people for eating processed or pre-made food, and the lack of actual education about nutrients and instead touting the latest and greatest juice trends is despicable. I’ll leave the rest of my thoughts on this for another post.
The point is that food doesn’t have to be complicated. Everything in moderation is absolutely my motto. There are no bad foods and no good foods. There are just foods with varying nutritional values that need to be balanced.
I really started paying attention to the composition of my meals when I was diagnosed with thyroid dysfunction in my mid-twenties. Until then I was very fortunate and never had to worry about what I ate. All of a sudden, I was gaining weight really easily and certain food started disagreeing with me. I had to pay closer attention to my body and the signs it was sending me.
Diets were never my thing nor did I limit myself forcefully. I simply started learning more about food and what function it performed, while simultaneously figuring out how I can continue to enjoy every meal. I was not willing to sacrifice my enjoyment of food!
Not a Chef
I always cooked ‘to taste’, as they say, so recipes were never my thing. Once Pinterest came around, I created all sorts of food boards but rarely found myself using them. I also found that I am incapable of sticking to a recipe. I
almost always have to change at least a few things in a recipe to make it my own.The running joke in my house was that I was a one-meal wonder. I would make up a dish but I could never replicate it again. I cooked based on intuition and random inspiration and never kept track of what I did.
The Start of My Recipe Blog
Another reason food can feel stressful is the pressure to come up with a variety of meals every single day to feed yourself and/or your family. Inspiration can run dry really fast when you are forced to have to come up with three meals, and snacks if you have kids, every single day.
This is how my blog came alive. I enjoy making and eating simple meals. Made with simple ingredients. Made using simple cooking methods. I thought to myself that there are likely other people out there who either aren’t great cooks or haven’t tried because they think it has to be complicated.
I am here to tell you that it doesn’t!
Follow along with my recipes to help you get meal ideas that are simple, easy, homemade, and relatively quick to make.
Every recipe on my blog is documented while I make the dish for my family so you can be sure that they can fit into any busy schedule. This also means that I can’t always get the prettiest pictures so forgive me for any sloppy images.
Let me know below whether you’re a pro looking for ideas or just starting out in the kitchen. I’m also always looking for content so if there are specific topics or recipes that you’re looking for, drop them in the comments below.
