Introduction

This blog exists to help me improve the diet of my family. I have a son and a husband who really like their food and I like to give it to them. I love to see the delight on their face when they gobble up something delicious that I prepared. I also like to surprise them. I don't wait until my husband is peering into the fridge. I like to preempt his needs and show up with a bacon sandwich just before he realizes how much this bacon sandwich is exactly what he'd like to eat right now. I love to make him happy, and food really makes him happy. The problem with this system is obvious. We're all getting chubby.

I have tried to make healthier decisions. I don't think it's up to me to decide what we all eat, but I appreciate that I do most of the cooking and want to take my share of the responsibility for the health risk that this is causing. The problem is that my husband's delighted smile to a plate of hash browns or beef and dumplings is not quite the same when it's a chicken salad. Smile's not even the right word for it, he looks at hash browns right in the eyes and devours them like a beast. Eventually, I go back to making unhealthy food because I miss the reaction that my cooking gets when there's a stick of butter in the recipe. It seems that there is a miserable trade off inherent in the system. Health is more important, but no-one wants to eat boring, flavorless food, even if it is healthy, and I don't get the same satisfaction from cooking when the reactions are muted.

On Wednesday, the system got fucked up. On Wednesday, I managed to make a very healthy meal that everyone loved. I didn't take a picture of it so I'll just describe it. It was fresh shrimp, stir fried in ginger, garlic and a fuck ton of spinach, served with green beans, spaghetti squash and a fresh chopped tomato. From my calculations, this mountain of food worked out at about 400 super-nutritious calories per person and was as delicious and satisfying as a sixty-nine with Jesus.

I got a double hit of pride. I'm not going back. I need to find more recipes that are vegetable based, low fat and  delicious. I think this is mostly going to involve an increased use of new and interesting herbs and spices so I can make vegetables taste better. There's probably going to be a lot of garlic. Ultimately, I want to get that feeling at every meal time. I want to give my son a healthy attitude to food before he goes off into the big wide world without me, and I want to keep my husband healthy so I can die first. I'm not interested in watching him die and then dying alone. I already shotgunned going first, but this can't hurt. And I want them to think that their mamma/wife makes the best food in the world!

I've made this blog to motivate me on my search for healthy, tasty meals and to keep me on track. I'm fickle. I'm really into this now but I need to remain focused. Remember the shrimp? This is possible. You can have it all!