Hi, it’s me. Just checking in to let you know we had pasta for dinner last night.
Store bought pasta.
White store bought pasta.
Again.
Yes, it’s me. The author of a cute little book that reveals all my secrets for preparing real food even on a real busy schedule.
And this week some of our food wasn’t, um, real.
I could now defend myself by listing what else we had with the cheater pasta (cheater ’cause I should be making my own). Like Alfredo sauce made with whole, raw, Jersey milk. Garlic I grew myself. Broccoli I harvested, steamed, and froze from my own garden.
But that would just be showing off. When what I really want to do was just let you know I’m not perfect. I make compromises in my kitchen – choices that aren’t in sinc with my nutritional convictions. We eat foods one wouldn’t talk about on a real food blog.
But this isn’t a real food blog. It’s just a real me blog.
And we had a lovely dinner — no side serving of guilt or angst. We enjoyed watching Seth shovel his food with his left hand well he held his fork in his right (for appearances). I poked Jeremy to notice Claire, calling each noodle on her plate a snake, and announcing to Jesse each time she “ate a snake”. I gobbled down my plateful, savoring the bit of green swimming in rich, garlicky, cheese sauce, and grateful for the three sausage links I’d found in the freezer to add protein to this thrown-together-at-the-end-of-a-long-day meal.
Take it from me — learning new techniques and sourcing better ingredients for your meals are great ideas. But if eating healthier stresses you out – well, that’s just as bad for you as eating a candy bar. So relax. And enjoy those noodles.
Ann and Stacy – I confess, it felt really good to get this off my chest. maybe I can start a trend? LOL
Erin – thanks for sharing!
Jess – I always use sauce from a jar. If that makes ya feel better. :)Oh, and I don't want to hear anymore about you being a culinary failure!
smoore – you ARE the crockpot queen.
Sara – you're right on – do what you can where you're at – your attitude is the best ingredient you can add to your food! 🙂
Love this! Our family is just embarking on this journey. BUT my cupboards are still full of packaged foods and white sugar. I cannot wait till I can legitimately start buying the good for you stuff.
But financially we need to use what we have first 🙂
Sara@ http://yourthrivingfamily.blogspot.com/
Somedays it really is about surviving. I always feel like a culinary failure when we have spaghetti and sauce (all natural from a jar though) and meatballs from our store.
I let Josh have chicken nuggets today. What can I say, we have a jam packed day and making lunch, even just peanut butter and jelly, wasn't going to happen.
He loved them and giggled all through eating his chicken nugget and apples happy meal. Oh well, at least tonight we are having chicken breasts marinated with homemade herb and garlic sauce, fresh biscuits, and homemade applesauce.(Two of which, by the way, were made in the crockpots) So I don't feel overly guilty.
This post made me smile. 🙂 Love the reminder not to stress about food. I'm spending today cooking a weeks worth of real food, some for me to freeze and take with me on my week away and some for my husband to eat while I am gone. I have two more recipes left to make and am sitting down for a minute of rest. I'm pretty exhausted from all the peeling, chopping, stirring! I'm not sure I could do this if I had little ones. And my husband will most definitely be supplimenting what I made him with white pasta.
This hit the nail on the head! I'm with you all the way! Thanks for being transparent and sharing! I shared this on my FB page!
Very well said! 🙂 Thank you for being so transparent. Too many foodies are overbearing and cause most people to feel guilty for what they eat. Do the best you can. 80/20.
Well said! So often I do tend to stress when I don't have the right food available, but like you said that's just as bad as eating a candy bar! So we all need to do our best to eat a healthy diet, but not to worry and guilt trip ourselves when we don't. What is important is that we love God and our families and have as peaceful a home as possible:)
So true! I wish more whole foods/traditional foods/real foods bloggers would admit to these things:)