When Did You Last Try Something New?

Thank you to P&G’s Have You Tried This Yet? program and Kroger for sponsoring my writing about trying new things and breaking out of my everyday routine. Click here to find great savings on high-performing P&G products at a Kroger store near you. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Okay, I have a confession…I can’t cook. (Well, I couldn’t until I decided to give it a try.)

I hear all the time about how little girls spend time in the kitchen with their moms or grandmothers learning to cook. I was the complete opposite, I was much happier outside tinkering about in the shop with my dad and granddaddy. Needless to say, my desire to be outside rather than in the kitchen quickly caught up with me once I got older and realized that all I could cook was macaroni & cheese (you think I’m kidding…sadly, I’m not). I did have one speciality, desserts! I could make brownies and bake cakes (box mixes, no way was I talented enough to make anything from scratch) but I couldn’t cook a decent meal for dinner. And no matter what my brother says, brownies do not count as dinner LOL

My lack of cooking knowledge wasn’t really a problem considering hubby is a great cook! However, I hate that he works all day long and then has to come home to stand around even more cooking. He should be able to relax and since I’m now a stay at home mom, I should be doing the cooking…or the majority of it anyways to help out.

So I decided to challenge myself and try to learn to cook. I started small, I learned how to make real mashed potatoes (no more boxes of flakes for me!), a yummy roast in the crock-pot, I even conquered my daddy’s dressing (stuffing) during the holidays! So far things were going pretty well, I was managing to cook a few decent meals without burning the house down lol. The I ran into yet another problem…

We were bored with the same dishes every week. It was always hamburgers, chicken, chicken, and more chicken with the occasional roast. It was getting old pretty fast. It was time for something new so I started searching for new recipes. I would search the internet, ask family members for recipes of dishes we liked when we joined them for dinner, I asked friends, I even subscribed to a recipe magazine! Hubby and I both like to try new things and it was time to add some flavor back into dinnertime.

I always search for easy recipes that don’t take too much time since I’m still learning. Each new recipe is something fun to try as a family and I’m always so excited when I find one that we not only like but that I can make. Now when we sit down to make our grocery list and plan our menu for two weeks, we have more choices of what to cook and we always try to find at least one new recipe to try during the two week time frame. And while hubby still helps out quite a bit with the cooking, I’m getting better and I’m so glad I decided to try and learn.

Cooking for my family, especially cooking healthy meals for my family, is even more important to me now that Abby is eating table food. I want the best for her while at the same time I want to make healthy changes to my diet. Not only are we trying new recipes, we are trying healthier recipes full of yummy foods that I wish I had tried a long time ago. I now add more vegetables to our meals, including turnip greens of all things. I decided we would try them at New Year’s and not only does Abby love them but I like them as well…talk about a total shock to me! The more new foods we try, the more we discover that we really like. It’s always wonderful to try new things; I especially love trying and discovering new foods with Abby! Her facial expressions when she tastes something for the first time are adorable!