Cooking Light

from Ben's mom

My friends Amy and Kevin Brewer gave us a wonderful wedding present that keeps giving and giving and giving. They gave us a subscription to Cooking Light. It was great during the first year of marriage to be able to thumb through a magazine and get ideas for interesting recipes. And I was an amazing cook for the first three months of our marriage until pregnancy took my appetite and ability to tolerate food smells away. Now, I am finally getting back into the swing of things and starting to be more adventurous in the kitchen again. Even though the subscription ran out long ago (but is on my list to renew when we can afford it), I have been pulling out last year's issues as they correspond to the current month. That way, it feels new and it makes sense seasonally. Cooking Light is great at focusing on seasonal fruits and vegetables in their recipes and so I am currently making things like Butternut Squash Soup with Seared Radicchio, and Late Fall Garden Soup with Kale and Rice. October appears to be a big soup month.

My amazing husband is always appreciative of my cooking and I often have trouble getting from him the truth. "But honey, did you really like it?" "Yeah, it was good." Hmmm.... I have gotten at the truth by giving him choices later: "Would you rather have pasta with pesto or the chickpea polenta stew or an omelette? I always note what he does not choose. For a guy from a meat-and-potatoes family in western New York, he is surprisingly adventurous when it comes to food. He appreciates ethnic food and doesn't mind my vegetarian cooking, as long as he can get a burger once a month or so.

Recently, I discovered Cooks.com. The amazing thing about this is that I can type in key words and it will give me recipes. This is handy when you have an ingredient you want to use (like squash from a neighbor's garden) and have no idea how to make anything with it. Last night I had some bland Thai noodles and no idea how to spice it up. I typed in "Peanut Sauce" and it gave me about 40 recipes to sort through.

I never really minded cooking, but now I find that I actually like it. It makes me feel like a "homemaker" instead of just a "housewife." Good cooking requires creativity, effort, and resourcefulness, and it helps if you care about your family's nutrition needs. Of course, having a handsome husband who thinks I'm amazing because I can do it, makes it exciting too.