Stacey Crocker

I like to bake. I hate to cook but I love to bake. My first real job was a baking job. From time to time I get into a mega baking mood and go a little crazy baking a whole mess of stuff all at once.

This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving and my Mother in Law asked me to bring a cheesecake for dessert for her Thanksgiving dinner. No problem at all. The only thing I like better than cheesecake is MY cheesecake. I don't like to brag...well yes, actually I do...my cheesecake it THE s-@*#! I figured while I was making a cheesecake for that dinner I might as well make one for when I go to my parents for dinner. I usually make a traditional fruit topped cheesecake to go to either house. Then I found an easy chocolate cheesecake recipe on Pinterest.com (my latest addiction). I'm not a big chocolate fan but lots of people are and I wanted to try out the recipe so I added that to my baking list. Then, while eating a pumpkin spice muffin from Tim Hortons I wondered if I could find a pumpkin cheesecake recipe that I had all the ingredients for. I found a recipe and then during my search I came across a recipe for pumpkin cookies and added both to my baking list. My parents really like peanut butter cookies so I added a small batch of them to the list as well.

I spent most of the night last night making cheesecakes and then got up this morning and baked cookies. My Nana would be so proud. Just call me Stacey Crocker! I'm not sure who is going to eat all this crap but they definitely have options. The pumpkin cookie recipe yielded over 100 cookies so I hope somebody besides me like them or I'm going to be another 25 pounds heavier. The pumpkin cheese cake filling it so scrumptious I could have eaten it 2 minutes after is was finished.

Now that all the baking is done I am trying to resist the urge to google more recipes as I really need to get moving with my day. I'm sure the rest of my day is going to be spent praying the boys don't find out there are 4 cheesecakes in the downstairs fridge and cookies locked in the pantry so I will actually have goodies to take to dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and cheers to eating enough turkey to have to move to the next notch in your belt!

What do YOU want for dinner?

Almost every night is the same. "Hunny, what do you want for dinner?"
"I dunno, what do YOU want for dinner?" And then the game begins. Pork chops?-don't like them. BBQ ed/baked/stuffed/stir fried Chicken?-no chicken. Pizza?-not again. Lasagna?-too heavy. Salad?-too light. Steak?-to expensive. Tacos?-rather not. Spaghetti?-not the way either of us makes it. Fish?-ewww.....What do you want from McDonald's?

This goes on at our house just about every night. I've tried lots of things to get us out of this pattern. Organized shopping lists, New recipes, Meal plans, you name it. Meal plans would work if one of us could remember to take chicken/pork chops/steak/hamburger out of the freezer the night before or in the morning so it would be thawed and ready to go for dinner but that very rarely happens.

If certain people would expand there pallet to include a little more interesting dishes this would be helpful too. Who wants to eat the same crap all the time? Variety is the key to getting most kids to eat something. My guys anyways. Of course what they like this week is totally different than what they are going to like next week.

Another thing that works against us is time. Both me and the Mr. work and don't get home until 4:30-5:00 when dinner needs to be started. Both of us are exhausted and the kids are running around like maniacs or need a diaper change/drink/help/etc. Neither of us are really excited to cook either. I cook only out of necessity. I can cook I just don't like to. I think those people that say they love to cook (along with people that say they like to garden) are either liars or nutcases.

I want to feed my family nutritious, well balanced meals but it Harvey's doesn't have that on their menu. I always said that I would eat out less when I had kids (with plans to make those proper meals) but it seems we eat out more than before the kids. So now I feel the guilt of filling my children up on processed, high fat, high sodium, high sugar, high calorie foods.

There is lots more I could write about this topic but it is getting hard for me to type and take bites of my Big Mac so I'll call it quits for now.