Bring Back Sunday Dinner!

With our busy lives, some days it feels like we spend less and less time preparing meals and sitting down to eat together.   Some of our most memorable family get togethers are centred around food and eating.  I want to teach our kids that there is more to a HOME than its location and the stuff inside.  A home can be anywhere, it is what you do there that counts.  Hopefully, down the road, our kids will remember these times and when they create their own families, a renewed tradition will develop.

Whether or not you can actually cook is not important.  If you can read you can follow a recipe and with practice you will get better.  It is about the anticipation of a meal, the smells and the fact that so much preparation was put into something.  It is not just about the food.

Start out simple and prepare something that is fairly easy and as you get more comfortable you can try new recipes and be a bit more daring.  It is a great thing for a couple to do together as you can talk or listen to music while you work.  Jamie Oliver is a huge believer in good food, health and spending time with family.  If you have to watch tv, watch a cooking show, you will always learn something or be inspired.

My parents live an hour away and I invite them every second Sunday for dinner and a game of cards.  They stay over in our son’s room while he sleeps on the couch for the night.  This is now a new tradition and the fact that my mom always leaves $10 on his dresser to pay him for the inconvenience is fine with him too.  

I will plan the Sunday meal during the week and if I need something special Kevin and I will go shopping together on these occasions.  It is a lot of fun and a trip to the Italian Deli is a perfect date.   Sometimes I will pick a theme or most often cook according to the season.  I picked up a wonderful local cookbook called The Alberta Seasonal Cookbook of which I have tried several recipes.  Once I try a recipe I always write a rating on the page and this has been helpful in deciding if I should try other recipes from the same cook book.  I can highly recommend the Potato and Roasted Garlic Chowder, it was wonderful and our company loved it!

I follow Julie van Rosendaal’s blog Dinner With Julie and her recipes are easy and delicious.  She has been blogging for several years now and you can find all of her recipes on her website.  Try to read her blog for awhile and you will learn a lot about food and Julie.  Here is someone who seems to have figured out the perfect balance between work and family and you will be inspired to cook.  Some of my favourites are slow cooker pulled pork, Jamie’s chili, faster-than-fast-food salmon and rain forest crisps.

Here is a great way of saying “I love you” to the kids – a chocolate cake for them ‘just because’ and it is always a hit.  It takes longer to heat up the oven than to mix together the ingredients!

Terrific Chocolate Cake:

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

¼ unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

6 tbsp. canola oil

1 tbsp. white vinegar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 cup cool water

Icing:

¼ butter, at room temperature

2 cups icing sugar

2 – 3 tbsp. milk or water

1 ½ tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a round cake pan with Pam and sprinkle with flour.

In a bowl sift flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt.  Stir briefly to mix.  Make 3 separate areas in the flour for the oil, vinegar and vanilla.  Put in the water and stir a few times to mix.  That’s it, pour into prepared cake pan and bake for 30 minutes in the middle of the oven.  The cake is done when the top feels springy when lightly touched.  Transfer to a wire rack and cool complete before taking it out of the pan.

In a bowl cream together the butter and 1 cup of icing sugar until the butter is well disturbed.  The mixture will be very dry and powdery.  Stir in 1 tablespoon  of milk or water and then add the cocoa powder and blend.  Mix in the vanilla and then add the second cup of icing sugar.  Add as much of the remaining liquid as necessary to make a thick, creamy icing.  Sprinkle with whatever topping you like.


You can contact me at this email link: greaterlivinginstitute@gmail.com