Slow day.

I've been cleaning, reading, baking. I made pumpkin bread and some muffins because I only have one good loaf pan. They are yummy. The batter seemed a little too heavy so I added in a little applesauce and yum. I also soaked the raisins so they would be really moist and yum, but they all sank to the bottom....I used white flour because I'm out of whole wheat, and I would like them better with whole wheat.

Michael is feeling better today so he is over at Alexander's doing geeky things. They like to watch "Yes, Prime Minister" and argue about math and physics problems... whoopeee. Emily is lying in bed watching "Beauty and the Geek" episodes. Aren't we just the most exciting crew ever?

I've been thinking about convenience food. It is kind of funny. My mom and Dad both know how to cook, I mean REALLY REALLY cook. My dad ran a restaurant for years and was at one time president of the national restaurant association. Yet we often had convenience food at home, like canned spaghetti, boxed pizza mix, Kraft chicken and noodle dinner, TV dinner. Yet my mom and dad could make anything from scratch - I mean soups, stews, casseroles, cakes, noodles from scratch even. I think it was because that stuff was invented during their lifetimes and they were kind of fascinated with it. So I grew up with a strange mixture of wonderful homemade food and convenience food at the same time. I love them both!

I can make almost anything from scratch (except you won't catch me making homemade noodles - that's what those Mrs. Reames frozen noodles are for), but I LIKE actual boxed and canned foods, too. I like Spaghetti O's . I like packaged noodle dinners, I like Banquet frozen dinners.... because I grew up on those just as much as the "real" stuff. Also my parents worked ALL the time - hazard of the restaurant business - and Chris and I could just cook all that stuff for ourselves all the time. Of course we also baked cookies and cakes and stuff because if we wanted them we just had to do it ourselves.

So it's interesting today I made instant potatoes and a noodle mix for lunch, but baked from scratch pumpkin bread and plan homemade soup for dinner. And that it what a typical day might be around here might be... some great, nutritious, whole-grain amazing homemade food for one meal and some frozen, high sodium, horrible for you food the next. I think it drives Michael crazy. He would prefer everything organic and whole and locally grown, of course. He puts up with my idiosyncrasies because I am the provider and cook most of the time and he is the kid and lazy. I do try to take his desire into consideration because I respect him and his principles and I know he is right, but it really is hard to change a lifetime of habits and learning and taste.

Happy today for:
Hand mixer. Making the making of pumpkin bread much easier. remember the days of making cakes and the "beat 300 times" instructions?