Well, I really haven't given a whole lot of thought to today's post! I have a window of around 15mins before I need to start organising our next meal so I figured I may as well write!

Today's pic is actually just a little funny.... I was doing something the other day and came out to the lounge room to discover that my youngest daughter had been playing with the sweet potato's again... and this is where one ended up!

Yep... on my bookshelf!

Actually, I guess something that has been on my mind a bit lately is a conversation I had with my step-mum recently. Erin is a lovey NZ'er with 6 of her own kids (plus us 4 step-kids!) and has worked as a cook on and off for most of her life - so food has always been a huge part of her life too. When Erin and Dad lived here for around 12 months it was so nice to talk to her about things like cooking etc because she knows how to make pretty much anything from scratch with minimal ingredients!

We were recently discussing the amount of cooking I do each day/week and she commented that I was basically doing exactly what the womenfolk of years gone by used to do, but in a very different era. And that got me thinking... it is so true - for those of you that aren't aware, the only commercial foods we can actually eat are:

• Schweppes Lemonade ( only occasionally and for us adults only of course!)
• Black Tea Bags/cup of tea if out
• Buderim Ginger Marmalade (again - adults only!)
  
• Nuttelex butter substitute - weadults can use this and its ok in cooking for the girls, but for general butter I make their's from scratch as this can be problematic in large doses for them

So, anything else we consume must be hand made by me. And there is absolutely no ducking to the local take away store or fish & chip shop if a creation doesn't turn out or I'm feeling a bit tired or lazy, or running up to the shop if we run out of bread or milk... I just have to keep on cooking! Even mince cannot be bought so if we want to make a mince dish I need to actually do the mincing myself as well.

We live in a much different society too in that these days we don't have much, if any, community surrounding us to help out, we are busier with things like Dancing Lessons and Kindy and just being social, we aren't surrounded by others that actually cook from scratch so much and its almost become quite the norm to eat out or have take away quite regularly from what I see in our friends and associates.

A couple of my friends have said that since they've seen what we are doing they have been inspired to start to cook some things from scratch for their families - things like cakes and biscuits for snacks...

I'm not really sure what my point is here LOL I do know that I am very fortunate in that I have appliances to help make my life a lot easier - my food processor gets used daily, as does my stick blender and my digital scales! I don't have to do a lot of mixing by hand fortunately (especially now both wrists are suffering from RSI). And I have an electric oven!

But in some strange way I actually feel really comfortable with the way our life has turned... living simply has always appealed to us, so this really has forced the issue... I have learned to simplify my life in other areas so I have time to do the cooking, I'm now quite selective about the activities we choose and the invitiations we accept and we are spending much more time at home as a family than we used to. Yes there is no denying I do a whole lot more now than I ever used to and some things have had to go by the wayside, but the sacrifices have brought about so many changes...

I just wonder if I would have made this realisation though, if I hadn't been used to living the lifestyle of buying food ready made and having take away or dining out...