Though I loathe to admit it, I’m finally ready to confess that I must be the laziest mom out there when it comes to preparing meals.  I’m red-faced, but there you have it.  If I had my druthers, I’d be spending my time reading or playing with my daughter.  Not cooking for us!  I married a foodie – shouldn’t he be the one busy in the kitchen?  But there I am, about 4 or 5 nights a week, in the kitchen cooking up a meal.  I don’t like touching meat, my knife skills are pretty weak, and my palette is pretty mainstream (curry – how exciting!).

Luckily, my tastes line up pretty well with my daughter’s interests at this age.  We both like things quick and simple.  The main difference is that most of my meals are vegan, but she is an omnivore cook’s delight.  So we compromise….  I’ll usually make a meal and then add in a little meat on her plate.  Meat for her includes prosciutto (her fave!), sausage, chicken – things I can cook up in batches and chop up easily.  Here’s our list of surefire winners that do not usually require a recipe:

• Pizza
• Polenta
• Rice and beans
• Pasta (Cheese, Marinara or Pesto)
• Cheese Sandwiches
• Hummus Wraps
• Burrito
• Cous Cous

Everything is always served with fresh raw veggies on the side, usually tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and occasionally celery.  Fruit for dessert.  I do not buy any pre-made sauces or dips, I just usually find a night of the week and then make up double or triple batches of everything and then freeze them.  For instance, we’ve got basil pesto as well as tomato sauce in the freezer.  I just take out a small amount, thaw it in the microwave and then stir it in with the freshly cooked pasta.

Those of you feeling sad for Monkey right now, never fear.  Her dad feeds her extremely well on the nights he cooks – very exotic and gourmet meals that include duck confit, truffle oil and all kinds of pork rubs.

Today I just didn’t even feel like trying.  We’ve been reading this great book all week – it’s called Dog Day by Sarah Hayes-and in it, a young boy and girl are eating sandwiches for lunch.  I thought this would be a great tie in for us since Monk hardly ever eats bread.  I’ve tried all week: PB&J, ham and cheese, grilled cheese, tuna fish, cucumber and hummus and tomato.  Nothing is getting through, or more appropriately hardly anything seems to be making it into her mouth.  We saw our friend Jen today for a playdate, and she asked if we had any good ideas for lunch.  There was an edge of hopefulness in her voice.  Alas, I can only offer a good recipe for the adults in the house:

The Best Grilled Cheese Recipe

Start with hearty whole grain bread.  Spread some non-dairy butter like Earth Balance on one side of each piece of bread.   Place one piece of bread directly down into a frying pan; I prefer cast iron or an easy to clean stainless steel frying pan.  Grate some cheese (a creamy gruyere works perfectly, but I’ve never turned my nose up at anything on hand in the fridge) and then also grate a little carrot directly onto the piece of bread in the pan.  Place the other piece of bread, buttered side up, on top of the sandwich and then turn on your burner to a medium-low setting.  Fry both sides until bread is toasty and cheese is melting.

Monk will tolerate this sandwich although mainly she rips off the bread and eats the melted cheese.  Then she asks for some kind of fruit.  Mango?

My dad thought it would be a good idea to take us all out to lunch at the local pub on Sunday. I was of course fretting over what to feed my little one – I completely overlooked the biker convention and beer rally. EVERYTHING on the menu was fried. I finally picked out a grilled cheese for the two of us and ordered a green salad on the side. The salad arrived first so I gave all of the “fixins” as we used to say in Texas to my daughter: croutons, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, shredded red cabbage pieces, and grated carrot. When the sandwich arrived, she decided to add the carrot to the sandwich. Brilliant (naturally!) I tasted it, and it was pretty good.