Cooking with L

I love to cook. I love to experiment with the recipes, and I rarely make anything exactly the same way twice. I love that learning to cook is so organic - I am never done learning, and the lessons are internalized in such a way that many cooks can't always explain them. I'm not talking about professional chefs here - but cooks like my mother, who has been cooking the same spaghetti recipe for 40 years, but can't tell you the measurements of the spices to make it - just that she knows when it "tastes right".  Being a good cook is all about perseverance - learning from your mistakes and continuing to experiment.

Having L around has definitely made cooking more challenging. The main problem is finding the time. My husband, Matt, is really good about helping with parenting, but there are still other things to be done - laundry, cleaning, etc. L is still young (not quite 3 months yet), so I'm hoping that it will get easier to occupy her while I'm cooking (maybe this is a pipe dream?), and that she will eventually want to help and learn in the kitchen.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I was really tired. And after L was born, I had very little time to worry about food. Needless to say, I ended up eating a lot of processed food during that time. I lost all of the baby weight right after L was born. But then due to lack of exercise, and a poor diet, I've gained 10 lbs back. That's the wrong direction. I want to get down to a healthy weight - about 30lbs less than I am now. I don't want to "diet" with silly rules, that I don't think work (proabably because I have a hard time following them). I want to eat healthier, with less processed food, no soda, very little caffiene and less sugar. My fasting glucose tends to be high, as well as my total cholesterol, and at my last doctor's visit my blood pressure was up - not too high, but up. I think that was from the caffiene I drank to get me through the first month and a half of having a newborn. A nice cold Coca-Cola is really hard for me to resist. :)

Matt is on board with eating better at home - he gained weight during the pregnancy too, due to my opting for takeout instead of cooking most nights. I would also like to spend less on food - Matt eats out most days for lunch, and I was buying lunch from the cafeteria at work - which does not have the most healthy food either. And the healthy food that they do have is bland. I'm thinking the challenge now will be time.