Becoming a "real" homemaker!!

I hope you don't take my title the wrong way. I am just realizing for myself that simply doing the laundry & getting food out to eat was not enough for me. I want to be more. I want to be the Mom that cooks from scratch & teaches her daughter how. I want to be the Mom that can manage a house full of kids, laundry, dishes, cooking and manage to stay "sane" at the end of the day. (That last one may take a while, just so you know!) So, here's the start of my journey...

I have recently begun seriously baking & making things from scratch. You can ask anyone who knows me well and they will say they are honestly shocked at some of the things I’m making! You see, I have a few things that absolutely make me squeamish. I mean, they make me shutter to the point that I couldn’t handle touching them or handling them to even cook. It really put a damper and HUGE restriction on what I could make. One of those things is RAW meat!!!! I CANNOT STAND IT!!!! In fact, my aversion is so bad that at a Pamepered Chef/Homemade Gourmet party I hosted a while back I could barely touch the meat in the baggie that I was preparing for the freezer! I mean, I didn’t even have to touch the meat itself, but I could feel the squishy-ness of it and that just completely turned my stomach! UGH!!! So, now fast-forward about 1 ½ years and here we are. I have touched raw chicken (today in fact – not for the first time, but again), I still have not touched hamburger meat or ground turkey, but…we’re working up to it! (maybe) I have made several roasts where I’ve had to marinate them myself and so, I would say I’m quite proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished!! It may not seem like much to you, but trust me – IT IS!!!

In a previous post I mentioned how I use various charts in my house to help make things run smoother (in theory, of course). One of them is the Meal Plan chart for our week. I have since revised it to a monthly Meal Plan sheet/calendar, because my 5yo would constantly complain that he did NOT like whatever I was making & he’s never had it before. This monthly chart gives me the ability to look back & say, “Well, 2 weeks ago we had this exact same thing and you LOVED it!!!” Then, he would argue that he didn’t remember eating it and maybe that was a night his Mimi took him out! REALLY?! Where do they get these things? So, now when he eats something, we write on that date that he either liked it or loved it!! It’s working GREAT to detour his negativity at dinner time. Things are going so much smoother now!! (NOTE: This is the same calendar that I put our monthly activities on & post on the fridge for everyone to see - not that they look, cause they still ask, but at least it's there!)

So, now on with what else I’ve made/baked. I’ve found many crock-pot recipes that I enjoy and I will share those soon. When we didn’t have a working oven, I started searching for things we liked to eat, but in a crock-pot recipe. I found a TON of things you can make in a slow cooker that are easy, quick & so much less hassle than getting the entire kitchen dirty! I love them!!! But, I must say, I have thoroughly enjoyed having an oven again. I’ve baked BBQ chicken (yes, I touched it & basted it myself), homemade pizza pockets (find the recipe I use here at Heavenly Homemakers), homemade bread and MORE!!!

I am enjoying becoming the homemaker God wants me to be. I hope to continue sharing with you all about my journey on this path. I will work on posting some of the slow cooker recipes I’ve found that are our favorites. Keep watching!!!