Chop away!
April 6, 2026
Hello Friend!
Happy Monday, I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend! On Saturday Jon and I hosted both the girls and their families to celebrate Auston's 4th birthday and we included a little bit of Easter egg fun as well. We sat around the table eating Spiderman cake and ice cream on paper plates with pics of heroes and villains, and the boys ran all over the house having a wonderful time. It was great.
I did, however, do the cooking for our dinner party, which brings me to my topic for the day. Just like everyone, I love to eat, and tasting new recipes can be a lot of fun. But my true confession is, I really don't enjoy the cooking part. Yeah, I'm always reading those articles written by people who love to cook, and I really want to feel the same way. And I personally know many home chefs who find cooking relaxing and rewarding. Ugh. For me, I just want to get to the end game, when the kitchen is clean and the plates are filled with something yummy.
The thing I dislike most is when a recipe requires more than one bowl, multiple pots and SO much chopping! I'm always looking for the best "one pan" meal, a crock pot winner, or at least a dish that goes into the oven and gives me a half hour to clean everything up before dishing it out.
Also, I have a real gripe with those summaries at the top of recipes. You know what I'm talking about, that section that gives you the prep time, cook time, and number of servings? It's all a scam. The author will use terms like "quick" and "easy", with a prep time of five minutes. And then you discover that in those five minutes you have to chop an onion, three peppers and shred a block of cheese. Right. A half hour later I'm still hovering over my cutting board and feeling sorry for myself.
I know that sharp knives help (mine are only sort of sharp) and they make all kinds of great tools to help with chopping. But have you ever tried to clean all those onion bits out of a little chopper? Yuk. And I know that many cooks actually enjoy chopping (what?!).
Nope. I'm the girl grabbing the pre-chopped packages of veggies in the deli section and guiltily hiding them in my cart, knowing I just paid WAY too much for having someone else do the work. Sigh.
If you promise not to tell on me I'll bake you a batch of oatmeal toffee cookies. They're "easy" and "quick". LOL
