A real food blog!

The most difficult thing for most people is change--change of any kind. So often we are just flying by the seat of our pants that any change in our fragile routine will put us in a tailspin. And so goes the difficulty of marketing our service. In order to incorporate Columbia's Kitchen into your life, you have to go to a new place--that may be out of the way for some people--buy new food that you or others may not like, cook it in a way that may not be familiar to you, and actually be there to eat it! Believe me, I live that life and know the insanity. With two working parents, two kids with various and sundry activities and two dogs and fish that need attention, we are no different than most of our customers, and I admit, sometimes I can't figure out how to use our services!

But, what I do know is that when I do, my life is so much saner and so much happier. I know I will not be nominated for parent of the year anytime soon, so I will confess that we are not one of those perfect families that sits down to dinner every night to enjoy a sane, healthy meal with constructive conversation. No, not at all... At least two nights every week, our meals are fast food--from who knows where, or leftovers out of the refrigerator eaten standing up at the kitchen counter... However, from now on, I am going to share what we do, how Columbia's Kitchen makes our lives better, and maybe some of you can chime in on works or doesn't work and we can help grow some sanity in our increasingly chaotic world.

Given my job, weekends is when my life is most sane, so that's when I do the most cooking, and sometimes I still cook my own recipes from scratch, but since my time is so precious, I rely on Columbia's Kitchen a lot on the weekends. This Saturday we had a couple kid friends over--one is a vegetarian who won't eat mushrooms, so we had: potato crusted tilapia with garbanzo bean casserole and macaroni and cheese. I love the potato tilapia, it's like bbq potato chips on fish, a little chili powder, a little parmesan, well, Jay and I love it, the kids are not so fond of it, so they ate macaroni and cheese, garbanzo beans and mangoes--then brewed tea from mango pits--another topic for another day! So yesterday and today I had leftover fish and mac n cheese for breakfast--I know I'm weird but it's so much more satisfying than anything else I could whip up AND eat in under two minutes. And Jay is having garbanzo bean casserole for lunch today.

On Sunday Bo had a noon basketball game, so I made lunch of Santa Fe soft tacos at 10:30. We all ate lunch and have some leftovers in the fridge that the boys can eat for dinner tonight before they rush off to violin lessons. We were going to have cornish game hens for dinner, but we decided at the last minute to meet friends at the Outback, where our final $55 bill would have bought a whole week's worth of food at Columbia's Kitchen, but every now and then a splurge is good... So the hens will now thaw an extra day and be saved for dinner on Tuesday (with the rest of the cheesy potato bake from Friday night). And I have creole catfish in the fridge for dinner on Wednesday!

And today in the store, we will be making king ranch chicken, chicken green chile enchiladas, creamy chicken and noodles and beef--slow cooker bbq, sesame ginger, carne rojas, meatloaves, and steaks. And since Bo doesn't have school today, he will be making corn and black bean salad and cranberry bbq meatballs for his teachers to eat tomorrow while they have conferences! So, I better go get started, Lisa