"I just love watching you cook"

These words were uttered by one of my little dayhome ladies on Monday morning, as she watched me bustle around the kitchen making breakfasts and lunches for the day, and they hit my soul. She followed it up this morning with "you should be a chef!"

Quiche happens here several times a month. And because there are so many to feed, it happens in at least 3's or 4's.

When I went to my kids Parent Teacher interviews, they told us (after I uttered that I really feel like I'm failing them because we're so far behind in their homework sheets) that they could see how much we loved them by their lunches alone. I hadn't ever considered this. I often feel like I'm letting my family down, because I'm busy cleaning, and cooking and running errands, and and and. It never occurred to me that I am showing my love for my family through my cooking.

I'm gonna get real open here and let you guys know a few things about myself and my family.

1: My mother has been sick for a long time. When I say a long time, I don't mean a few months, or years, I mean well over a decade. She was diagnosed with fatty liver cirrhosis when I was 14, and I spend most of my adolescent and all of my adult life watching her suffer through the effects that it took on her body. People often attribute alcoholism to cirrhosis, but obesity is quickly becoming the leading cause. This reality has drastically affected my desire to feed my kids only the best. We've gone through phases and trends, vegan, vegetarian, paleo, etc. because I am terrified of the possibility of my kids having to watch me suffer, or for them to get sick. I've finally done the research and the footwork to figure out the best way to eat for us, but more on that later.

9 years ago. Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, Me, baby Reilly, and Princess Buttercup (the dog).

2: My grandmother was my hero, and I want to grow up to be just like her. She cooked to feed armies (not literally, but she had 4 kids and over 40 grand and great grandchildren), and could often be found at least one night a week delivering a whole stuffed chicken, roast vegetable and some kind of starch to all of her loved ones around the city. She and Grandpa (who was my very, very best friend) would sit down together and make hundreds, if not thousands, of perogies (I'm sorry Ukrainian friends, that's how I learned to spell it), and chocolate chip cookies, and cabbage rolls. They'd make pickles and antipasto, jams and jellies, chocolate zucchini and banana loaves, pot pies and shepherd's pies, stews and roasts.

Several times a year, they would pack up boxes full of their goodies and send them off to the distant families. Those of us who were lucky enough to live nearby could just stop in any time and take whatever our hearts desired. Grandma showed her love through her food. When they started to get sick, both of them at the same time, they would still stop by with whatever leftovers they had from the week and bags of candies and cookies, now store bought, a few times a month. They died 7 months apart, Grandma a few days after mothers day, Grandpa on Christmas morning. I have been trying to fill their shoes ever since.

2016, the hardest year of my life to date. My grandparent's got to meet our last family addition, Teale, before passing away.

Food is my passion, I love to choose the produce, discover new ingredients, hear the sizzle of red wine de-glazing a pan or smell the cookies in the oven. Because of this, I will make time for it. I get up early to make those lunches that so impress my children's teachers. I will bake a quiche, fry up some chicken breasts, chop and marinate a broccoli salad or whip up a fresh guacamole first thing in the morning for their afternoon meals. I have been known to stay up all night long to baste a turkey so it's perfect for the next day.

Lately, though, I've had less time for food. Breakfasts and lunches are still totally my jam, and I love baking with my littles, but fitness has become a huge part of my life, so I've had to find a new way for my family to eat fresh and healthy, without being as time consuming on week nights. Enter meal services! I am not at all ashamed to admit that I use various delivery services (Good Food, Chef's Plate, Hello Fresh) on rotation. I cook for so many people, and the prep and clean up is so time consuming, I had to find a way to make this easier on myself and my husband, should he have to prepare the meal. These boxes are seriously life changing!

This is likely not what most people want to hear. "My only options are spend all my time in the kitchen, or pay for a weekly delivery of groceries!?!" No, it's absolutely not. I just introduced the boxes into our lives the past month or so, before that, it was all me. Remember how, on Sundays, I'd do the gym, and the planning and the grocery shopping? Well, I'd also come home, wash and cut up the produce, boil tons of eggs for lunches, make and freeze several lasagna's and shepherd's/chicken pot pies for quick meals if I didn't feel like cooking one night, divide and freeze proper portions of meat from the bulk sized Costco purchases, and complete any other cooking related need that I could do in advance. Yes, it is time consuming, but at least it's only time consuming for one day, and then your weeknights are free.

I also mentioned somewhere that I am impulsive. Well, this is my downfall in regards to food. If someone shares a drool worthy recipe, or I spend some time on Pinterest, or, Heaven forbid, I actually look at the 30 or so cookbooks I have in my kitchen, that night's plan goes straight out the window, and I rush to the store to buy whatever I need for that recipe. I'd highly suggest, if you want to keep on budget and time, that you don't do this (unless it's something chocolate and you're planning on sharing.)

The last thing that I love to do to both prepare and make the best possible food choices for my family is batch cook the staples. This means making all my own broths and preserves. Every year, in the summer and fall, you can find me in my kitchen, hands cracked and raw, standing over an enormous pot of boiling water. I'll be sealing 50-100 jars of fresh pasta sauce, whole or diced tomatoes, salsa, pickles, pickled beets, peaches, bone broth, vegetable broth, chicken broth, apple sauce, apple pie filling... anything you can preserve, I've got it somewhere in my cold room.

This was at the end of day 1/7 in 2015. I think my back still hurts from this extravaganza of food.

All this to say that if food is your passion, let it be the way you show the people you love how you feel. You never felt unloved walking into my Grandparents house, and not a day goes by that I don't miss going into their kitchen, coffee brewing, and Grandma telling me that if I give her just a minute, she'll have a meal ready for me.

If it's not, simple meals still show love, you are still feeding your family! Let your kids help you in the kitchen, teach them that feeding their body with good foods is important. And seriously, if it's in your budget, those boxes rock!

Reilly loves helping me in the kitchen. If I'd let her, she'd burn, ahem, make all of our meals