During the last year I have had to set aside my goals to improve my cooking skills and save money by eating at home. I have been in breast cancer treatment and the combination of five surgeries, chemo and radiation have really worn me out. It is difficult to try to eat well when you don’t have the energy or ability to go to the store. Part of the solution at our house included signing up for a service that delivers dairy products, some local frozen prepared meals and produce (their produce boxes have helped me get experimental with a variety of recipes over the past year). Some results of the produce box delivery include chile verde and mango black bean salsa recipe. Tomatillos and mangos aren’t items I would normally add to my shopping list, but after getting experimental they will certainly be on there regularly.
Cancer treatment can change your perspective on food a bit. Adding fruits and vegetables to my diet more often has become a focused effort more than it ever has been. I don’t eat 100% healthy (depending on how you define healthy and life is too short not to eat real butter), but I am more conscientious of what I put in my body now more than ever before.
One of the reasons I haven’t posted some of the recipes I have played around with this year is due to my dissatisfaction with the photos. Learning food photography and photo editing is at the top of my list of things to do in the coming months! So please feel free to point me toward any great resources. Signing up for Pinterest and following several food bloggers I have truly discovered that no matter how delicious something is, if you can’t represent that in a photo, no one is going to want to eat it. Which means no more bad photos, even for the sake of convenience!
I also plan on studying foods and recipes that are known to help prevent and fight cancer. I have big plans for how this blog is going to play a part of my recovery (cooking is a great stress reliever for me, so I am super exciting to dive in, although when I test something and it comes out terrible it can also make me more stressed out… balance in cooking! I must find balance! :)).
I bought a mixer using gift cards from Christmas and it has sat collecting dust (I see so many amazing baked goods out there that I want to try, but hand mixing just doesn’t have the appeal).
Stay tuned (I hope)!.
