Some of the sponsored vids that I have done here over the years hit home more than others. Fruit Roll ups have stopped MANY tantrums around here ( Gen Mills), I did always hope one vid would go viral ( Smart Water) and I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about dinner ( Ragu). Granted I always thought about food for myself and was never one of those people who met up at a restaurant when I was single and said, “no, that’s cool I ate.” If the chow was good I was having some. But, every year I am a mother I get deeper and deeper into this making dinner thing. Partly because the ages of my children increase and present different challenges and also because I want to challenge myself. Also, the chef husband is gone more and more, so I can’t fall back on that.
I can’t just feed them cake, though that would bring a smile to their faces.

For a while now I’ve been doing very well with pork. All three kids will eat it. I can make a nice pork roast or pan fry chops. It pairs nicely with a vegi, like my 4 star brussel sprouts. But, if I don’t defrost it in time I’m screwed. Mark buys a huge hunk of pork and we cut it up and freeze hunks big enough for a dinner in separate plastic bags. I’m on my last hunk today and Mark said, “maybe I should buy something different. A beef roast perhaps?” I was nervous. I’ve gotten my pork thing down.
But, wait, that’s bad I thought. That shows I have to vary it. I’m also getting low on my other go to. Chicken drumsticks in my “Hawaiian sauce” Soy, teriyaki and random spices.
I ventured the other night to  potatoes with bacon and it fell flat. So, maybe I’m in a pork rut. I love the other white meat, but I need to do something like pork belly ravioli ( Mark made this at Tar Pit recently, delish), but that’s a lot of steps for me.

When we shot the Ragu spots a few months back  ( with other mom bloggers like Mindy Roberts and Kim Tracy Prince) I was in a good dinner zone. This is our “Moms the word” series on momversation, but really exists on Facebook and it’s an ongoing conversation.  Last night I clicked on one of my Ragu vids about “dinner inspiration” to get inspired. My memory is shot, so it’s all new to me.
I seemed pretty confident in my dinner zone.  But, that was pre rut.  I’m a little tweaked in that I seem to only be able to concentrate on one or two ingredients at a time.

Okay, I will do something different.  I will use three spices I haven’t used..or used much in my pork show.  I shoved the kids into the back yard at 4pm and put brussel sprouts ( my go to ) and broccoli in on dish with olive oil, water, salt, pepper and oregano. (new)  Put in oven.  Check.  Then salted the pork roast with kosher salt, pepper, sumach( rarely use) , whole cumin (never use).  Put in ceramic baking dish with small white potatoes and a can of beef broth( usually use chicken) and a little apple cider vinegar ( new) and 4 cloves of chopped garlic and some chopped oven.  425 for and hour.   Then ran out in the back and played with my kids before my mom came over for dinner.  The best is doing it a little ahead.  I don’t like rushing to dinner because then I’m more of a rag and not enjoying myself.  Coming in muddy with some wet near naked kids and room temperature food ( I did take it out of the oven at one point) is so much better.

Oh, I over salted the pork, Vivien didn’t like the vinegar taste of the potatoes and Rex ate 4 bites and then tried to rip up my blouse.

Everything had been going so well…

What are cooking these days?  To share and get ideas check out the conversation on the Mom’s the Word Ragu page.