Mommy's Project 52: cooking

So I'm not a gourmet cook, nor do I really like gourmet food or otherwise known in chatty language as "froo froo food".  I do like how meal planning makes my life easier, but sitting down and doing the meal planning is sometimes painful due to the time it takes.  I am more of a comfort food type of gal.  This is what I like to cook:

 Yep- a little Mac N Cheese does a WT food junkie like me good :).  No really I do get some comfort out of dumping a box of noodles into boiling water and then draining the noodles and adding the processed cheese.  Hubby, kids and I have decided that the character Mac N Cheese is now bypassing my all time fav of spiral mac n  cheese.  I don't know whether the cheese has changed, or what, but the character noodles have better flavor.  Besides Mac N Cheese I also enjoy pizza.  I have gotten pretty good at making pizza- my secret is to baste the dough before baking and applying sauce and toppings, with beer- yep just brush a little beer on and then add toppings and sauce. 

No Really- I wish I was like Giada, and I try to be, but I think me and  my cooking have a long way to go to become her.  

One of my favorite chattynatty "froo froo" dishes is an appetizer- baked brie, actually I enjoy any recipe that incorporates Brie in it.  

I really do enjoy cooking, but I am not a gourmet chef and I'm O.k. with that.  I would like to learn how to make my own homemade mac n cheese instead of the box kind.  I've tried several recipes, but just can't get the cheese consistency right. 

My kids both enjoy cooking and one of my favorite gifts to my niece and nephew was a recipe book in which my kids picked out recipes, made each recipe and I documented the process with photos. We then took the recipes and the photos and made a photo book out of it.  The kids really had fun.  My one wish would be to incorporate more vegetables into our dinners- so I will continue to work on that.  Cooking can be a double edged sword: total stress reliever (Sunday afternoon spending time making soup for the work week lunches) or total stress producer (driving home after picking up the kids late from daycare and wondering "what are we going to have for dinner" and at the same time being asked by two tired kidos "what are we going to have for dinner?".  I've learned those nights breakfast for dinner is a total hit.  I'll keep on cooking, but don't think it will ever be a passion of mine.