Remember when you were a kid, and your parents would have to force/bribe you to eat your vegetables?  Or practically spoon feed you your meatloaf?  I always remember thinking, “I’ll never eat this stuff when I’m a grownup!  Cake and cookies for me everyday.”

Now that I’m a grownup…mostly…I definitely don’t eat cake and cookies every day.  But I don’t eat a whole lot of Lima beans, either.  I think the best part of being in charge of what my meals consist of is remembering that it’s pretty hard to get it wrong.  There are no rules posted in our house that say I have to prepare a steak with potatoes and green beans on Tuesday night, and a casserole and salad on Wednesday.  The only rule I have (and it’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule) is that each meal should have some kind of protein, some kind of carbohydrate, and it shouldn’t be processed to the point that I can’t identify what’s in it.  (Unless it’s Diet Coke, apparently.  Don’t tell anyone I drink the stuff.  My rep would be ruined!  RUINED!!)

I think that the most important thing about maintaining a healthy lifestyle is that you can have absolutely anything in moderation, and it’s not an all or nothing kind of deal.  I have a really hard time remembering this, so my husband reminds me all the time.  It keeps me sane when I feel like I’m failing as a mother because I forgot to include the salad with the casserole.

This weekend, we got together with some friends and everyone pitched in to make dinner.

We had mashed potatoes

And wantons

And fried apples

And the apple crisp that I’d made earlier.

We had so much fun working together in the kitchen–helping slice and chop. Watching the oven and the stove so nothing boiled over or burned.  Everything was amazing.
It wasn’t until we sat down to eat that we’d realized no one had prepared an entree.
But guess what?
We’re grownups.  And we don’t eat that way everyday.  So it doesn’t matter.
Like I said, everything in moderation.
🙂

What’s your favorite un-grownup meal?