Gotta Start Cooking

The chips are going fast, and since I won't be buying any more until my next big grocery trip, I will be baking some snacks. First will be the muffin and cookie mixes I already have. Once those are gone I will have to be a bit more creative. Will probably try my hand at homemade granola or even muffin/cookies made from scratch. I'm good at muffins and brownies from scratch but I'm still working on how to get my cookies to come out just right. It's almost a fluke because sometimes they are awesome and other times, not so much.

I will say one thing for this experiment. Because I told them that whatever chips are in the house is the amount that must last for another week, the kids are really stepping up and doing their own portion control. Whenever they want chips,instead of eating out of the bag, they get a sandwich size ziploc bag and load it with whichever chips they want. The deal is that the bag has to be able to close completely when they do this. Amazingly they have learned how to eyeball when the bag is full but still able to close.

My 11 year old wants to order pizza and I reminded her that we had already had take out last weekend. She insisted that ordering pizza to be delivered doesn't count. I informed her that anything from ANY restaurant counted and to my surprise she stopped asking. I have a sneaking suspicion that she will beg for it come this weekend but at that point she will have to decide between going out to a restaurant or staying in with pizza.

I will say that have been eating better at dinner lately and have been eating less snacks overall. It's helping that I moved dinner time up. I used to start cooking around 6-6:30pm because hubby gets home around 7:30-8pm but I noticed more and more that the kids were hungry around 5ish. So I have started cooking around 4:30-5pm so they/we can eat around 5:30pm. I'm making a plate for hubby to reheat later.

And on the note of reheating thing: my microwave died last weekend. Yep. It still runs with the lights and the timer but no cooking happens. An interesting experience when your teens are so used to zapping pizza pockets or ramen noodles. Now they have to actually use the stove and oven. And amazingly they are willing to start eating the food that mom cooks because they don't want to bother with trying to actually cook anything. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't replace the microwave?