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I enjoyed the comments on my Facebook page that my Cooking is not my thing post spurred last week! They all gave me more to write about this topic so I thought I’d take the comments and put them here and respond on the blog. I took out the names of the people who responded.

• I cook 5-6 meals a week and have since we got married 11 years ago...but I don't like cooking and consider myself an average cook. I tell my kids that I do it bc I love them. Perhaps one day when I don't have kids hanging on me, I will like cooking. But I doubt it.

First of all, whether this friend realizes it or not, I admire her outlook on life. She has a way of seeing the comical, positive side to just about anything life throws her way. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that she cooks for her family 5-6 meals a week even though she doesn’t like to cook! This made me realize that this is the root of why I wanted to learn to cook. I love my family too and, it’s “Mama’s job’’ to prepare food for her family! And, I agree with you, I doubt I will like cooking either when I don’t have to cook with children hanging on me.

• Amen sister! Its is OKAY to not do "everything" exactly how (especially) SAHMs are "supposed" to do.

And that brings me to the next comment. This is SO TRUE and how I was able to come to the conclusion that what works for me isn’t the stereotypical stay-at-home-mom who has a delicious home cooked meal on the table every night for dinner. That scenario just wasn’t working for our family and no matter how hard I tried it was probably never going to be me, so we found something that DOES work.

• Z saw this and said it looked good. [in reference to one of my crock pot meal pictures that was on that post]

Hello, Crockpotting. I am not entirely sure that is a real word, but that’s my method of “cooking” and that’s what we found works for our family! AND crock pot meals are delicious! So far, I’ve not cooked one crock pot meal that my family turned their noses too! That equals success to me.

• Meal planning is awesome, no matter who is doing the cooking or crockpotting!! Glad you've made peace with not cooking. Too bad we're not closer... I'd cook every day, and you could organize my bedroom closet.

Oh, yes, I knew part of my frustration in the cooking department was a lack of organizing and planning meals. I do know how to organize (if only we could swap cooking for organizing, haha) and I figured if I could some how get a little rhyme and rhythm to meals, at least some of my stress would go away. I hated the 5:00 hour when the dinner hour was quickly approaching and I had no clue what was for dinner. Most nights when we were in this situation, Dave would call on his way home from work and we’d discuss what we wanted for dinner and he’d make a run into the grocery store to buy what we needed to prepare the meal. Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Going to the grocery store for “small” purchases multiple times in the week ADDS UP QUICK. It is not a smart way to grocery shop and “meal plan”. Now, every weekend, we make a meal plan for the week and make one grocery store run.

There were also a few comments on the actual blog post:

• Glad to hear you have made peace with the cooking issue. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crock pot cooking – the meals are varied and you can meet all your nutrition requirements.

This is so true as well. We eat healthy with our crock pot meals! And, believe me, I am so happy to have finally made peace with this too. It was seriously stressing me out.

• Would you want to share some of your crockpot recipes?

I’ve blogged about several of the crock pot meals I’ve cooked and you can find those recipes here. I will try to blog about more. I tend to blog about things that I am passionate about, and, well….I am NOT passionate about cooking, so it doesn’t make the blog all too often!

• You excel in so many other areas … you don’t have to excel in this department.

This comment came from my Mama and she is absolutely correct. This is something else I’ve realized in this cooking endeavor. We ALL have something we are good at. Cooking is not it for me. I realized as much as I tried to enjoy it and learn how to do it, the passion just wasn’t there. Nor the skills. And it is NOT my Mama’s fault! I can remember cooking with her in the kitchen growing up but it was just never something I really enjoyed or desired to do. It is something that is done out of necessity.

I think we can all take something from my cooking endeavors over the summer. We don’t have to do it all. And we don’t have to do things the way most people do them. We can find other ways to get the job done just as well without causing ourselves stress or feeling like we don’t measure up. There is no reason I should feel like a failure just because I can’t cook much. (Ha- before all this I would have said “because I can’t cook”. Now I CAN cook with my crock pot!) I can do other things well. We all do certain things well and other things not so well. This doesn’t mean I should give up on cooking and allow my family to eat out every night (if only- my dream), but it means I do what I can.

And that’s the story about how I became a Crockpotter. I like that name. It suites me well.

*I realize there were more comments on both the Facebook page and blog and I didn’t go back and include them all in this post. Sorry!

- Elaine