Cooking While You're Otherwise Occupied

The food I'm cooking these days doesn't taste as good as it used to. It's because I'm not home as much.

I used to keep an eye on the food. If it was cooking too fast, I'd turn down the heat. If it needed to speed up, you turn up the heat. You use a lid on the pot (or not) depending on how brown the food is or how wet the food is. You snitch a taste here and there to see if the dish needs more garlic or more salt or a splash of wine or a dose of hot peppers. Fabulous food requires attention and tweaking. But what happens when you have to throw it all in a crockpot in the morning and can't adjust and tweak throughout the day? What happens when you have to make hurry-up food? What happens when you have to leave dinner half-done and let the kids try their hand at the tweaking? The food still has nutrition; the food still tastes decent. But where's the deliciosity??



It crossed my mind as I was writing this that the same holds true for raising kids. You need to be there. You need to pay attention. You need to tweak and adjust what you're up to.