Hot Chocolate & Chilly Food Critics

So...we started a little tradition last holiday season that was super simple: 

We drank hot chocolate on Mondays. :)

With lots o’ fixins.

Marshmallows, sprinkles, chocolate syrup, galore.

And it was a super happy little thing.

So, naturally, we’ve picked it back up again this season.

Of course, I hadn’t planned to dive in quite so early with this sugar-filled fest (and I don’t even have the holiday mugs out, yet), but it was such a gloomy day today, our Christmas trees upstairs were making us feel all jolly, I enjoyed my own hot chocolate so much last night (after the kiddos were in bed, ha) that I wanted more, and...Starbucks debuted their holiday cups. So we just went for it.

And this year, we added whipped cream. ;)

But in all fairness, we also switched to oat milk (long story; blame the hubby), so I feel like there’s a little give and take there.

And no complaints from my peanut gallery, hehe.

Since dance class is on Mondays, we might make this season’s hot chocolate extravaganza a Thursday thing. A nice little boost before finishing out the week, yes??

And, I feel like my trio of nuggets might appreciate this sweetness now more than ever, because...I’ve recently launched a bit of a food Renaissance around our casa that is mostly unwelcome by my beautiful babies.

Basically, the deal is that my kiddos are pretty terrible, awful eaters. They’re much pickier than I like to admit, and they’d pretty much survive on PB&J, turkey sandwiches and yogurt, if I’d let them.

But I’m over it.

There are not nearly enough veggies consumed in our household, and the whining is way too intense for children of their ages.

Mama’s had enough!

It was going to be a major goal of mine in 2019 to force many, many more vegetables into our lives, but...the move happened. And life was pretty much shite for a long time. And I didn’t have a kitchen sink for months—let alone a fully-functioning space to cook.

So...yeah.

That all feel by the wayside.

And honestly, sometimes, it just doesn’t seem to be worth the fight at every, dang meal.

But.

We’ve been cooking a lot more in the past few months. Probably a combination of having slightly older kiddos who can self-entertain during meal-prep, a greater appreciation for my kitchen (after not having one for so long), and fewer quality fast-food options in the near vicinity.

Further still, I made it a personal goal of mine to try and incorporate at least one new recipe into our rotation each week. Because even when we cook at home, it seems to be a conveyor belt of the same handful of meals over and over.

In recents weeks, some new ones I’ve tried out include:

• A creamy pumpkin soup
• A lovely corn/bell pepper/chicken chowder
• A crab bisque that I shared with a neighbor
• Pumpkin spiced latte chocolate chip cookies
• A new vegetable beef stew
• An accidental sweet broccoli/cauliflower soup
• A Dorito mexican casserole 
• Some new, gluten-free crab cakes
• A pumpkin lasagna (that was tonight!)
• Some gluten-free cinnamon/pumpkin waffles
• A mushroom and pea risotto

And I type that list not to sound like: man, check me out. But rather, to keep a tally somewhere so I can go back to ones that worked—which is actually most of them.

And even better—we generally eat a bit healthier when we’re cooking at home because the hubby has quite difficult food restraints.

He has to be gluten-free, and he’s recently launch a dairy intervention (hence, the oat milk for the hot chocolate). So even though we’re not fully dairy free (never, under my roof!), I’ve been utilizing a lot of substitutes (the accidental sweet broccoli/cauliflower soup was the result of accidentally grabbing the French vanilla coconut milk from the fridge, haha).

But all that said—lemme tell ya: the complaining and whining and scrunched-up, miserable faces has been at an all-time high come dinner time, because I have been force-feeding it all (well, mostly all; I didn’t force the crab bisque) to my spawn.

And they are not fans. 

But they are bitterly moving into an acceptance phase of Mama’s new you-must-eat-this-food stance, because I usually make threats or issue ultimatums—and sometimes we’re lucky enough to have Daddy make it home to help put a heftier foot down and just make them eat it.

Makes pizza nights and breakfast for dinner all that much sweeter, when they can walk downstairs and glance at the kitchen table without fear and unease, amiright? Tehe.

Who knows if this phase o’ mine will last, but I’m at least grateful to be trying. And to have reached ages where they can at least understand the ultimatums enough to try and heed them, ha.

I’ll keep ya posted.

Until then—wish us luck.

And diminished gag reflexes. ;)

Over and out.