The Recipes that Changed How I Cook

Welcome to YTF Community, a place to safely share in the challenges and joys of feeding our families. And make all of it easier!

When I first became a mom (almost 13 years ago, sob!), we lived in the Midwest where every warm-weather party was a potluck. And while I had previously (before kids) used these events an invitation as a reason to try a new recipe, I soon realized that my brain after kids needed fewer decisions.

And so, I decided to go with the same option every time…which was a huge change to my identity as a cook, but it wound up having an unexpected benefit of tying specific foods to specific holidays and events.

This habit of me making my Easy Pasta Salad recipe for any warm weather event might not sound exciting, and I admit that wasn’t remotely my goal. I quickly realized that having trusted go-to recipes for events reduced my mental load so much that I am actually able to enjoy the time with friends more.

Especially since in the early years of motherhood, when I was caring for a baby and then a busy toddler and even the easiest things often seemed impossible.

But I had to do a lot of internal work to minimize this idea, which is common in the world of feeding kids, that repeating foods or relying on a similar set of foods is wrong.

That if we do that, we will set our kids up to be picky eaters.

That if we don’t continually expose the kids to new foods, we’re failing them.

But the reality was, I was often barely keeping my head above water through the everyday. And I did know that I had to celebrate the small successes in order to keep my mood and motivation positive. Which meant that every time I saw that sort of message that I wasn’t doing good enough with how and what I was feeding my kids, or I judged myself, I had to change the story I was telling myself.

To do this, I practiced…

I’d love to hear if you have any of these trusted recipes that you rely on for entertaining or gathering (or just at all!)