I want to be that Mom with the cookies

HAPPY HOLIDAYS DEAR READERS!!

It’s the best time of the year in this humble authors opinion. The festive Holiday music, decorations and of course, the amazing food!! All building up to the incredible day of Our Saviors Birth.

For anyone new to this blog, Hello dear reader~ My name is Mary Cecilia Freeman. You can call me Celia. 🙂 I am an author, with two beautiful books out and ready to add to your bookshelves. Grandma’s Magic Blanket for the kids, and Trunked by a Spirit for the teens.

I work full time as a graphic artist, and live out my long list of dreams after work. Author, dance enthusiast, and baker/cook in training. For many years I’ve loved the idea of being that Mom with the cookies that her family can come home too. It just warms the heart. But, this might take me a few years. I kind of suck at cooking and baking.

That Mom with the cookies

This might be an interesting thing to know about me. Before I moved out of my parents at 20 yrs old I knew little about cooking from scratch.

My first years living with my older sister were spend making simple and highly processed meals like frozen breakfast sandwiches for breakfast. Grilled cheese sandwiches and anything prewrapped for snacks and lunch. Dinner was a mix of frozen pizzas and pasta.

I knew very little about how to cook, or bake. To be frank, I was intimidated by it all. Hot pans to burn your hands on, food to burn by accident and all the waste if a new meal doesn’t work out. Plus the pile of dishes and clean up.

However, putting that aside I decided to soldier on. One small steps at a time.

Small steps

Eggs, omletes, french toast, pancakes…stupid pancakes.

The funny thing is pancakes box mix or scratch, I have a special skill for messing them up. You can ask my sister Bernie. She’s been the poor soul who’s taste tested my pancakes only to look up and ask how I managed to ruin box mix pancakes. 😅😅😅

But I have a small lovely dream I’d like to make come true.

When I have a family and my kids and hubby come home from school, work, I want to have a plate of fresh warm cookies for them to snack on.

Why?

Call me old fashioned and a hopeless romantic. I love the idea of being a soft Mom and Wife who’s going to have treats ready to spoil her family in small ways just touches my soul. (Mind you this also is part of my love language. I love my acts of service, and find it very special when things like that are done for me.)

The problem is haha I’m not such a good baker. At times I can knock it out of the park, homerun and everything.

🤩🎉

However, those victories are not consistent enough for me. My baking skills kinda suck. And I want to change that.

My food usually taste good, but looks horrendous.

I remember working hard in the kitchen at my parents house one Sunday morning trying to make No bake cookies.

No bake, means I can make them! I thought I dodged a bullet. Alas I was mistaken.

Two hours later, I had burned a permanent burn spot on my Moms new stove, ruin a batch of No bake cookies and felt like crying.

The kitchen was a mess and the cookies did not turn out good.

My little brother Sebby must have felt sorry for me. He tried eating them anyways saying they look bad but taste good and that’s all that really matter.

Seriously, how bad of a baker am I that my normal pest of a little brother felt bad for me. HAHA Yep. It’s going to be a loooooooong journey learning to bake and cook.

Challenge Accepted!

Food Tv shows that left you drooling.

A Collaboration of baby steps and Movies about food gave me a spark to start exploring the world of cooking and baking. Shout out to my older sisters and brothers for watching these tv shows.

Thanks to my family growing up some of the tv shows we enjoyed watching were:

• “Iron Chef America”
• “Mission Impossible” The food series.
• “Hells Kitchen”
• “Samantha Brown Travels”
• “Good Eats”

And many others.

These tv series were inspiration to watch. They truly do inspire.

However this didn’t make me pick up sharp kitchen knives thinly slicing through onions perfectly. No, these shows gave me the courage to try here and there.

Fun fact: I am scared of sharp knives. When ever I saw a competitor cut themselves with their knives it sent me into a nervous tick. My Mom’s kitchen was notorious for having dull knives, so for many years I didn’t know the difference between sharp knives and dull ones.

And now I know the difference, sharp knives are dangerous but when they slice through veggies, and meat with ease, that is a life changing discovery.

I’m still worried about cutting my hand open, or slicing a finger in half. That’s why I’m extra slow haha. 😅

Meal Prep

Determined I pushed forward. Listening to the advice of my favorite tv cooking shows I kept trying.

Pancakes still puzzle me, however I am determined to keep trying. Fail after fail, once in awhile I DO SUCCEED!

Never give up! Between the sandy pancakes, the ones that got burnt and the ones that taste off.

They will be little sparks of success.

 

Getting through the fear

Goodness I do have so many fears. Most well placed due to past experiences. But most of my fears I want to face and overcome. Cooking, sharp knives, burning food, ruining meals is all part of facing those fears.

Fear of wasting all the food because I failed.

Fear of losing money, I live paycheck to paycheck and sometimes it’s a choice of new clothes or experiment on food for future recipes.

Meal prepping came to front of the line.

I used to drive 45 minutes to work everyday. And eating out was expensive plus being a introvert with driving anxiety at that time, I’d prefer to stay in the building as much as possible.

Meal prepping ideas I tried:

• egg muffins
• egg hashbrown casserole
• protein balls
• chia and overnight oats
• protein shakes
• more egg muffin, spinach, bacon, plain, cheese, etc.

Happily most of these worked out very well for meal prepping. Although you do get tired of the same thing everyday for work after 3 months. haha so back to the drawing board.

Fun Fact: My sister has mentioned to me, that I can eat the same food for weeks to months without a problem, then I get so sick of it that the next year I won’t touch it. She said I don’t have to eat the same food till I’m sick of it. (sometimes I really do forget that fact. So simple but once I get into a recipe I tend to overkill it😅😅 )

Baking Fail

I made chocolate chip cookies following the directions but apparently melted the butter too much? I did not know that was a thing in baking. 😅🤨

I bakes them on a normal metal cookie sheet. They went in little cookie dough balls, and came out a flat thin pan cookie. Yep, the cookies had merged together during the baking process turning my 12 cookies into one large one.

Taste: Delicious

Look: ehhhhh one big cookie or pan cookies.

Baking lesson: You can add hot melted butter but if it’s too hot and melted the cookie dough will not keep it’s shape if you’re going straight into the oven to bake.

Encouragement

For my fellow not so great cooks and bakers. I am with you on the journey.

Do not give up!

Find a place to start and go for it.

Allow yourself time to fail and succeed. It may take weeks, months to years to develop a good handle of cooking and baking. So give yourself time.

You will get the hang of it.

When I want to cook, especially experiment with something new to me. I put on my favorite cooking movies or tv shows. It’s wonderful! I feel like I’m cooking along side chefs. Creating delicious food. Sometimes. haha

I also feel extra powerful when I put on an apron and tie the knot around my waist. “Let’s do this!”

Yesterday, Wednesday December 6th for the Feast of St. Nickolas I made a batch of Molasses cookies. They turned out too! HAHA See we got this.

Write on~

2 books down, and who knows how many more to come.

Thank you for reading until the end. As a self published Author/blogger any and all support is appreciated! Have a comment or thought to share? Type away in the comments. 🙂

Write on~

Cecilia