The Food Post AKA My Mother-In-Law can COOK!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the lovely and talented Nan:

Since Ev and I showed up at Nan's doorstep, we've been eating very well.

I've mentioned it already and now I feel that her fabulous cooking/baking/magic and the meals we get to enjoy are worthy of a permanent place on the world wide web. The woman knows her food, knows how to "make it work" with what you have (especially when the only refrigerator in the house is broken, kind of like ours right now), and knows that what she whips together is always good. Not because she uses expensive ingredients or has the most high tech kitchen equipment; because she makes it with love. And passion. A passion that I've never encountered in anyone else.

She is a survivor of some tough circumstances and creating delicious food for her family to enjoy together is of the utmost importance to her. Nan's food makes people happy and brings them together, I've already been fortunate enough to experience this.

Behind the wall (and the iPhone) there's three more eager people awaiting our first course.

I haven't done Nan's food any justice at all considering it's all been documented on my iPhone and not much else. I love the Nikon that I bought last year, which I needed specifically for taking beautiful pictures with. But I admit my new iPhone is so much handier... I'll do better, I promise!

Look, pistachio cake!

After a trip to one of our favorite places, the World Market, we came home with this stuff:

Again, lousy iPhone picture but yes, that's red velvet pancake mix. Nan wanted to make crepes with some fresh fruit, her own whipped cream and her favorite ingredient: chocolate. We decided to skip dinner and enjoy this deliciousness that night:

I told Nan that I wanted to start seriously documenting the whole process of brainstorming ideas, creating a menu, buying ingredients, and putting it all together for a family to enjoy. She loved the idea, so we decided to go to the local Farmers Market to pick up some produce and support locally grown food.

We picked up 8 peppers and a rather large eggplant for a grand total of $3! We're bumming that it's late in the season so this was the second to last market day. Not to mention lots of farms out here in the Midwest area suffered this year due to drought. Hoping next year will bring a better growing season for all, especially since we are determined to start our own garden.

Naturally we enjoyed those peppers that night. Nan hollowed and stuffed them with some ground beef and rice and did some other amazing things before letting the peppers slow cook for a few hours. Once our fridge is fixed that eggplant will make for a nice ingredient in another home cooked meal, and we're all eager.

I can't help thinking that this is why we came here. We've managed to find a nice place to call home and settle in as a family in such a short amount of time that I'm convinced it's Nan's amazing food and the memories we're already creating around the dinner table that has made it all possible.