Am I crazy????? My Mission to Broaden my Children's Tastebuds

When I began this blog recently, my aim was to provide my children with their favourite recipes as requested by my 14 year old.  This is still my aim, don't get me wrong.  This blog will always remain a blog which I am creating first and foremost for my children.  I also wanted to try out many of the recipes in my collection, I was going to pick and choose the ones I knew the kids would like, skipping over the ones that "they may not like".  I want to expand their selection of food.  I'm not asking them to eat anything really different, I just want them to try new recipes, ones that they would normally skim over going, "Nope I don't think I would like that".

In other words, I was going to stick with the safe options......

BUT.......I  have recently been looking at my vast collection of recipe books and the recipes that I have printed off from my computer (and I still have more to go!).  I have been admiring new cookbooks lately but have decided that I will not spend money on these new shiny versions when I have so many sitting on my shelves waiting to be used.  My cookbooks may not be big and beautiful.  Most of them are pretty old, I haven't bought a cookbook in over ten years and only received 1 as a gift in that time!  Many of them are in fact my Mum's!  But they contain some beautiful recipes.  Here is my collection of cookbooks (not many have impressive spines, many are the Womans Weekly style ones)

 Then we have my folders.  These dull looking (I plan to pretty them up soon) folders, contain hundreds of recipes each.  One folder is savoury recipes, the other is sweet recipes.  These are recipes collected over the last 30 years of my life.  When I was aged about 10 I started tearing recipes out of my mum's magazines telling her that she should make them.  My mum was a good cook, particularly when it came to baking but she liked to stick with her favourite oldies.  The recipes that were stored, not on paper, but in her head.  These recipes are the recipes that my brothers and I grew up on.  The ones that sadly, she never got around to writing down, no matter how many times I asked her.  She now suffers from dementia and these recipes are sealed within her mind, no longer available for us to ask for.  When Mum went into a nursing home 2 years ago, I took all her recipes, all the recipes that over the years her and I had ripped from magazines.  I have scanned them onto the computer, I have stuck them on pages.  Finally I have them all in one place.  Along with this are the recipes that I have found online over the last 10 years of having the internet.  I have cut and paste so many recipes over this time it is incredible.  Sadly I never took any notice of where I got most of them from.  I was like a little squirrel gathering nuts for the winter, except my gathering was of recipes.

My intention now, is to work my way through these collections, starting at the front of my folders.  I will not buy any new cookbooks, I don't need them.  I will no doubt, still find recipes online and add them into my folders though.  I have shared my idea with the kids and they are actually (at this point) really excited to try all the wonderful new things.  Sure I will still make their favourites but I aim to try some new recipes each week.


This blog will become a "Julie and Julia style" blog lol, only with more than one cookbook to work through.  One Woman, Thousands of Recipes, Her Mission,,,,,to Broaden the Tastebuds of Her Children.....Lol this may take a while......Stay Tuned!!!