Welcome to Goodlicious

I’m Heather, and my good friend Carole and I are moms to five boys under the age of 6. We both love to cook and work hard to raise our boys to be adventurous eaters -- or at least ones with palates that extend beyond chicken nuggets and pizza. We share recipes and meal planning ideas all the time, and thought we would share our ideas with you too. We chose the name Goodlicious because that’s the word Grayson, my 2-year old, uses for anything he likes to eat. Since we’re all about making good food, we thought it was fitting.

Now, by saying we’re raising our boys to be adventurous eaters, that doesn’t mean we’re perfect parents, or that our boys are perfect eaters, to be honest. The two 5-year olds are both going through a picky phase, although my son, Gabriel, who’s a few months older, seems to be coming out of it finally, while Carole’s son, Corbie, is fully entrenched in his comfort foods. The “babies” on the other hand, Grayson, and Carole’s twins Crispin and Preston, are willing to try just about anything. That’s what’s great about 2-year olds: they don’t know that they shouldn’t like things yet.

Carole and I both want to feed our families as much real food as possible. Not that we don’t have boxes of mac-and-cheese and mashed potatoes in the pantry, but when we can, we try to cook fresh veggies and meals that don’t come out of a box.

However, how we get to those meals is a bit different. Carole is a planner and a recipe-follower. In her words, “if it isn’t planned out in advance, it’s not going to happen.” While I love the idea of meal planning, and spend lots of time looking at plans, most of the time, I don’t get around to it. Heck, I even forget to pull the food out of the freezer until the afternoon sometimes. That’s where my improvisation skills come into play. I like to throw meals together based on things I’ve made or read in the past. In contrast, Carole panics if she doesn't have a freezer full of meals ready to go.

We hope to use this blog to push ourselves to feed our families well and to provide a resource for others trying to do the same. If you like to plan things out, Carole’s posts will appeal to you, and if you’re more of a last-minute cook, you may be more attracted to mine. Or, maybe you’ll like a little bit of each of ours. For some of the more GOODLICIOUS recipes, we may try them both ways, on the fly and in advance.