Introduction: The family that loves to eat

My cooking and baking have attracted much attention on my Facebook page, especially my breads. I've been talking food with a lot of people and posting photos of my dishes. Some of this comes from pride, other posts because of playful conversations of "Would your kids eat this?" When people hear the cost of my average grocery bills ($250/month for a family of three, including a preschooler who eats her weight on a daily basis), they gasp and ask how I do it. I usually shrug in response. I've started paying more attention because I'm hearing that question more and more these days. More than one person has suggested a book on this topic would shoot to the bestseller list. I disagree. Chances are you wouldn't eat like me. And here's why:

• Ninety percent of my cooking is vegetarian or sometimes vegan.
  
• I bake my own bread (though I do keep store bought tortillas in the house, use some store-bought rolls, love bagels from the deli, worship a good croissant, and consider some bakery breads a treat).
  
• I make conscious choices of what carbs and protein to have at what meals, and try to incorporate as many orange and green vegetables into a day.
  
• I consider things meals that some people don't. (Example: Nachos. It's a fast-food dinner here. Some tortilla chips, cheese, mango salsa, black olives, beans and sour cream and done. Chips=carbs, cheese= calcium & protein, mango salsa = vitamin A & C, black beans= protein & fiber.)
  
• I buy primarily block cheese. Cheddar. White. I will not feed my daughter any cheese that is really just solidified oil. So I cut and shred as needed. 
• I do not buy many prepackaged foods. I keep some packaged macaroni and cheese for Daddy cooking nights. I keep some Odwalla, TLC or Nature Valley Granola bars (from the warehouse store) in the house because they have a significant protein count and not excessive sugar. Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Bars (but not the cookies) also fit this category, but I only buy them when on sale or at a discount store. There will be other items (like Pacific Foods Organic Cream of Tomato Soup) that pop-up regularly.
• I avoid processed sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Again, not always, but usually. My kid does not eat fruit snacks, roll-ups or other gelatin/HFCS combination with no nutritional value. She eats fruit, or trail mix, or granola with fruit that I make myself.
• If my kid insists on drowning everything in ranch or ketchup, I insist on no-salt ketchup and ranch dressing without MSG. This means Hidden Valley is out. I use organic ranch or blue cheese, it has less preservatives. Yes, I often pay $3 for salad dressing that could cost $1.5o but I'm not comfortable feeding my kid MSG. I have one friend who gets violent migraines from the stuff.
• We eat off the salad plates. I RARELY use dinner plates. So remember the size of the plate when you see how the food fills it. I also don't use paper. I use cloth napkins. Often my Royal Doulton bone china and sometimes... my real silver.

So, with that, let me begin my culinary adventure.