Adam & Christina: A Family Dinner Experience
We want mealtime to be a family experience, and we want our girls to be as excited about fresh, healthy, home-cooked food as much as we are! – Adam & Christina
When Kitchen Heroes Adam and Christina had their children, they knew that one of the most important things was to have family dinner together every night. Dinner was more than just eating delicious food; it was also about spending time with family. Not only do they eat together as a family nightly, Adam and Christina also involve their kids in the prepping and cooking as much as possible. Together, they work through their cooking challenges and discover the joys of cooking as a team. Read their Hero in the Kitchen story below.
Names: Adam and Christina Anderson
Age(s): 32 and 33
City, State: Westerville, OH
We cook for: our family (ourselves and our babies, Emily, 2, and Madeline, 9 months).
Outside of the kitchen we: try to keep our sanity from day-to-day and review Cook Smart’s upcoming menus in anticipation for the yummy stuff we’ll be eating! Anymore, we spend our limited free time binge-watching TV and late-night snacking, and looking forward to the days when we might have more time for things like cycling and running again!
If we had the President over for dinner, we would cook: We would rely on the President’s personal chef for this one 😉
We cook because: we’re hungry. But seriously, to eat delicious healthy food. We’ve always enjoyed finding and trying new recipes, and once we had children, we knew that it was important to have family dinner, at the dining room table, every night. Cook Smarts has taken the hassle out of searching for new recipes and making shopping lists.
Favorite Cook Smarts meal so far:
- Adam: Asian-Spiced Fish Tacos
- Christina: Spinach Calzones and the Sweet Potato Slow-Cooker Chili (I’ve had several people ask me for this recipe!)
HOW DID YOU LEARN TO COOK?
We just got in there and started doing it. Neither one of us really cooked that much with our families growing up. We think it’s because of that that we try to let our daughters help out and feel involved. We want mealtime to be a family experience, and we want our girls to be as excited about fresh, healthy, home-cooked food as much as we are!
WHAT’S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST COOKING CHALLENGE?
Christina: Ha! We have several challenges! First off, I’m a vegetarian, while Adam and the little ones are not. Cook Smarts has helped out with this immensely! I sometimes work later nights, and Adam can whip up a meaty meal, or we can easily switch back and forth between the original and vegetarian recipes and pick which meals sound yummiest, or see what a good vegetarian substitution may be.
Adam: Lentils…they’re disgusting!
Christina: Interestingly, even though we’ve been together for nearly 15 years, I just recently learned of his intense dislike for them. For the record, I think they’re delicious!
And we both agree: getting our toddler to eat anything green!
HOW HAS YOUR COOKING ROUTINE CHANGED SINCE STARTING COOK SMARTS’ MEAL PLANS?
We plan ahead more, yet we have to dedicate less time to the actual planning. We do more meal prep, which makes getting dinner on the table a bit easier every night (although some of this so-called “free time” that we have after the babies are down for the night is used for meal prep.) We tag-team getting shopping and dinner taken care of. It didn’t always feel like dinner was such a team effort before!
“Outside of the kitchen we try to keep our sanity from day-to-day and review Cook Smart’s upcoming menus in anticipation for the yummy stuff we’ll be eating!”
Tell us about your proudest kitchen moment.
Adam: Making something that I never thought I’d be able to make.
Christina: Anytime we make something that’s a hit with the toddler. Anytime the cashier has to ask what a fruit or veggie is that we’re trying to purchase. Anytime that someone’s looking for salad dressing in our fridge, and we can casually answer, “Oh, we make our own!”
We joke that Cook Smarts has ruined going out to eat because too often, we realize that we could have made something similar to whatever we’ve ordered. We refrain from ordering some yummy-sounding dishes just because they sound too Cook Smarts-y. . .and too much like something we could easily make at home ourselves!
What are your tips for health and success in the kitchen?
Staying open to new foods and recipes. We think that it’s easy to skip a recipe because it doesn’t sound like something you would usually go for, but just embrace it! If it’s not a hit, you don’t have to make it again, but at least you gave it a try!
We’ve also found that having the right tools makes everything easier! For us, having good knives and plenty of storage containers for the foods we’ve prepped is key.
We’re so glad that you guys are willing to give new foods and recipes a try, even if some might never work out or might take some getting used to (lentils and greens!). What’s important is that you guys try new things and, in turn, are raising two amazing healthy eaters! Thanks for sharing your family’s cooking story with us, Adam and Christina. We’re super happy to have a small part in making these wonderful dinner memories possible!
To join Adam and Christina and cook meals like their favorite Asian-Spiced Fish Tacos, Spinach Calzones, and Sweet Potato Slow-Cooker Chili, check out our meal plan service. You can get started for free!
