Does anyone else stress cook???

Today has been an all out booger of a day.  I spent hours on the phone making frustrating phone calls to fun places like health insurance companies, doctors and human resources hither and yonder while my children ran around the house terrorizing because I couldn’t deal with them properly right then. My outdoor loving children somehow hate going outside once Mommy gets on an important phone call. They’d rather stand at my feet shouting things like “I’m hungry”, “I went potty” and “She took my toy ’cause I hit her with it”. This ended up in my three year old scattering crayons from one end of the living room through the kitchen and den, not to mention his toy trucks and legos. All sorts of other things have been going wrong and bumming me out, plus I am physically something of a wreck, but this is not meant to be a whine fest.

Any stress eaters out there?

I know we’ve all heard of stress eating. I do that some, too, but sometimes stress just triggers me into a massive cooking frenzy. I can whip my frustration in to batter, chop some veggies into submission, beat the snot out of some eggs, and bake the bad away while filling my home with a deliciousness. It’s something fairly mindless and soothing because I can control the outcome and see almost guaranteed pleasant results from my efforts. It makes also makes my family happy, even whiny little boogers who like to pester the living daylights out of their mommy when she just CAN’T. A great stress reliever for me is the simple act of cooking….ALOT!

If there are, you would love to join me at my house when I’m super duper agitated! You’ll certainly have plenty to chow down on! Today’s stress cooking fest resulted in the goodies in the photos. I threw my baby girl in our trusty Moby wrap and went to sweating out my frustrations over the stove. Dark chocolate coconut brownies to satisfy my stress induced craving for dark chocolate. Oven fried okra because I had a batch left needing cooked from okra our neighbor gave us, and can’t fry for real while the baby is on me. Two casseroles of ground deer, green beans, rice, tomatoes and other goodies- one for tonight and another for the day after tomorrow. Mexican cornbread to go with our crockpot ham and beans tomorrow. Plenty of food, y’all! 🙂

What do you do when you are stressed?

You know, I think my stress cooking not only is about working those frustrations out in a constructive way, but also ties into wanting comfort food, which for me is usually something homemade. Whatever it may be, my husband and children seem to enjoy this particular way I cope with frustration and aggravation! 🙂

What is comfort food for you?

Want to make one of my family favorite comfort foods, passed on for several generations? Try my recipe for Grandma’s Sunday Special Ritz Cracker Chicken!