~Sharing Meals~

~When we moved into our neighborhood a year ago in May, we joined the culd a sack dinner co-op. There are 4 families who cook dinner for each other Monday through Thursday. We each have a night to cook for the other 4 families. At first the thought was a little overwhelming, but now it is very easy to cook for that many people, and it's fun to come up with meals, and especially to receive dinner 3 nights a week. We are able to spend more time with our family and friends before and after dinner, with less clean up the nights we don't cook. It has been one of the sources of our close knit community of our cold a sack. I highly recommend it, even if you can just do it with one other family.

We cook primarily vegetarian meals, with an occasional poultry dish, or sprinkling of bacon on soups. The meals are nutritious and very good. We all try to have the dinners ready and delivered by 6pm., but it is flexible depending on the night. We eat outdoors with everyone a lot during the summer, and have barbecues. I feel that it is a great example of serving, and sharing for our children as well as creating healthier eating habits, with a wider range of tastes.

It is also fun to experience different styles of cooking. All of our mexican dishes are different, because of the areas we are from. Two of the families are from Texas, one from Georgia, and we are from CA.

~It has been a year since we started eating less meat, and mostly healthier vegetarian meals. We thought it was going to be hard to not surround our meal planning around meat, but it turns out there are so many things you can make that are delicious and meatless. Our kids started out the year not wanting to eat much, but now love things like spinach, potato and lima bean soup, and wheat pizza with spinach and tomatoes, when previously my oldest, (and husband) only liked their pizza with only cheese.

~It's amazing what a year can do. Now I'm on to learn more about nutrition, I've got a lot of peoples health I'm responsible for with my one dinner a week!