Before baby, cooking supper from scratch on a weeknight was relatively normal, especially when two people shared kitchen duties. With a new baby in the house, energy and sleep are at a premium and drive-thru, take-out and frozen pizzas often replace intricate dinners. It’s a rut many new parents fall into, and it’s easy to see why. When a new member of the family takes centre stage in a household, menu planning and shopping forethought can move to the backburner.
Dining out is more than just nourishment that saves you from chopping onions and doing dishes; it’s an experience - an opportunity for everyone to try something new, expose your kids to new food cultures and different types of cuisine, while forcing the family to sit together around the table, free of the distractions of home. There are some restaurants that immediately come to mind when you think ‘family-friendly.’Here are some you may not have considered where you can eat well and experience something new, with the whole family.
For those of you who know a little bit about me, I am prone to making recipes just because I love their names. I’m not sure what ‘Bang Bang’ means in this case; it’s not that I actually want to off the turkey. (Except maybe I do. Enough already.)
These Individual Pumpkin Cheesecake cups are a creative way to use pumpkin in a dessert after the Thanksgiving and Halloween seasons have come and gone. The cinnamon/nutmeg/allspice/pumpkin combination is warm and inviting, a carryover from the autumn months, while the gingersnap crumbs in the base bring notes of holiday cheer, reminding us that gingerbread houses and Christmas cookies are just around the corner.
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