Sometimes I think about things I would have told myself 5ish years ago as a new wife and mother. As of today, I’ve added to the list:
just buy the jar of minced garlic!
For those who want the explanation …
I consider myself to be somewhere on the spectrum of “food purist”, and I’m also conscious about being thrifty with our grocery budget. The result is a lot of meals that are made from scratch with healthy, natural ingredients. It’s how my mama raised me and I’m all about continuing that legacy.
So when a recipe calls for minced garlic, I take cloves off the bulb of garlic, and peel them, and crush them in my garlic press.
And I dread it!
Why? Because it takes up valuable time! I rarely ever prepare a meal in a relaxed, leisurely manner these days. Most of the time that I’m cooking dinner, I’m also trying to keep Ezekiel out of the who-knows-what-it-is-this-time, mediate the occasional disputes between the girls when they’re both yelling at each other “don’t tell me what to do!”, and nurse Teddy because in spite of him being happiest baby ever, he’s determined to cluster feed during that time of the day.
It’s normally a hectic time period, and the last thing I want to see in a recipe is instructions to add minced garlic! Especially since I also hold to a worldview that maintains that recipes never call for enough garlic and one must always add extra.
It got to the point that I would have a sinking feeling whenever I saw a recipe call for garlic, even if I wasn’t in a rush. So yesterday, as I walked past the jars of minced garlic, I made the decision to buy one. It went against my purist, from-scratch standards but I did it anyway because 1) it was basically just garlic and water and citric acid, and 2) it was comparable in price to buying garlic bulbs.
But the most important reason — tonight, as I was preparing meatloaf, feeling stressed because Teddy was fussy from teething and over tired, and Ezekiel had barely gotten a nap because one of his sisters woke him up … I saw the recipe said “4 cloves garlic, minced” and I just sighed with relief and pulled out the jar and a spoon!
And here’s the great part – I’m no worse of a homemaker for doing it, and according to my husband I’m a better one, because he’d rather me not be so stressed out over something so trivial.
I think it’s a normal human tendency to place expectations on ourselves, and to feel like we’re failing when we don’t meet those expectations. But we really need to be realistic with our expectations, especially if they’re creating more chaos in our homes rather than peace and joy.
I still consider myself on the food purist spectrum, but I hope that I will keep in mind this lesson and continue to look for ways to be a wise and efficient homemaker with a cheerful spirit. And perhaps in a few years when my children are old enough, I’ll stop buying jars of minced garlic and start handing them a bulb and a press 🤍