Family Night in the Kitchen

Last night we had a lot of fun making dinner together as a family. David and I always love to cook together, but it's also fun when Ryenne can be a part of it as well! After David finished work, he picked us up from home and the three of us drove to the grocery store to buy some pork chops and a few other ingredients. We made Spicy Southwestern Pork Chops, creamy cheesy risotto & chives, and sautéed mushrooms. YUM.

I am so thankful that I have a husband who enjoys cooking! When we got back home, David started on the pork chops while I got the risotto goin'! This was the not fun part for Ryenne, who just hung around our legs while we were busy cooking up a storm. It was close to bedtime so she desperately just wanted to be carried. Once things were more settled with the risotto I was able to pick her up and she enjoyed helping stir ;)

Nights like this are just so good for our family! Sometimes we get so caught up in the fast pace of life that we end up just throwing together food and throwing together family time! But being intentional about it and making it extra special every once in a while with a pretty dessert or some fun drinks is always so refreshing and so healthy for all of us! Well maybe not totally "healthy..." haha
Dinner was a huge success and Ryenne especially LOVED the risotto. I really hoped she would eat a lot of pork chop too but it was too spicy for her so she just stuck to the risotto.
If you are looking for a delicious risotto recipe, I loosely followed the recipes found here and here on the Pioneer Woman. I tend to "loosely" follow recipes a lot because I don't always have all the ingredients! So you kind of have to make it up. But this time I took things I liked from both recipes and it was a major win. I'm already looking forward to leftovers!

Before

After: PERFECTION!

David used a recipe that we both love from my handy dandy Betty Crocker cookbook that my mom gave me a while ago. We followed it pretty much to a tee except we didn't have the chipotle seasoning, so David substituted something else for it (not sure what). It was really good though, as always! I'm such a lucky girl!!

So that's what a family night in the kitchen looks like for the Graefs! It's not perfect (Ryenne fell off the kitchen chair and got a huge goose egg on her head poor baby :( ), but overall it does make for some good family memories and gives us all some much-needed quality time. Hope we didn't make you drool too much!!!