Making Food While Pregnant. Period. Amazing is irrelevant.

Hormones have not changed my love of cooking, nor have they taken away my enjoyment of a good meal.  Au contraire, eating has taken on a whole new meaning, as it is the primary way I fend off nausea.  But the nausea becomes a whole new obstacle in cooking.  Just the other day, in the middle of making tomato basil soup (recipe below) for my husband's dinner, my body decided that it couldn't handle the smell of tomato basil soup.  He had to finish cooking the food himself as I hunkered down in the bedroom to avoid smelling the kitchen.  Another aspect of this is that I skip "hungry" and go straight to "nauseated."  This means that I will not feel like standing and cooking a meal while waiting to eat.

Thankfully, the latter issue is relatively easy to fix.  I grab a cereal bar, a piece of fruit, or some graham crackers and peanut butter, and I can snack while I prepare the meal.  Bye bye, nausea, hello, breakfast!

To the aversions, I'm not sure what to do quite yet.  I'm only 7 weeks along, so I know that fried foods and strong-smelling foods are not doing so hot for me.  I can avoid those, but smells come with cooking.  Ahh, well.  We shall see how it all goes.

Now, to the recipe for a delicious tomato soup (unless you're in your first trimester)

1 quart canned tomatoes, juice and all (I home-canned mine)
1/2 cup cooking wine or apple juice (apple juice is usually cheaper)
2 slices bacon, cooked
1 onion
1 clove garlic
a few leaves of basil
a tiny bit of lemon juice or zest

You can cook the onion and garlic in the bacon grease for an easy flavor enhancer.  If you do this, you may even be able to put the bacon pieces into the tomato stuff whole and fish them out later, so you get the flavor without mouthfuls of bacon fat.  Or, if you really like bacon, you can just cut up the bacon and put it in.  Other than sauteing the onion and garlic and cooking the bacon, just toss it all in a pan, be sure you mash the tomatoes with a fork or whisk, and cook until desired thickness.  If you chop up the basil leaves, you can leave them in as well.