Over the past few years, I’ve realized how meal-rich my family was when I was growing up.

Not that I grew up eating caviar and truffles. I remember plenty of times when I was little and my mom made something simple that could “stretch” for the four children in her house. But I’m not talking about the dollar value of the food I ate.

What I mean is, for as long as I can remember, my family has made eating a good meal together a high priority. That means never skipping on the seasonings, and constantly experimenting with ways to best alter recipes to bring out the flavor. It also meant, when we were younger, we always ate together at the kitchen table every night.

If I think about it hard enough, I can still feel the wooden chair beneath me and see my brothers sitting across from me on the bench, with steaming casserole dishes and bowls sitting on potholders between us. I can hear the clanging of forks on plates and the chatter of our conversations.

Every meal was accompanied by us talking about how our days went, telling stories, cracking jokes, and often quoting our favorite movies together. Dinner around that table became one of my favorite times of day.

And eventually, after my dad’s work treated him well for a while, we started going out to eat food more often. We also traveled internationally, when my dad went to other countries for some work with nonprofits. After that, the world and its food felt much more open to us. We have enjoyed a lot of good food at a lot of interesting tables, a lot of which has been delicious.

Between prioritizing dinners together and being at church every Sunday morning, there were a lot of things our family didn’t do that others did. We didn’t hunt or golf. We didn’t play a lot of sports, particularly travel ball. But we do have a unique bond, mostly built around a lot of conversations over dinner.

To this day, cooking food and enjoying a good meal with my friends or family is still my favorite activity. Point blank, period. It fills me up in ways my heart needs, not just my stomach.

But there are some days that I am just too tired to cook. And there are other days that I am too tired to pretend I care about sports. This week, I hit both of those levels of “too tired.”

Still, I am aware that football season is upon us, and that my column is supposed to be about food, not reminiscing. Between that and my current health goals, I wandered the internet this week until I found this high protein buffalo dip recipe.

The recipe claimed to be “four ingredients.” But it did that by just putting “to taste” on all the seasonings, and pretending they weren’t crucial to this dish. So I won’t make the same claim.

What I will say is that this buffalo dip was so easy to make, I could do it in my sleep. It’s perfect for the season. And my husband and I really enjoyed sharing it together.

If you get a chance to fix some for your own family this week, I hope it makes your time together just a little richer.

HIGH PROTEIN BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP

Ingredients
1 cup shredded chicken (I’ve used rotisserie before, and even canned, in a pinch)
3/4 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup buffalo sauce
Shredded cheddar cheese
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder (I used about 1/2 teaspoon of each, but feel free to taste as you go)

Directions
■ Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a medium oven-safe dish. Add shredded chicken to dish.
■ In a high speed blender, blend cottage cheese and buffalo sauce until smooth. Add spices to your blender as well and quickly blend until seasoning is evenly distributed.
■ Add mixture to the dish with the chicken, and mix well until chicken is fully coated. Top with shredded cheddar cheese.
■ Bake uncovered for 25 minutes and then broil for 5 until cheese is slightly brown.
■ Serve with tortilla chips, pretzels, veggies, or a vessel of your choice. Enjoy!