Monday, February 04, 2013

Feeling inspired in the kitchen

Recently Diego and Truen, but particularly Diego, have been very interested in making food.

It started from Diego's desire to make what I call "slop", where he mixes various ingredients together into a disgusting glop that no one wants to eat, not even him.  While I do believe in letting them explore their interests and inspirations, I have a very hard time allowing him to waste our hard-earned food supply by turning it into inedible garbage, so I usually try to steer his interest into something more productive: our kid cookbooks.

Looking through the cookbooks last week kindled a little fire and so we pulled out their "special notebooks" (I'm trying to train them early to keep all their information, lists, stickers, and special pieces of paper in one place) and wrote a list of what they each wanted to make.

Diego's List:
  • Chocolate Mousse
  • Mini Pizzas
  • Pigs in a Blanket
  • Quiche
  • Ice Cream Gateau
Truen's List:
  • Ox-eye Eggs
  • Croque Monsieur
  • Pigs in a Blanket
  • Baked Bananas

Then we made lists of all the ingredients that we would need to buy.  In this case: ham, sausages, cream, bacon, olives, mozzarella cheese, and ice cream.  We had everything else.

Thus far we've made the mini pizzas, ox-eye eggs, croque monsieur (grilled cheese sandwiches w/ ham), and baked bananas.  The boys are so proud of the work they've done and really enjoy re-living how delicious their special meal was.  I think we've made ox-eye eggs three times now (Truen wanted them for lunch today) and when we made the mini-pizzas, Diego cut all the ingredients up totally on his own: scallions, olives, mushrooms (and even got a little sting in his eyes from the green onions).

I've been very pleased with the whole thing.  Watching their excitement during the process and the subsequent pride over the results is so much fun.  This week I think we'll probably make the 'pigs in a blanket' and chocolate mousse.

And honestly . . . baked bananas??  Who knew they'd be so delicious?!  Scrumptious.

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