Meal Prep, Big Kid Style

It has become a fun tradition, as big holiday meals approach, to sit down with my kiddos and flip through cookbooks to pick something they each can make to contribute. They both love that responsibility- that sense of being in charge of something that's actually important- and as time passes the recipes they choose have become increasingly more complicated.

Henry especially seems to love being in the kitchen and in charge. Every Saturday morning (and some Sundays too) he makes scrambled eggs. It is a very serious process, and he serves them with pride. Lately he's been trying to crack the eggs with one hand, which has resulted in us all having a little extra calcium on the side, but how else is he going to become a one-handed egg-cracking master?

For our first weeknight of Thanksgiving break, they bumped it up a notch and decided they would make an entire meal. By themselves. Cooperating. Together.

They made beef stroganoff with rice and a spinach salad with apples and bacon bits. They also made their own fancy version of French dressing, and it was all pretty darn good!

Now we just need to work on the cleanup afterwards (because that little detail seemed to be immediately forgotten when the cooking was finished!), but all in all I'd call this an event worth repeating!

Great job, guys!