In the past week our menu has consisted of the following:
Tamale Soup
Enchilada Pie
Chicken n' Stuffing bake
Pizza Cups
German Pancakes
Roasted hot dogs and Dutch Oven Potatoes
The greatest part of all is that I only made two of the dinners.
I had an idea a while back and finally decided I wanted to put it into action. My idea was this: everyone over the age of ten will be responsible for one dinner per week. Pretty simple, but so nice for me not having to figure out what to cook 6 nights a week (one day is for leftovers). Taylor and Kendall (especially Kendall) are really excited about the idea too. Kendall because he is an aspiring chef and loves every chance he can get to play around with ingredients and Taylor because for at least one night a week he will get a dinner that doesn't make him want to puke. This was our first week and I thought it was fantastic. Mom made her yummy tamale soup, Kalen did the hot dogs and dutch oven potatoes in our fire pit, Taylor made German pancakes, and Kendall made pizza cups. They are already figuring out what they will make for this week and all I have to do is make sure we have all the ingredients and then let them have at it. I do step in to help if needed but this week I didn't really have to do much except help Kendall speed things up a bit. He learned that cooking can be a little more time consuming than he thought and that what he thought would be a 6:30 dinner time became a 7:30 dinner time as he tried to assemble the pizza cups at the same time that he was trying to get his vegetables cooked and the fruit washed and ready and the juice mixed up.
I really think that this will be a valuable learning experience for the kids, especially Taylor who will be leaving home in just a few short years. And it will be a very valuable experience for me not having to worry about getting dinner on the table every night in the middle of the craziest part of the day where I'm also helping with homework, cleaning the house and babysitting my afterschool charge. I can almost feel a bit of sanity creeping back into my life!
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3 comments:
Wow, that is a great idea! Good for you!
Do you set any limits on what they can make? Are they to keep within the parameters of what you mostly have on-hand in the house or are you shopping for anything they want? I'm just thinking ahead for when my kids are big enough to do something like this and how that will work in with coupon shopping.
I am way jealous! Even if I didn't have to decided what to cook every day that would help!
I've actually had them give me a couple of ideas at the beginning of the week and then I figure out which one would be the most economical depeding on what we already have and what might be on sale that week that I can combine with coupons. Last week's meals we already had pretty much everything for so it worked out well. This week I just had to buy a couple of things. The good thing about them choosing is that they have pretty basic skills right now and so they are picking things with pretty basic ingredients. We may run into obstacles along the way, but so far I'm really excited about it.
I like your idea. I only have one over the age of ten, but I think I'll try it. Even one night off would be nice.
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