Dinner Extraordinaire

M1 made dinner for us last night. He occasionally does this. He likes to cook and has since he was teeny tiny. I used to just let him do things like stir together cold salads, but he's tall enough to reach over the counter and stovetop now, and his hands are big enough to hold knives (though I'm still selective about what he chops), so sometimes I let him cook.

Last night, his menu sounded delicious.

We started by making the dessert, since it had to chill in the fridge.


Looks gorgeous, doesn't it?

It tasted completely nasty, though, and that was NOT the boy's fault. The whole recipe was a disaster from beginning to end. I had my doubts but figured that people who make Disney cookbooks actually used real people instead of lab rats to test the food before they published.

I may have been wrong in that assumption.

But he worked hard to make it, and I am still very proud of him.

The rest of the recipes came out of this cookbook that he got as a gift a year or two ago. He really likes it.

He wanted to make these:

and these (which I may have had to help with because by the time he got the carrots peeled, there was only 15 minutes left on the meatloaf timer and I needed to expedite the process):

Here's a cute little video of the meatloaf-making process. I'm a "mean" mom and make him do all the work himself where he's able. Please ignore the attention-seeking girl in the background who is wanting photos and videos taken of HER. She does like to be in front of a camera.

And then he filled the muffin tins and cooked the meatloaves and served them, and all (except the bizarre dessert) was good!


My boy is getting too darn big.

So is my girl. Birthday party pictures impending... along with snow pictures. Also bizarre.