Chef Meo, age 3

Yesterday, Meo cooked lunch for us pretty much all by himself!  For Christmas we got him a children's cookbook called Cook School as well as some utensils for small hands (whisk, rolling pin, spatula, rubber scraper, wooden spoon). The cook book is really cool because it is divided into sections by age, the first section being recipes for ages 3-5. All the recipes have photographs for each step so they can follow along.

Meo did every part of the recipe on his own! I showed him how to do each step, and then I restrained myself from helping and let him have a go. He surprised me by how awesome he did! I was prepared for the food not to be edible and to be a huge mess...and I was okay with that. But Meo did as well as I could have done, and we were both very proud of the results! Here is Meo making "tasty bread tarts":

1. Cut some bread into circles.

2. Grease a muffin pan with parchment paper and a little butter.

3. Put the bread into the muffin pan.

4. Crack some eggs! Meo has done this in the past using the tap on the bowl or counter method, but the book suggests using a butter knife to crack the egg. So Meo tapped the egg with the knife, then opened up the shell and let the eggs fall into the pitcher...he didn't even drop any shells!

5. He beat the eggs together with some milk.

6. Sprinkled some basil into each of the (now toasted) bread cups. I thought he would pour a whole bunch of spices in (like he does when decorating cookies with sprinkles) but he restrained himself and put the perfect amount in each!

7. Added a handful of peas to each.

8. Carefully poured the egg mixture evenly into each cup. Admittedly I may have held my breath while he did this part, anticipating lots of overflow. But, oh my word, he did a superb job! All by himself too!

9. Add a little cheese. The recipe called for parmasean, but Meo thought goat cheese crumbles was a better choice. I agreed.

10. After we put it in the oven, these lovely tarts came out! And they were delicious!! Honestly, I really loved them, and so did Meo! We agreed that we would make them again for lunch next week.

This is a VERY PROUD little boy about to eat a lunch he made all by himself.

I am excited to try more recipes in this book and continue our journey of learning how to cook together!

An Apple Day

This Sunday was Maine Apple Sunday, and we celebrated by going apple picking with Grandma and Grandpa Robinson. It was a gorgeous day; it has really started to feel like autumn around here! We picked huge Cortland and Macintosh apples and were able to quickly fill our bag. Since the picking didn't take long, we enjoyed munching on apples in the grass and a leisurely walk through the blueberry fields on our way back.

In the car on our way to apple feeling...feeling quite ginormous at nearly 30 weeks

"cheeeeese!"

25 month old Meo and almost 30 weeks pregnant

The next day, Meo and I had a full day of cooking with apples. Here is a picture of Meo helping (well, here is a picture of Meo snatching the empty sour cream container when I turned around and delighting in polishing it off):

We made some delicious apple sauce:

Peanut butter sandwhiches with apples and cheese:

Roasted vegetables with apples (the blob on the right is baked sweet potato and tofu with honey and spices...tastes like pumpkin pie but is healthier!):

And an apple pie with homemade oatmeal cookie crust. The beauty of this pie is that the filling has no sugar (just honey), and the entire pie and wonderfully healthy AND delicious. Robbie even made homemade whipped cream, yum! Meo loved it!

oatmeal cookie crust

And we still have half a bag of apples to go!