My Sous Chef

I love to be in the kitchen cooking. I find peace when I can steal an hour or two, take simple ingredients and create something that tastes good. I love trying new recipes (even though they don't always turn out-two nights ago I made a new meal and ended up chucking ALL of it) I love taking old recipes and changing them, or tweaking them to make them better. I love finding new ingredients and figuring out how to use them. Recently Emma has wanted to be my little helper in the kitchen. I can't make anything without her asking to help. When we aren't in a hurry, and when I'm not cooking for therapy I always find a way to let her help. It has been so fun watching her discover the kitchen.

Here she is cutting up bread for French Toast Sticks. She loved this job because I don't usually let her cut anything!
Once I learned to let go of my control issues I realized that we could have a lot of fun in the kitchen creating things together!

These are the images I want to remember of my children's childhood. I want to remember Emma wanting to do ANYTHING to be by my side, and WANTING to help!

This time around we made hamburger helper. (it had been a busy day!) It turned out to be a perfect meal to have help with. I measured everything out, and told her when to add it, but other than that, she was in charge!

Emma, thank you for being persistent and showing mommy that it can be just as fun to have a helper in the kitchen. I love creating with you. Now if we could just get those fairies to show up to do the dishes, life would be perfect!

P.S. Occasionally we get a little more help than we need. Stockton's idea of helping out in the kitchen usually consists of him climbing on the counter to get into the sugar and eat spoonfuls before he gets caught. (I'm horrible when I get focused and "in the zone". It is really easy for me to ignore all that is going on around me, and he has eaten more than his share of sugar!) Once he poured garlic powder into our scrambled eggs while my back was turned. In case you were wondering, garlic powder doesn't really go with scrambled eggs and Banana muffins!