Cooking in the Kitchen.

From the time each and every one of my babies was old enough to sit up on their own, I have always, always, always had them in the kitchen with me.  I love cooking with my kids, and it's one of the ways that we have always bonded together.  Music blaring, them helping to measure and stir, me heaving deep cleansing breaths when the stirring gets over the top "vigorous" and all of my dry ingredients fly into the air......

It's our tradition.

London's been sick this week.  She put her boots on and crashed right here.

First they sit up on the counter beside me.  Then, they transition to sitting up on a stool beside me, until they've grown tall enough to stand down on the floor right next to me.  It's been fun watching their growth throughout the years.  We have had many a Math lesson in this room, teaching them to read measurements, or to learn how to double or to half a recipe to suit our cooking desires.

Kaden's been sick, too.

My goal has always been to have all of my kids become self-sufficient in the kitchen.  Not only do I want them to be able to cook an egg in a pinch if they're starving and Mama is unavailable for Maid Duty, but I also want them to grow up being comfortable reading a recipe, kneading a loaf of bread, using the oven - you know, all of those sorts of things that will make their wives rise up and call me Blessed.

Jesse hasn't been himself, either.

Well, as of late, my two youngest boys have become very imaginative and creative in their "cooking" desires.  Every Saturday morning, they watch Recipe Rehab on T.V., and this has sparked some creative juices to flowing, and so now for the past week, every single day of life they want to make a creation in the kitchen.

My Jesse is my Artist.  He really sees no need for following other people's ideas.  He likes to march to the beat of his own drum, and he likes to cook to the "words" of his own recipes.  He is in his glory when he is creating - full on Joy written all over his face - so I am trying to let go of a few of my kitchen reins and give him a little more cooking freedom.  A graduation of sorts from being Mama's Sous Chef and Right Hand to the Big Cheese every once in awhile.

I'm trying to be more of a "Yes" Mom.
This seems like an area where I could do this.
And as long as I can keep some semblance of control on the sizes and amounts of ingredients, the biggest negatives I see are:  an Epic kitchen mess (which he has been told he has to clean on his own), a few grocery dollars lost down the drain for the recipe Fails, and a few more grey hairs sprouting on the head of this Typist....

One of Jesse's "blender recipes" See the blender in the middle?
The drawings all around are of the "ingredients."

Sometimes, when I feel like being Awesome, I give him total and complete freedom to create.  This scores me awesome Mama Brownie Points even if I do lose a few more sanity nerves. Typically, I let him do this if he feels like creating some sort of treat.  His go-to method of operation is to raid the cupboards for any sort of snacky, treaty food -- throw it all in the blender with a bit of milk or yogurt, and usually it doesn't come out half bad.  It's hard to make something taste wretched if every ingredient going into the blender is junkfood.  Various versions of "milkshakes" we call these creations.  Why, just the other day we enjoyed a:  marshmallow, oreo, banana, peanut, vanilla, honey, applesauce, cinnamon Flurry of sorts.  Not half bad if you could get past the grit.

Well...
Now that he has his blender creations "mastered," he has wanted to move onto greater things such as Muffins!  He's drawn up some concepts, he's written a plan, and he wanted to fully execute a batch of awesomeness for the family just last night.

And, so here's where Mama's reins started to pull in just a wee bit.
I proposed a "blending" of our recipes.

This one was his.
(Actually, since writing this post, he has told me that this is actually his ice cream recipe....My mistake)

We had to have a bit of a sit down chat about first learning the basic essentials of baking before going Hog Wild in Creation Mode.  We talked about wet and dry ingredients, about ratios and how all things are not equal.  For example, if one were to do equal parts flour to equal parts baking soda the result would be disastrous.  He listened - albeit reluctantly - and agreed that "even though this way wasn't nearly as fun or as creative," he would go along for the ride in our first real baking lesson together.

 WHAT?!  Measuring cups?  That's no fun...

Seriously?  We read ALL of those words on that page?  Well, that's boring...

 

We combined our resources and "rehab-ed" a written recipe, so to speak.  Mine didn't call for bananas, but Jesse's did, so we added them.  His didn't call for vanilla, but mine did, and he was cool with that.  He had never heard of a "streusal topping" before, but he thought that was pretty cool.  I never thought of blueberry yogurt, but figured it couldn't hurt anything...

It was a creation!

Well, then, Ransom wanted in on the plans.
And he wanted his recipes to become part of supper plans, as well...

Somehow, I managed to convince him to add "pizza dough" to his collection so that we wouldn't have to do yet another brand new creation of glory, and he was fine with this plan as long as he could do all the measuring, all the stirring, and all of the kneading...

My kitchen floors were Epic by the time our evening was over...

I honestly love these moments.
I love these times in the kitchen...and flour covered floors are such a small price to pay for all of the whirling and swirling cozy memory making times that we have in here...

Now, we shall do a little more honing of our "recipe writing" skills...
And maybe we have a bit more of ratio and measurement learning still to go before we'll be ready to actually eat most of their "meals,"...

But the creation and the imagination are all half of the learning.
And most of the fun!

And I'm going to save these sweet little recipe books in my box of treasures...
The backwards numbers.
The depictions of ingredients.
The ideas that came from their sweet little imaginations...

Sweet simple savorings.
Sweet daily Joys.
My boys in my kitchen with their Mama.

These are the Days...