Oh so long ago I used to bring my {then} four children into the kitchen to help me make bread every week. I'd set one child up with pizza dough, one with rolls, one with traditional bread, and one with . . . hmmm . . . I can't remember . . . did we do two batches of bread?
I think so.
But it got exhausting, and some more babies came along, so I bought bread for a while and got quite out of the habit of having my girls learn to cook with me.
This year it is really, really time.
Today we made a summer garden vegetable soup, homemade bread, and strawberry fool.
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| S10 chopped carrots while E12 diced potatoes. |
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| My little girls snapped green beans because I didn't want them wielding sharp knives, but then I gave them knives anyway when the beans were done and they wanted to chop the cabbage. I definitely helped H3, but A5 proved herself quite competent. |
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| M10 was fascinated by the beets; we've never eaten them before. She loved how they dyed everything pink! |
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| J8 helped dice potatoes. She was ever so careful and proud of her work. |
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| All of the prepped veggies and all of my silly girls, though E12 looks rather as though she is above such foolishness, doesn't she? |
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| The sauteeing onions really bothered S10 . . . and J8, too. They both wore goggles for about half an hour today. This is the only picture I took of the four beautiful loaves of bread the girls made. I'm so disappointed. |
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| E12 stirring the onions and tomatoes. She was up on a stool, feeling on top of the world. She had me step over to her, measured my height as compared to hers and said, "Yup, this is how tall I want to be someday." |
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| Not all of our veggies came from the garden. Notice we had to switch to a larger pot! The recipe said it would feed 6, so I doubled it, but we ended up with 12 quarts of soup!!!!!! |
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| So beautiful! |
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| The little girls played outside for a while but came happily back in when it was time to make dessert. They smashed berries for a very long time! |
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| I.9 woke up, so big sister played with him for a few minutes. |
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| Still smashing. It was only 2 pounds of berries, but their small hands got so tired. Sweet J8 stepped in to help. |
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| I just want to kiss his squishy face! |
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| And because I am a lousy picture taker, this is the last picture I took. While the soup simmered and the bread rose and the fool chilled, the girls drifted off outside. All of a sudden it was time to eat and wake up Daddy {he works nights} and in the hurry and flurry of everything, the camera sat forgotten. M10 had lots of fun manning the mixer while the little girls had fun stirring sugar into the strawberries. |
The day is done. I am tired, but it's a good tired.
I am also glad that I get a weeks' respite before working with 7 children in the kitchen with me!
And dinner is already made for tomorrow night . . . leftovers!
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