Kids in the Kitchen ...

Okay - yesterday I posted about the "3 ingredient dinner challenge" we are doing in our home.  The kids cooked last nite.  And the verdict... not bad for a first!

Ingredients:  ground deer meat, noodles, and sauce
The noodles they chose together was a combo of fettucine and spaghetti  (there wasn't enough fettucine to serve all of us).

Sarah decided for the sauce since she is not a marinara fan  - that she was going to make a traditional Bechamel sauce with parm cheese and add a little marinara at the end to create her version of a Rosa sauce.

Jacob decided he wanted to take a spin off  chicken parm and make a sort of meatloaf patty out of the deer meat, bread and pan fry the patties.  He seasoned the breading with garlic granules, and a mexican seasoning mix my brother Rusty made when he visited not long ago.   (I know right - mexican flavored meat with bechamel sauce - weird concoction - but thats what you get when kids cook).    The mix is wonderful and I would give it to you, but I wasn't total in the room when he took my spices to mix - I can tell you that it is like full bottles of several spices - including chili powder, garlic, onion powder, some cumin and a couple of other ingredients that I can't remember.  I will have to get the information from him because it is excellent with boneless, skinless chicken tacos.

The dish was tasty, although I think the meat was a bit "heavy" for my normal eating.  But the kids did a good job coming up with their own recipes and managed to cook the entire dinner by themselves and no body got hurt or sick from the food.  Just kidding, my kids cook often and rarely is there any negative side effects. 

Now, the grand finale... the final dish, including a peice of asiago french bread with garlic butter....

Round two of 3 ingredient challenge coming soon.  Stay tuned.  Have a great day!

3 Ingredient Dinners ....

Okay, our family is starting a new weekly tradition.  Keep in mind my kids are 17 and 13 and I have had them in the kitchen cooking with me since they were little. 

I have a Facebook Friend that I met through another cooking facebook page.  He lives in upstate New York, sings, cooks, has a farm, and is a psychologist.(http://cooperboone.com/) has recently started a 3-ingredient challenge for himself.  During this challenge, his Facebook friends, comment on his status 3 ingredients.  He takes all the lists of ingredients, keeping the 3 you put in together into a hat/bowl and picks out 1 set of ingredients that he cooks with that night.  Sometimes its dinner, sometimes dessert - depends on the ingredients.  But all 3 have to be used in 1 single dish. 

Well our family is doing a take-off of this idea.  We are doing a 3 ingredient challenge - where each of the 4 of us make a list of 3 things that we currently have on-hand in the house.  We fold them up, put them in a cup and pick out one list of 3 ingredients and thats what we have for dinner.  We were going to do our first this Sunday after church... so Saturday night we made our lists and had the kids draw out the winning ingredients so that if we had to thaw something out we would have time before dinner Sunday.  My 13 year old son - Jay picked his own list. 

At first the list seems mundane ... ground deer meat, noodles and spaghetti sauce.  Until I told them that it could not be typical spaghetti .   Oh, any that my kids were going to cook the meal by themselves.   They are pretty excited

But Sunday at church, my sister and brother in law invite us to their home for Sunday dinner.  So they got one night of repreieve.  Although they already have an idea that they want to try...

My son thinks they can make a knock off of chicken parm with ground deer meat, using cornmeal as a breading.  He actually wanted to take some corn on the cob that I have that needs to be cooked really soon and grind up the kernels to make homemake cornmeal.  I am thinking this is a little bit overzealous for his first dinner by himself.  But, if all else fails we can always have PB&J. 

I am planning on the kids making their meal tonite, eventhough my husband has to go out of town for business overnight.  I will post pictures of the finish product, with review and next weeks 3 ingredient combo.  Wish me luck... and if I never post again, you know this wasn't a good idea....  :)

Divider Conquered!

Okay - here it is.  I've been working on re-vamping a pocket divider I bought my daughter years ago before she became a teenager from ltd Commodities.

BEFORE



AFTER

Plain white.  The fabric is sparkly, but it is very hard to notice with all the white.

So I dyed the fabric panels...

Spray painted the hinges,  buttons, wood frame...

Added a little decoration to the pockets ...





THE FINAL PRODUCT AGAIN ...

.  And now my daughter Sarah thinks she should get it back ... NOT.  It's going in my craft/workout room. 

Thanks for visiting.  A have a fabulous week!