Wow

I don't want to curse this but the kids picking a recipe from Everyday Food and taking the lead in cooking it for a family dinner is actually working. Tonight Ian (with assistance) made this:

Turkey Sloppy Joes with Kale Chips

And here's the best part that you might not be able to see in the photo: the sloppy joes have a whole minced sweet potato in them and both kids ate it without complaint. Kale and sweet potatoes are two vegetables I would be *thrilled* to get into their diet regularly and I'm still feeling a little stunned that this successful consumption came via a kid-selected recipe. I was sure that when Ian actually read the recipe and saw the sweet potato that he'd reject it, but it didn't phase him one bit (though he was annoyed at how hard sweet potatoes are to cut into a small dice). I don't know if Fiona even knew that they were in there. And they both ate a ton of the kale chips.

We made a couple of changes to the sloppy joe recipe: tomato sauce instead of diced tomatoes since it makes it a little saucier and because Fiona is a tomato-phobe who may have rejected whole pieces of tomato in her food, whole wheat buns instead of potato buns, and 20 oz of ground turkey instead of 16 oz (because that's how much there was in the package).

Last month Fiona made this garlic lemon pork dish and it was good so we made it again a couple of weeks later (and she helped again). And Ian made some pretty basic tacos but was willing to make some pico de gallo for Brian and I to add to ours which made them a little more interesting. I found it pretty satisfying to see him learn that dicing a tomato is very different from chopping cilantro.

The kids still have a way to go when it comes to cooking independence and confidence and Ian has a tendency to stir things so vigorously that they wind up spread across the stove top (Brian is doing the dishes and just reported that the kettle "took one for the team.") But maybe in a couple of years, if we keep up this practice, they'll be able to make a whole healthy dinner, start to finish, on their own.

Oh yeah, and eat it too.