Flexitarian, Anyone?

It turns out that the city of Austin has coined a term for people like me - flexitarian. What does it mean? Essentially, a flexitarian is someone who, while not a strict vegetarian, limits their consumption of meat in order to be more health conscious and planet friendly. At our house, we definitely like meat and the flavor it can provide to various dishes, but we also love our fruits and veggies and usually end up eating 3-4 meatless meals every week. We find that we just feel better and have more energy if we can achieve a balance between our carnivorous and herbivorous personalities. So where do you fall? Carnivore, herbivore, or are you conciously somewhere in between... take my poll and let us know!

My Mini-Chefs

Finally, I am posting the results of our cooking experiments! We had a great time, although I learned that I can't have the kids "help" me when I'm tired because I run out of patience too quickly - and patience is definitely needed when kids are cooking.

By far the favorite activities were stirring, smashing (as in potatoes), and cutting. It really is amazing what can be cut with a butter knife :) Just be sure you don't need things in uniform sizes in your recipe. The pictures above are actually from last fall when they made rolls for Thanksgiving with Lisa, but they turned out better than any of the pictures I didn't remember to take.

Results.... Mollie Katzen wins this round. I checked these cookbooks out from the library, but they would definitely be nice to have around all the time. One of my favorite things about them is that all the recipes are vegetarian and are great for helping kids to learn about eating seasonally healthy dishes. Besides, they're more likely to eat veggies that they help prepare - my kids loved the Broccoli Quiche (although next time I'll use a milder cheese than swiss for them) and the Polka Dot Rice.

Father Son Campout

Lincoln went on his first father-son campout with Dad this weekend - and had a great time from all accounts! He was most excited about his "new boots like Dad's" that we inherited from some friends.

He played in the rope maze and went fishing and roasted marshmallows and slept in a tent and only ran into a couple of cactus. Here are a few pictures of the fun...

The Beginning of the End

Peter figured out that forward motion was possible on Mother's Day, but the coordination needed a lot of work - after all, it is a bit hard to move your hands when all of your weight is balanced on them. He's been working diligently on it all week, with the following result:

Of course, it's amazing what you can do with the right motivation - in this case, it was a bowl of cheerios that Dad was using as bait. Luckily he still doesn't move too fast, which is a very good thing since I still have to figure out how to deal with the fact that I have two other children with a great love of tiny toys and a habit of leaving them all over the house.

Leah needs a hobby

I have decided that Leah needs something more constructive to do in the afternoons (aside from redecorating my house), so I'm putting her to work as my assistant in the kitchen. About half of the recipes on my menu this week are from these two cookbooks:

The recipes are designed for preschoolers with adults as the helpers. The actual recipe is pictoral and she lets you know what prep work should be done ahead of time so most of the "cooking" can be done by the child. I'll let you know how it works out.