Liam makes Sunday Dinner

Phew! We are at the finish line of our 'guest chef' weekend!

...well, technically we were weeks ago but today you're at the finish line with us ;)

Liam was our last 'kid in the kitchen' and he was presented with the challenge of making dinner on a SUNDAY.

Now, maybe i'm old school - but there is something about having my whole family at the table for a big meal before kicking off another week. 

Monday thru Thursday looks a lot like casseroles, crock pots and one pan meals...

but Sundays look like Thanksgiving's younger brother.

If you were to sit at our table on a Sunday, you'd see a meat, at least 3 veggies and in most cases, a dessert of some sort.

I show up on Sunday's ;)

SO, when we were presenting the kids with this challenge (and if you're just tuning in, you can read about it here) - the thought of having some 'one pan meal' show up on my Sunday table gave me the shakes.

Until good ole Liam presented me with his choice of recipe.

A 'Jalepeno Peach Chicken' from Mix and Match Mama.

And I thought, "Chicken needs sides... I can work with this"

So that's how Liam earned his spot in the Sunday Night Dinner Chef Hall of Fame ;) 

Ok, here we go...

...my pickiest eater of the bunch... and why he chose a Jalepeno Peach Chicken instead of something like 'Pizza Casserole', we'll never know ;) it's just what makes him, him!

The flow we established with Corbin and Mason had been working really well up to this point, so we stuck to it.

Read, read, read through the recipe and retrieve and prep all of your ingredients...

 Yep. That's a big knife.  

Let's talk about knives really quick.

Remember, the idea was to let them go at this with minimal to no assistance...

When thinking it through, one of the first concerns I had was to what extent I was going to allow them to use knives.

Instead of giving them a hard 'you can't cut anything' rule - I figured we would take it ingredient by ingredient and go with their comfort level.  I'd let them watch me cut first, and then i'd give them the knife and see how they handled it.  I know that sounds pretty rogue, but trust me, the minute you hand them the knife, you can tell pretty quickly how they're going to fair with it just by the way they hold it. So it really just depended...

For Corbin, I helped him chop his onion.  His hands were a little too small to be able to hold the onion with one hand and cut with the other, so he put his hands on top of mine and we cut together.  

For Mason, we did practically the same thing with the onion but he led the way.  Now, for the kielbasa, he was using a smaller, serrated knife that he had to utilize a more 'saw' like motion as opposed to a straight slice... I was comfortable with him doing on his own.

For Liam, he only needed to slice green onions.  Green onions are fairly 'stable' and don't move around much.  Again, I showed him what I wanted to do, and he carefully followed directions.  Obviously I was close by incase an emergency trip to the hospital was needed ;) but he demonstrated that he was comfortable with the knife and wasn't acting like a total bonehead goofing around. 

Another thing that really helped with 'slicing' (I didn't worry as much with the 'sawing') was saying 'find all of your fingers' every time before i'd let them slice.

...clearly it worked as we still have thirty fingers well intact ;) 

I know.

Kids, well, BOYS + Knives = FRIGHTENING

Of course, I cant' speak for all of the wild kids out there but my three were so extra careful and I think knowing that I was trusting them to be cautious helped.  

...and if it makes you feel any better, he actually had more trouble cracking these eggs than using a knife ;) He got it down, though!

Liam had to bread the chicken breasts in egg and flour... This was a GREAT opportunity to talk about the importance of handwashing and cleanliness when handling your/ other peoples food.

....and I mean how appropriate of a time to reallllly push handwashing than right now ;)

...cause 'rona and raw chicken ain't no joke ;)

Once he breaded the chicken, it needed to bake in the oven, so while he waited for his chicken to finish cooking, he gave Mason his table setting 'wishes' and Mason went to work on setting a beautiful table service..

...We now have three boys that are able to fully set a table correctly.

Yesssss!

Liam helped me with the sides and did a very, very good job!

Dinner was... different.

(We also learned that Jalepenos ain't no joke either ;))

But overall, delicious - Liam did beautifully!

The boys loved, loved, LOVED doing this and I was actually pretty surprised at how little assistance they actually needed... They've requested to do this 'all the time' (insert me fainting.) but we've agreed to let everyone cook a meal once a month.  Three nights out of thirty? I can handle that.

I'll be back next week with my takeaways and suggestions of how to get your kids in the kitchen and how to keep yourself out of the bottle(s) of wine while doing so.