An Autumn Harvest

Sort of. Maybe next year for the real deal, since then we'll have been in a home with a yard for a while.

This year it has more to do with the cooking than the actual harvesting. And with my tendency to feel more secure in general when I have a full pantry / fruit bowl / refrigerator / freezer.

Leanna is learning to cook - she is taking a class with her mom  - and some days when she's here, she has been known to cook for us. She's getting pretty good, especially with things requiring saucepans and the like, and in fact she and her mom had invited the Hubs over for dinner but as they are feeling under the weather today that's not happening. Which is too bad for him because Leanna - as I said - is getting to be a pretty good cook. She is also the most adventuresome of the three when it comes to things like our salad bar or baked potato bar days. You'd think it would be Lizzy, but no, Leanna makes a mean salad. Yum.

However, because I start a new job on Monday, and it's fall, I have plenty of food in the house, so it's not like anyone's going to starve. I've already steamed a whole small salmon (only $2.50 a pound at Albertson's!) and there is spaghetti sauce with meatballs in the crock pot, and tomorrow I plan to make banana bread and boil eggs. But I digress; this is about the kids and cooking.

So Leanna is currently in cooking class once a week. Abby took a cooking class too, over the summer, but her specialty is presentation of cannily-cut fruits and vegetables. And scrambled eggs; Lizzy likes hers best. There have been a couple of amusing issues with this however, such as her not realizing that the sliced avocado she put on my roast beef sandwich should actually be peeled, and yesterday's misunderstanding at her dad's house; she hadn't quite grokked that when she asked if she should "put the foil on top," that he meant on top of the cookie sheet, not on top of the potatoes themselves. Not very crisp that way.

Lizzy's not up to cooking itself yet (mostly because of heat and sharp objects; she's a wiggler), but she is past master at things like rinsing vegetables and organizing cabinets. Today she and I went through what we still call the Tupperware cupboard, although only one or two things in there are actually Tupperware branded, and sorted and stacked and washed and tossed containers as appropriate. Fun times.

And there's still homework, and packing to move, and neverending laundry.

Not quite as fun.