He made cookies

Question of the Day:  What do you get when you give a four year old free reign of the kitchen and permission to invent his own recipe??

Answer: A delicious smelling, sort of okay but not really good tasting cookie that is decidedly put in the freezer to “save for Santa”. 

Bonus: You also get a more confident, happy kid and a proud mama. 🙂

When Lucas told me he wanted to invent his own, better tasting recipe for “balls” (a healthy, raw, nut based, sugar free cookie that I make regularly for myself when chocolate cravings hit) the other day, I figured it would be a fun kitchen experiment so I said sure, why not?!.  He knew just what should go in them: peanut butter, jelly, oats, cocoa powder, and honey.  It actually sounds good, right?!

Well, we needed a few ingredients, including peanuts to make the peanut butter, so he got all his change and told me he wanted to buy the peanuts himself at Trader Joes.  We counted his money and went to the store where he proudly made his own purchase, and received his own bag and receipt. (Cutest thing EVER, LOVE this kid!)

Back at home, we got started.  We put the peanuts in the vitamix and made our peanut butter.  We mixed in some ground up rolled oats, strawberry jelly, raw honey, and a bit of cocoa powder.  We stirred it all up and tasted it.  It was delicious, just like eating cookie dough.

We should have stopped there.

But…. he wanted to cook it – so I added an egg and a little coconut oil and with a bit of hesitation I put it in the oven.  The house smelled like yummy peanut butter cookies while they were baking.  We couldn’t wait to taste them!  They came out of the oven looking a little funny, and tasted gummy and pretty flavorless, but they were not terrible.  I was impressed for a first time four year old chef!  Not what he was hoping for, though!  He promised me he liked them after taking just one bite, and then requested that we save the rest for Santa. 🙂

I’m so loving this stage of four year old life – the creativity and interest in everything around him.  I love that he is interested in the things that I am, and that he wants to help me in the kitchen.  I’m a happy, lucky mom and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.