Sunday Dinner

This year I decided to add a couple of things to our weekly school (and just regular old life) routine.  This year, the older girls will get the opportunity to plan and prepare a meal for the family for Sunday dinner.  Now, they cook on a fairly regular basis.  Their meals usually consist of pasta, pizza, stir fry, etc., but this meal has to be something special.  They will have two weeks to plan their Sunday dinner.  The planning includes: finding a recipe and adjusting it to feed six (if it doesn't already), making a shopping list (excluding the things we already have in the kitchen), going to the store to price each item, creating a budget for grocery shopping and making sure we have all of the necessary equipment in our kitchen.  Jena got the opportunity to make her first Sunday dinner tonight.  She was VERY ambitious in her first solo dinner preparation, but I have to say, she completely surpassed all of my expectations.  Our dinner this evening was an onion and leek tart, sauteed asparagus, salmon and for dessert, raspberry (and strawberry) napoleons.  (I know.  Crazy, right?)  She started out this afternoon making pastry cream FROM SCRATCH as well as pastry crust from scratch.  (Her crust was flaky and delicious, by the way).  When I say that she made this dinner solo, I mean SOLO.  My only job was to be assistant in the dessert assembly (I put the berries on as she layered).  I'm pretty proud of her (and she's pretty proud of herself, too). 

The little girls were not very patient when waiting for dinner.  Granted, they did not get to eat until it was past their bedtime, but it was well worth the wait.

The napoleon

And one very happy baby sister.  She cried all while she waited for dinner (she hadn't had a nap and it was past her bedtime), but look how content she is with dessert in her hand.