Starting School and Cooking with Kids

Life as a stay-at-home mum of four can be extremely mundane - the endless cooking, washing, changing nappies, bathing, shopping, helping with homework and ferrying kids around is never ending. Every day is groundhog day and I often get trapped into thinking that this is the only life I will ever have. However every once in a while someone reminds me that this time won't last forever. And I guess they're right.

Ready for Prep

Harry starts school this year, which will leave me with only two at home during the day. He has been wearing his uniform around the house in anticipation of his first day - he's so excited about finally going to school with his big brother.

It still feels like yesterday that he was a baby in my arms.

As a toddler, he was always climbing into things:

And now he has taken an interest in cooking:

In fact all the boys seem to hover around me whenever I'm in the kitchen, so it's fortunate that our new kitchen will be large and offer a good circulation path - there are three access points including one directly to the outside.

Big brother Jack has developed a taste in Asian cuisine:

At 4yrs of age, he was obsessed with Asian noodle soups

It started many years ago, and not much has changed. The other day while we were out shopping, he asked if we could have noodle soup for lunch, so we grabbed all the necessary ingredients and went home to cook up a storm.

As if the soup wasn't enough, he had to make sure he looked the part eating it:

And while we're on the subject of cooking, I recently re-visted that old 80's classic, Apricot Chicken (now that's showing my age) but this time I gave it a twist. There were no packets of French Onion Soup or tins of Apricot Nectar to be seen in this meal. Now that I'm additive alert, I don't use these ingredients any more. The recipe consisted of fresh produce including organic chicken, real onions and sweet, juicy apricots. The result was so good that it got eaten before I got the chance to take a photo, however I'm definitely going to make this again while apricots are still in season. It was absolutely delish! Are there any recipes from the 80's that you still like to cook?