Sunday dinner

I may have mentioned, or at least some of you may know, that I've tried to make Sunday dinner a bit of a big deal.

On Sundays, Cate leaves for work at noon. It's the only extended period of time where I'm at home consistently and the kids are awake. (Elizabeth, sitting next to me, nods.) So while we don't always make a huge production out of Sunday dinner, sometimes the kids and I will go shopping specifically with that night's dinner in mind, picking things out we'd like to try and that Elizabeth would like to help cook.

This photo is a no-bake chocolate cheesecake Elizabeth made last Sunday. Seriously, she basically made this entirely by herself, aside from the blending.

Tonight, it was a Chicken with Couscous recipe that we found on Taste of Home's Web site. We didn't spend nearly as much time researching tonight as we sometimes do, and had to make do with ingredients on hand, but we basically had it all. The only concession was that we didn't have any broccoli florets on hand, so we defrosted the long-dormant ice block of snap peas that was in the freezer. And believe it or not, that actually worked.

While Elizabeth was making the sauce that gets poured over the chicken, I was pounding it between sheets of wax paper with my fist. (No mallet or tenderizing hammer thingy.) I reserved some of the couscous without tomatoes for Elizabeth.

I just said to Elizabeth, "I'm so glad you like couscous." She replied: "I don't like couscous. I looooooooooooove couscous."

Robert is loving the chicken -- some nights he's not interested in eating seconds, or even finishing his firsts, but tonight he asked for more.

Good enough.

Now we just need to work on Colleen. Whenever there is bread (at home) or french fries (on the road) on the table, she refuses to eat anything else. "Breaaaaad?" she pleads.

I gave her one piece so she wouldn't starve. But that's it. She hasn't yet begun to understand the causal relationship between eating her food and getting more bread. Or she understands it but refuses to play along. So she had a piece of bread, some orange juice, lettuce, cucumbers and carrots for dinner.

The best part is, I'll have leftovers to take to work at least one day this week.

While I was putting the leftovers away, however, a strange thing happened. I made one more attempt at it, telling her, "People who eat chicken get more bread." And Colleen went to her plate, picked up the long-since cold slice of chicken, and ate it.

Finally.

So she got her second piece of bread. We'll see if she understands the next time around. And Cate, that's why you have so little bread left over.