Saturday, June 04, 2005

Parenting points for this!

My kids are happily eating oatmeal for desert! Happily and of their own volition - I might add. Now while they DO like their oatmeal - they are sharp enough generally to tell the difference between oatmeal and dessert.


Chocolate Oatmeal with (frozen) Cherries - Is it Breakfast or is it Dessert? The kids didn't care either way, they inhaled it with enthusiasm.
Originally uploaded by Allan & Cheryl.

This evening after supper, Allan was sharing the leftover salmon out among the children, so I took my plate and headed for the kitchen. Where I realized - it's been a while since I made oatmeal for the kids. Might as well start some now. While the water was boiling - I searched the pantry for interesting additives. I spied - Cocoa powder. Now THAT was an idea! Chocolate oatmeal. I had made chocolate CHIP oatmeal before but not for some time.

So into the boiling water went: a pinch of salt, a big butter blob, the oatmeal, almost 1 cup of cocoa powder and the rest of the container of brown sugar. For good measure - I scraped out last bit of the almond butter jar and stirred that in too. It bubbled and boiled and looked rather good to me. As the oatmeal was nearly in a cooked state - in wandered M1, M2 and M3 with their supper dishes. Seeing that I was cooking the three precariously ascended the step stool to see just WHAT was in the big pot.

"We followed our noses because something smells GOOD," informed Michael.

"HEY MOMMY is making a chocolate DESSERT," said Boo.

"I wan ZERT too!" said Maddy.

"It's chocoate oatmeal," I said. "I'm making it for breakfast."

They remained undeterred.

"Chocolate oatmeal - YUM," said Michael.

"Dat's SILLY," laughed Maddy.

Melissa said, "We can eat chocoate oatmeal for dessert - that would be very yummy and we ate our food already."

They stood there - expectantly - waiting and looking at me with big "M" eyes. Big M eyes are almost impossible to resist. Plus they were asking for OATMEAL! What kind of mother would refuse her children oatmeal of all things?

So I said, "OK - but because it's been boiling and is so hot - I'll have to put some frozen cherries in it to cool it off."

This was met with "YAY!", "I love cherries!", and "That's even better for a dessert!"

I made up 3 little bowls of frozen cherries, each topped with a steaming ladle full of chocolate oatmeal. They stirred the bowls and we were able to note how the heat transfers to the frozen cherries, first thawing them, then cooking them, while the cold from the cherries cools down the oatmeal enough to eat. Satisfied no one was going to seriously burn themsevles - I sent them back to the table and heard the following exchange in the next room:

.. "HEY DADDY - look what Mommy gave us for dessert!"

"Chocolate cherry oatmeal Daddy. Do you want some?"

"NO YUCK - I DO NOT WANT ANY OF THAT - BLEAH - CHERYL I AM NOT GOING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR CLEANING THE MESS UP FROM THAT!"

"But Daddy - how do you know you don't like it if you won't even try it?"

"And besides Daddy isn't it not nice to say 'yuck' to something someone else thinks is yummy?"

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