An Experiment with Dinner

I get my best ideas in the shower. HA!

Today I had the idea to give the kids a set amount of money each and they have to put together dinner. Everyone got $2, except Robbie who got $3 because he had the main course. So for just about $10. This was our dinner.

Robbie--main course--made chicken noodle soup. He used way too many noodles so it turned into a type of chicken n dumplings (flat dumplings). He did have to pay extra for a jar of my home canned chicken. He went over his allotment by $1.50. It was a tasty little dish. Not bad at all.

Lucy--salad--Macaroni Salad. Hmmmm....I tried to talk her into a green garden salad, but she said that was boring. Well. We definitely had enough pasta in this meal to make an Italian proud. It was ok. She didn't really have the spices very good, but it was her first time.

Joey--side dishes--can of creamed corn and orange jello. Well, we didn't get home in time to make the Jello. Scratch. The can of creamed corn was opened by Joey using the super complicated Pampered Chef can opener and poured into a saucepan. Robbie supervised the heating of the creamed corn. The creamed corn was served AFTER the soup and macaroni salad AND chocolate pudding.

Leah--dessert--instant chocolate pudding. I actually thought this was a good choice for Leah. Two large boxes of Jello pudding were $2 exactly. There was a bit of a tiff when making the pudding. But, it all came together in the end.

Here's what I'll do differently next time we do this.

#1--only one person will be in charge of the dinner

#2--I'll give a ceiling of $10 for the whole of dinner, including salad and dessert.

#3--I'll make sure to supervise the creation of the dinner and help time it so that it's not being eaten piecemeal.

What did I learn?

I'm awesome! Everyone woman/mother that I know that can put a full meal on the table for under $10 is awesome! It's truly not an easy job to do all of that, make it taste good and have everyone leave the table satisfied.

It was a great experience. I'm glad for the idea. It'll help with the training of the children as they grow up and start facing the fact that they have to provide food for themselves and eventually their children.